Canadian companies must develop more flexible work policies in order to combat labour shortages, says a global human-resources leader.

"You can see a lot of innovation in Canadian companies around flexible work policies, but you can see a lot of Canadian companies that have got a long way to go on that," said Peter Cheese, managing director for Accenture's human-performance practice. "Those are going to be one of the differentiators on talent and retention in the future."

Accenture, based in London, England, is a global management consultant, outsourcing and technology services firm that assists some of the world's largest companies with hiring, recruiting and retaining employees.

In many cases, said Cheese, co-author of The Talent Powered Organization, flexible work policies are more important than specific employment programs.

Peter Cheese, managing director for Accenture's human- performance practice

In a recent speech to the Vancouver Board of Trade, Cheese warned that Canada could go the way of the United Kingdom, which has experienced a decline in women executive hires in the past five years, despite strong efforts to recruit more females.

The difficulties in retaining women, he added, stem from a lack of work flexibility and the strongly held view - "not just amongst women" - that working in a large corporate environment means you're held down by policies and practices.

He called on companies to develop recruiting strategies within all levels of the organization, not just from the top down or the human-resources department, because the war on talent has a different meaning than it did in the past.

"It's a much more holistic view than was often taken in the past, which was all about high potentials and superstars," said Cheese.

Patrick Sullivan, president and CEO of Toronto-based Workopolis, said he agrees with most of Cheese's points.

"The war for talent is just to simply find any talent or walking, breathing employees as opposed to finding that ideal employee," said Sullivan, who did not attend the speech.

"It used to be an employer's market. It's now an employee's or a jobseeker's market in many regions of Canada and in many industries."

Canada will face a shortage of executives and general employees if employers don't have flexible work policies with the aging of the Boomers, Sullivan added.

"There's clearly going to be fewer employees to fill those positions. If employers aren't more flexible, and that includes allowing working from home, telecommuting and flexible work hours ... for both their male and female employees, they'll have fewer of both."

Cheese defines talent as all of the skills and capabilities that a company needs to fill its business objective, whether the employees are clerical staff or key engineers, scientists and technologists. A company's search for talent must coincide with business strategies, he added.

"If your business strategy is calling for growth and direction, growth of new businesses and moving into new geographies and new business segments, one of the most important things to understand then is: What are the talents, what are the skills and capabilities that I'm going to need to fulfil that business strategy?" Companies must understand beforehand what distinctive skills their firm has today - and where the gaps are, he added.

"One of the challenges of many businesses is that we're often not in a good place today in terms of understanding what we've got," says Cheese. "If you're then going to figure out what you need in the future, then you're obviously going to have to know where you're starting from."

In the future, he predicted, companies will base decisions to relocate more on access to employees rather than strategic plans. And those companies, he noted, must accept that each generation has different expectations about work.

Workopolis's Sullivan agrees, saying companies will be forced to develop strategies of not just their current workforce, but Generation Y, who are willing to work a full day, but do not necessarily want to come to an office or toil during the typical 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. schedule.

It's inevitable that companies will relocate their businesses, or at least some operations, to gain greater access to employees, he added.

Cheese noted that business owners must also recognize that their employees are more mobile, adding the best people to target are often former employees who left for better opportunities elsewhere.

"When people talk about recruitment, the first place you've got to start with recruitment is your own people," says Cheese. "We've got to get a lot smarter at understanding opportunities across an organization and understanding how we share talent across an organization."

Company leaders must also get beyond the idea that an employee's departure is a breach of faith and recognize that the best companies are adept at bringing in people who are at all different points in their careers - and may include workers who toiled there in the past.

"We used to talk about a job for life," said Cheese. "Now, we talk about a life for jobs. People will have much more mobility in their careers. What that means is that organizations must become more adept at this notion that they won't have people there for life.

"If you think about it from the other perspective, you've also got the opportunity to recruit them back," he added.

"That is, in many organizations, a somewhat new paradigm, because many business leaders, particularly in the Baby Boom generation, have grown up in a corporate structure where they've been there for life or throughout their career."

(Monte Stewart can be reached at monte@businessedge.ca)