Every year, the world's biggest consultancy firms, human resource agencies and multinational and foreign companies - and to a lesser extent mainland businesses - invest enormous amounts of time and money in studies to understand and attempt to overcome the talent shortage.
This is understandable, as in an increasingly globalised world of razor-thin margins, the constant need to add value to achieve business sustainability lies not in advanced technology but in the people behind the machinery.
By and large, companies have acknowledged a pressing need to nurture talent through training and development programmes that add value to its human assets. The crux, however, is in the depth of corporate commitment to developing human capital and the extent that it is integrated into strategic business planning. In a fast-changing and cut-throat business environment, such commitment may be challenged by pressure from the board, shareholders and a market accustomed to the delivery of speedy results.
Nonetheless, many companies operating on the mainland have established long-term relationships with universities in the country that include donations to faculties, offering scholarships and internships, and backing research as a way to facilitate recruitment and ensure a supply of talent for entry-level jobs.
In a research report last month on how to address the mainland's growing talent shortage, management consulting firm McKinsey pointed out that an important objective of these company-university relationships should be to identify talent at a much earlier stage - as early as the second year of university.
IBM, one of the corporations building bridges to education on the mainland, has formed partnerships with several universities, made donations to educational institutions nationwide and collaborated with the education ministry to improve teaching and curricula, the consultancy said. Without doubt, investments like these are long-term, exhaustive and costly, and do not deliver immediate results, but they are proving necessary for companies in order to expand, and contribute to the corporate social responsibility scorecard.
