The new Taleo Research white paper Unified Talent Management: Critical to UK Business discusses how UK businesses are under increasing pressure to optimize business processes and assets in an uncertain economy.

Yet they face increased talent shortages, lack unified talent systems and strategies, and must adjust career site strategies to accommodate an increase in online jobseekers.

Key findings show that talent management is acknowledged to be highly important and critical to business success but presents execution and technology challenges. A closer look at the survey analysis paints an impressionistic picture where the dots are clearly disconnected:

• 89% of respondents indicate that talent shortages are impacting or highly impacting leadership development in their organizations.

• 76% expect the current talent shortage to remain the same or increase (40%) over the next 12 months.

• And less than one-third (30%) have a talent management strategy in place.

The study also reveals that during the current economic downturn, the value of unified recruiting and performance management is top of mind:

• 74% see an increased need to retain top performers by driving the focus on performance management and career planning.

• 67% think succession planning and internal mobility programmes can maximise the value from current employees.

• 63% report the importance of quality of hire increases in this current climate compared to a high growth period (53%).

Nearly 200 UK HR leaders contributed survey answers and direct responses. This one summarizes what the results quantify:

“We need to be better at integrating a talent management approach across all aspects of business. We also need to have a well documented approach which is then owned by the business but co-authored/driven/facilitated by HR. This should be one of the major functions of an HR department.”