Employers are facing a leadership “capability gap” according to the latest report published by Deloitte.

The UK Human Capital Trends 2015 report found a staggering 86% of organizations in the UK find leadership one of their largest challenges with only 8% of respondents ranking their leadership capabilities as “excellent”.

A capability gap for UK employers

The research also found a capability gap between the importance of leadership within an organization and how ready an employer is to succeed in this area.

The report highlighted that a number of businesses are failing to develop leaders from the millennial age with only 6% stating they have “excellent” programs in place to develop young staff into leaders.

Head of Human Capital Practice at Deloitte UK, Anne-Marie Malley, commented that British firms need to “urgently” address this issue by training the millennial age group to be the future leaders.

By 2025 the millennial group are set to represent 75% of the British workforce as around four million “Baby Boomers” retire each year.

Malley said this makes it even more important to ensure millennial staff is trained, arguing that the research also suggested a lack of commitment to the millennial group’s career development.

An increasing demand for leadership

Learning and development also proved to be another big concern for employers in the UK.

Figures from the report found that while 80% of employers noted that workforce capability was an “important challenge” only 4% said they were ready to address it.

This suggests organizations are hugely missing out on the benefits of supporting their staff through learning initiatives.

HR departments are also falling behind with no respondents believing their business provides “excellent” development for HR professionals.

Only 10% of employers questioned rated their HR performance as “excellent” while a massive 66% majority said the functions are poorly equipped to manage the fast-paced changes of their business.

Malley added that while HR departments are expected to be “bold, agile, business integrated and data driven”, a lack of training and development means this is often not the case.

Today’s employers must therefore recognize the importance and benefits of providing support, training and development in order to grow these vital areas.

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