The collapse of company loyalty, along with a shortage of talented employees, has forced businesses to battle to keep top staff, a report revealed.
The special report on talent, which features in the latest edition of The Economist, revealed that the shortage of gifted staff is only likely to get worse, and once companies have found top employees they will now fight to keep them.
The report points out the imminent retirement of baby-boomers means companies are losing large numbers of experienced workers in a short space of time and plummeting birth rates mean there are not enough people around to replace them.
This is said to have created a massive task for human resources managers and increased their importance in organisations.
The report points out HR is no longer second tier figures but are among the highest paid people at American firms because to thrive companies must now make sure they have more talented staff than their competitors.
