Dive Brief:
- Small business owners report hiring and retaining talent as the most significant business challenge they face, according to a quarterly survey from Vistage Worldwide.
- More than one-third of the 1,300 respondents cite staffing as the most significant issue they are currently facing, including identifying qualified candidates, hiring, retaining valuable staff members, and training.
- Additionally, CEOs and owners surveyed note that their companies’ biggest barrier to innovation is talent and having a strong talent management & acquisition strategy in place, according to Vistage, which assembles and facilitates private advisory boards for CEOs.
Dive Insight:
In the second quarter of 2016, Vistage's survey found that CEO optimism in the economy declined across the board to its lowest level in three years. Political uncertainty during times of presidential elections has influenced confidence in the past, with a low point following the 2012 presidential election.
With half of survey respondents planning to increase their firms’ total number of employees in the next 12 months, other notable findings included:
- 83% say that their team is made up of multiple generations – college interns through employees nearing retirement
- 50% of respondents are planning to hire recent college grads. Due to the influx of millennials, nearly two-thirds have adapted their management style in the past five years
- 57% of respondents now offer different benefit packages or perks to attract young talent.
Michael Molina, Chief Human Resources Officer at Vistage, said that for small businesses especially, talent drives success. But smaller businesses do not have internal pipelines to fill vacancies quickly, as their larger competitors do.