Ken Blanchards 2007 Corporate Issues Survey with more than 1,000 responses from HR, training, and line managers offers some insights into important trends, including:

Respondents continue to place leadership development, selecting and retaining key talent, creating an engaged workforce, and managerial skills as critical areas of focus.

At Taleo, we agree that a key area of focus for all organizations should be attracting and retaining key talent.

Creating an engaged workforce has not only remained in the third place ranking for three years, it has increased seven percent since 2003. Respondents cite this issue as being the driver for the success of many other organizational initiatives and being a key to retention and service.

Workforce engagement truly has a measurable financial component in terms of business performance, as we noted in What is the Impact of Employee Engagement? and Is Engagement Enough?

On the financial side of managing people, respondents cite the high cost of recruiting talented and qualified people from a shrinking labor pool for both line and leadership positions as an additional major challenge.

Cutting recruitment costs is a major benefit of establishing a talent management system. Taleo customers have been able to cut their cost per hire in half.

Ken Blanchard was a keynote speaker at last years Taleo WORLD conference where he delivered a fine speech on the secret of great leaders. Taleo WORLD 2007 will feature keynotes from Tom Peters and Lyn Heward. Read the agenda and register soon.