Companies around the world are beginning to focus on retention measures to contain voluntary turnover of employees, as they expect a “resume tsunami”to hit them when the recovery begins, a survey by global consultancy Deloittesays.

“Once recovery begins to take hold, business executives and talent leaders canexpect a ‘resume tsunami’ as voluntary turnover rises with leaders and workerswith critical skills seeking new opportunities,”

“The depth and quality of retention planning today will likely separatethe talent winners from the talent losers tomorrow,”. The survey revealed thatAsia-Pacific (APAC) region’s HR executives were already ahead, with 48 per centof APAC talent leaders reporting their companies had a retention plan ready forthe economic rebound.

The percentage is greater than companies in both the Americas (30 per cent) andEurope, the West Asia and Africa region (29 per cent), it added. The reporttitled, ‘Managing Talent in a Turbulent Economy: Clearing the Hurdles toRecovery’, tracked the way business leaders were shifting their talentpriorities and strategies to meet the challenges of today’s economy and theirplans to clear the hurdles to economic recovery.

The survey said the number of executives who said the worst is yet to come hasdeclined significantly since the previous survey. At the same time, the groupwho believed the worst is behind us has doubled, it added.

Meanwhile, cutting costs still remains the top strategic priority, with 56 percent of executives ranking cutting and managing costs as their top strategicissue. Interestingly, as many as 42 per cent of HR executives have put reducingemployee headcount at the top of their list of current talent priorities.

Despite cost-cutting measures, nearly half of executives and talent managerssurveyed (47 per cent) say their companies plan to recruit more critical talentto manage the current economic environment.