The Global Talent Crisis

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In addition to offering employees a chance to be part of a community of people doing meaningful work, the company treats family, leisure, and personal well-being as important parts of employees' lives. Blurring the line between work and life, "Googlers" can bring their kids to work, enjoy weekly roller-hockey games in the parking lot, park their scooters and pets in their cubicles, or work out in the gym.

5. Talent is everyone's responsibility, not just HR's.

The primary challenge is retaining talent once you have it—we see this with chemical companies in the developed world, construction companies in India, or even in seeking qualified program managers for our major projects in China or Africa. Every touch point in the organization has an opportunity to make a difference, and I have seen that talent can flee an organization because of factors as varied as a poor work environment, unclear career models, or poor performance by management.

Procter & Gamble (PG) has had success when managers work with employees to define the ideal "destination jobs" they would like to obtain, and to create plans to help them get there. Managers' compensation, stock options, performance ratings, and assignments are tied to their success in recruiting, developing and retaining high-performing employees. And at Marriott (MAR), one-third of a manager's performance rating is based on employee engagement scores.

The future

With once-familiar talent pools drying up and new ones rapidly coming upstream, organizations have to move fast and act smart if they are to attract, motivate, and keep the best people. Business leaders are quickly realizing the magnitude of these issues and challenges, but at the same time they express a lot of concern about their organizations' readiness to respond.

So what to do? I recommend that corporate boards must include talent on their full agendas—not just delegate the subject to HR. Boards need to engage with their HR functions to develop the necessary culture, mindset, and capabilities to become truly talent-powered organizations. Once the talent strategy and its implications for skills and talent have been set, managers then need to drive that strategy through their organizations. In the end, both top management and HR need to shift from a purely operational focus. Key talent management processes need to become embedded in the rest of any organization.

Mark Foster is Accenture's group chief executive—Management Consulting & Integrated Markets, with overall responsibility for the development of the company's management consulting capabilities.