It's an odd kind of stasis: being aware of a serious problem, while admitting that you're not fully committed to a solution. But who can blame companies today? The talent gap is all too real, if more visible in some areas than others.
Take the nationwide driver shortage, which qualifies as old news by now. According to the American Trucking Associations, the industry is short by 35,000 to 40,000 drivers. (Others put the amount at nearly ten times that number.) And, depending on the size of the fleet, the annualized turnover rate in the fourth quarter of 2014 was between 95 and 96 percent, ATA says.
It’s not a matter of executive ignorance. More than 90 percent of CEOs realize they need to do a better job of managing and attracting supply-chain talent, says Shay Scott, a co-author of the report and director of UT’s executive MBA program. A similar gap between action and awareness is identified in another recent study of the talent issue, Deloitte LLP’s third annual Supply Chain Survey. It finds that just 38 of executives are “extremely or very confident” that their organizations possess the competencies that are needed to deal with the supply-chain issues of today.
