We are not as clever as we think we are

In THE GLOBAL TALENT INDEX REPORT: THE OUTLOOK TO 2015, written by the Economist Intelligence Unit and published by Heidrick & Struggles, India was, as could be expected, NOT in the top ten countries.

But it wasn’t even in the top twenty countries, or in the top 25 countries or even in the top 30 countries. It scrapes in at number 35.

K.A. Narayan, President of Human Resources, Raymond Group (India) was one of the team of five overseeing the Report, so the Report cannot be dismissed as being ignorant of Indian realities.

Isn’t India doing a lot to increase the supply of talent by investing in education? Maybe or maybe not, but clearly not enough!: ‘Mr Narayan believes that the rapid pace of economic growth means that Indian employers will still have a tough job on their hands finding the right people. “Despite the great increase in supply, the shortage of critical talent will only increase,” he predicts. “GDP is currently growing at 9%, and rural India is suddenly opening up, sucking in a lot of talent”.’

To make matters worse, the Report expects India to continue in 35th position, while China for example is expected to leap from its current 33rd position to 31st place in 2015, and Canada, Chile and Turkey are also expected to gain.

So we had better wake up from our arrogant laziness and do much more than we are doing if we expect to improve our competitiveness and our performance.