The past year saw a lot of developments in all arenas but what still remains the same is the war for talent. There is still a shortage of available employable talent. The trend that we are looking at in the next year would be the retention and enhancement of the capability of existing employees. The increasing talent crunch will force organizations to focus on retaining their critical talent, as well as investing on preparing for the future. Development and engagement will be critical as the new workforce is not committed to stay in one organization.

The talent crunch is accompanied by the skill gap. To cater to the increasing talent gap that organizations are facing, more and more companies will partner with formal structures like the sector skills councils to work with institutes in the T&D, education and skilling space to ensure an available pool of skilled people. There will be a clear emergence of formal structures that will be designed to address the skill gap.

The increasing skill gap will propel HR managers to allocate more time to develop the ecosystem and this will mean that HR managers will not only focus on internal capability building, but will also nurture talent development outside their respective organization. Consequently, the HR managers will have to allocate more time for internal as well as external capacity building.