A new global study, Creating People Advantage: How to Address HR Challenges Worldwide Through 2015, conducted by The Boston Consulting Group (BCG), the World Federation of Personnel Management Associations (WFPMA), and the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) surveyed 4,741 executives in 83 countries and markets.

Here is their major finding:

Managing talent is the most critical human resources (HR) challenge worldwide.

The report also ranks the global priorities:

Globally, Eight Topics Demand The Most Immediate Action and The Greatest Attention

Business managers and executives also voted with their reading choices. The McKinsey Quarterly Top Ten Newsletter reported that Making talent a strategic priority ranked #2 last quarter in popularity among McKinsey readers.

More and more board members, business executives, and line managers are embracing the concepts of talent management as a core business strategy for success. They realize that the war for talent is real and talent management is a concept that drives results up and down the organization.

A new unified approach to talent management takes advantage of the natural synergies between recruiting and performance management on a single platform.

This creates an opportunity for HR to get the top down support it needs to make the investment and realize the returns. Along those lines, Knowledge Infusion explains How to Buy a Talent Management Suite. And Bersin & Associates makes The Business Case for Performance Management Systems.