The study, Adapt to Survive, analysed millions of interactions from LinkedIn's network of 277 million professionals, of which more than five million are in Australia, and information on 2,600 employers from PwC's Saratoga database, one of the world's largest resources of people and performance metrics.
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According to a statement released by PwC, the report revealed two significant costs to the Australian economy of poor talent alignment.
“The research found a strong correlation between the adaptability of the talent in a particular country and the performance of its companies. If Australia was better at matching talent with the right opportunities, this could unlock as much as AUD$3.8 billion of productivity”.
“This lack of access to the right talent is driving up the cost of recruitment for employers today. The longer time taken to find the right candidates, and the increased likelihood for mismatched talent to leave sooner are costing companies in Australia AUS$385 million in avoidable recruitment costs,” the statement read.
Commenting on the findings, Jon Williams, people & change partner and consulting leader at PwC Australia said the findings will help MNC's and SME's in Australia in dealing with their talent management challenges in an efficient way, and also provide invaluable insights for Australia as a country to further improve workforce productivity.
“For the first time, this provides solid evidence that searching, screening, securing and developing the right talent - those who are adaptable and willing to continuously develop themselves - really contributes to a higher productivity,” he said