RPO and Talent Management Blog by Ochre House | Ochre Talk

Is the talent retention challenge coming?

Put the words ‘talent retention’ into google trends. What do you see?

The declining use of the search term over the past few years is no surprise. Through the recession, organisations have been quite happy to let a few employees slip off the payroll. Some have actively had to manage it through workforce management and redundancy programmes.

However, look at what has happened since November 2009. To me, that increase looks like more than a blip.

This you may say is no surprise. Companies have become more bullish on their prospects in the past six months. What is however surprising is where this term is being searched on. Look further down the page and you’ll see many developing nations in the top ranks. On the day I searched (7th February 2010) the ‘Western nations’ weren’t even in the top 5.

So what’s this telling us? I have four hypothesis:

1. Developing countries are hitting the same challenges as the ‘developed’ – limited supply of talent, although not a limited supply of people (look out for further inflation!)

2. The term is becoming fashionable again, so HR professionals and consultancies are reacquainting themselves with the idea

3. The online populations in these countries are very large and therefore account for an unfair share of search traffic

4. Finally, the search traffic on the term always rises in the new year – this could be nothing more than noise

I’ll keep an eye on this in the next few months. In the meantime, I’d be interested in your views; is the talent retention challenge coming?