Prudential Relocation, a division of Prudential Real Estate and Relocation Services, today unveiled the second of a six-part series dedicated to sharing findings in their bi-annual Critical Issues Survey.

This study captures an assessment of North American companies with a combined employee base of more than 1.9 million and more than 30,000 transferees. The second issue found by relocation practitioners to be of importance focuses on the challenge of attracting, hiring and, ultimately, retaining qualified and skilled employees.

The six-part series outlines priority issues facing relocation practitioners. These are outsourced services, hiring skilled employees, family issues, diversity in mobility, technology challenges, issues surrounding work-life benefits and self-service models.

The challenge of attracting, hiring and retaining qualified and skilled employees is an area in which Prudential's Relocation policy consultants can be extremely valuable. This has become an especially critical issue with the economy's growth over the past few years and the increased need for skilled or technical experience.

The study revealed this year that 83 percent of respondents felt this was their primary concern, or most critical issue, as they did in 1997.

These "talent wars," which can be equated to competition over virtually any scarce resource, has led to a sharp increase in recruitment of employees nationwide, according to the 2001 Critical Issues Survey.

This creates a challenge for human resource practitioners because, not only are they faced with finding more employees nationwide who are willing to relocate, but these employees often must have specialized, or critical, job skills.

This is particularly complicated when transferring employees to high-cost areas. Consequently, the respondents feel that high cost-of-living assistance is an essential policy condition to encourage and facilitate successful employee relocation.

Furthermore, in the human resource practitioner's attempt to accommodate the demands of a tight job market, companies must often recruit employees from low-cost geographic areas and transfer them to high-cost regions.

It is not surprising, therefore, that more than two-thirds of respondents (69%) expressed a concern about relocating to high-cost areas, and identified this concern as an additional critical issue for their companies.

All of these challenges illuminate the crucial need for companies to respond to the changing workforce if they are to survive in today's economy -- and especially if they are to be successful in hiring qualified and skilled employees.

Published: June 27, 2001

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