North American companies lacking high-potential employees

Despite a high unemployment rate, more than half of large and medium-sized companies say they don’t have enough management successors, according to a study by human resources consulting firm OI Partners-Feldman Daxon Partners. Of the 212 North American employers polled, 54% consider that they don’t have enough qualified successors working for them to succeed their executives and managers, vs. 32% who say they have enough management successors in the ranks.

Companies currently short of management successors are twice as likely to hire from their competitors than others, and two times as likely to recruit from outside their industry.