Companies worldwide must confront talent management

Talent management is the biggest issue facing industry executives across the world, a new report has found.

A global study carried out by the Boston Consulting Group and the World Federation of Personnel Management Associations found that managing talent was the biggest challenge for human resources (HR) executives.

The UK, US, Australia, Singapore and Japan all placed talent management as the top industry challenge they faced and 14 of the 17 countries analysed in depth, named it in their top three.

Frances Wilson, the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development's international adviser, said: "Global talent shortages loom, even in these turbulent economic times, and companies must take steps now if they are to address these shortages."

The report was carried out across 83 countries, surveying 4,741 executives who also named improving leadership development and managing work-life-balance as other challenges.

A possible way of combating the problem could be for businesses to expand to new locations in search of talented workers and executives predict that this will be the fastest growing human resources trend by 2015.