IMD World Talent Ranking 2021

In challenging times, leadership matters

Arturo Bris Director IMD World Competitiveness Center José Caballero Senior Economist IMD World Competitiveness Center

Christos Cabolis Chief Economist IMD World Competitiveness Center Marco Pistis Research Specialist IMD World Competitiveness Center

1. Introduction The IMD World Talent Ranking assesses the extent to which an economy develops its domestic talent pool while tapping into the overseas pipeline so as to be able to satisfy the market’s demands for talent. In doing so, talent competitive economies bolster their overall competitiveness. While studying 64 economies, the ranking first evaluates an economy’s efforts to boost its domestic talent (i.e., Investment and Development factor); second, its ability to retain the local talent while drawing from the international talent pool (i.e., Appeal factor); and third, the ranking traces the skills and competencies available in a particular economy (i.e., Readiness factor). Since the onset of the COVID-19 crisis, talent competitiveness has experienced taxing circumstances. As we indicated in the 2020 edition of our Talent Raking, to sustain productivity under pandemic conditions, the level of workers’ motivation was fundamental. This has been particularly challenging for those members of the workforce whose tasks have transitioned to a work-from-home model. The separation of individuals teleworking from their workplace has brought not only a degree of deterioration to the organizational culture but also has increased the distance among staff. In turn, such limited interaction with colleagues has negatively affected the employees’ support network. In this context, the motivation of the workforce has been crucial requiring additional bolstering. Indeed, this year’s results show that talent-competitive countries display high levels of motivation among their workforce, which in turn increases the country’s talent retention levels and its attractiveness for overseas talent.

The combination of competent organizational leadership and the quality of life a particular economy offers, largely has driven such levels of worker motivation. Among other contributing factors, we found the prioritization of staff training. Furthermore, through increasing talent retention and attractiveness, top-ranked countries find a balance between the effectiveness of their local talent force and appealing to international highly skilled staff. In doing so, they are better able to face any challenges arising from gaps between talent demands and talent availability. In addition, among highly competitive countries, it seems that policies adopted to address the pandemic have contributed to lessening any impact of brain drain on talent competitiveness. The latter is also grounded in the effectiveness of the healthcare system of a particular country. In what follows, we trace the overall trends among the five most talent competitive countries identifying specific factors that have contributed to their success. Among other factors, we assess the impact of public expenditure on education and the effectiveness of the education system in meeting the talent demands on the overall talent competitiveness of those countries. In subsequent sections, we highlight the long-term trends displayed by the different regions covered in our study which show Western Europe’s dominance of the talent ranking. In addition, we underline the fundamental role that leadership has played in increasing and sustaining the level of the workforce motivation under the current pandemic conditions.

Figure 1: IMD World Talent Ranking 2021, top 5 economies

Rank

Country

Change

▬▬ ▲ 3 ▬▬ ▲ 3 ▼ 3

1

Switzerland

100

2

Sweden

90.611

3

Luxembourg

88.344

4

Norway

87.646

5

Denmark

86.455

14

IMD WORLD TALENT RANK ING 2021