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Today's talent pool is the largest ever. Unfortunately, the fact does nothing to alleviate the reality that there's a serious shortage of skilled talent. According to ManpowerGroup's 2011 Talent Shortage Survey, 52 percent of U.S. employers are increasingly challenged to fill mission-critical positions within their organizations. That is a dramatic increase from only 14 percent in 2010, and the highest U.S. percentage reported in the annual survey's six-year history. 
This recruiting crisis has escalated competition for the skilled worker, who is all too often already employed and not actively seeking a new job. Reaching and engaging these passive candidates in traditional ways is obviously not working. However, recent advances in candidate sourcing and employee selection offer recruiters the ability to expand candidate reach and dramatically improve recruiting results. Savvy organizations are already winning the talent acquisition game by effectively deploying the latest innovative talent acquisition technology: video interviewing. 

This report is the result of an original research study conducted by the Human Capital Institute in partnership with Lee Hecht Harrison. As the economic tide continues to turn toward prosperity, firms are becoming aware that their top talent may start to look elsewhere for career growth and development, and they are recognizing the need to address this issue before it results in weaker talent pipelines and higher employee turnover rates. A key ingredient to employee satisfaction and performance is employee engagement and career development, but understanding exactly what these terms refer to, and how they are understood by employees and managers alike are areas less explored.
In response, this original research dove headfirst into these topics through a nationwide survey of more than 430 respondents that represent organizations from Fortune 500 companies to small and medium-sized enterprises. Supplementing that data are nearly a dozen interviews with subject matter experts, who uncovered even more information about what career development structures look like at their organizations and how such structures and programs influence employee engagement scores and overall performance. Don't miss these key findings:

• Learn what top performing organizations are doing to capitalize on the opportunity before them by leveraging different and diverse career trajectories
• Read how industry leaders and subject matter experts have successfully implemented employee engagement initiatives and career development plans
• Discover what career development opportunities employees are looking for and what they value most about them

Organizations that effectively engage employees realize a significant advantage over competitors — including performance gains that lead directly to improved financial results. Without a strategic approach to talent that includes a focus on employee engagement, many companies fail to ensure employees are satisfied in their roles and committed to achieving key strategic goals — risking turnover of key players and the inability to meet overall business objectives. Adding to this challenge is the fact that many disengaged workers are actively seeking new opportunities as the economy grows, while competitors are looking for ways to gain an edge by actively pursuing your high performers.

This research was conducted between September and October 2010. A survey of 32 items was open to all members of the Human Capital Institute, over 170,000 world-wide. 354 completed surveys were received. The results of the survey form the basis of this research and are summarized in this paper. In addition, in-depth interviews were conducted with corporate practitioners with contract talent management responsibilities. To supplement the primary research methods described above, HCI researchers also reviewed relevant information from a variety of secondary sources, including white papers, articles, books, interviews, and case studies. Many of these are cited in the report and all are referenced in HCI’s Contract Talent Research Practice Area, to which interested readers are encouraged to visit for additional reading and online events.