Japanese companies to recruit innovative talent from further afield

By eGovAsia Editors | Sep 15, 2010

Thumbnail: 

Although Japanese companies typically place less emphasis on talent management than their peers elsewhere, many are planning to look further afield for innovative employees in future and reduce their reliance on internal training programs. These are among the key findings of “Talent Strategies for Innovation: Japan,” a new report published by the Economist Intelligence Unit and supported by the government of Ontario, Canada. The report examines how Japanese companies face the challenge of recruiting, nurturing and retaining talented people to ensure their organizations remains innovative.

Following a global survey of 179 senior executives on the same topic conducted in mid-2009, this report analyses the results of a new survey of 50 senior executives from Japanese companies, contrasting their views with the results of the earlier research. It reveals several aspects of talent-management strategy that are unique to Japanese companies—and suggests ways in which the pressures of competition and globalization are forcing them to modify these strategies.

For instance, the survey found that Japanese companies are very much aware of the need to attract employees from a broader pool of talent: 82% of the respondents think the availability of talent is a vital external factor for innovation strategy, far higher than the 55% of global companies that think so. Increasingly this means they will have to go where the talent is: 48% think their companies will “locate innovation centers where there is an abundance of talent” in five years’ time, versus 39% of firms in the global survey.