Firms often put great effort in retaining good employees because they fear the loss of talent and knowledge spillover to rival companies. However, new research published in the Academy of Management journal by Stefan Wagner, Professor of Strategy at ESMT Berlin, and Martin Goossen from Tilburg University suggests that losing key employees to a competitor can actually be a benefit to companies and so the war for talent may be futile or even counterproductive. To assess the impact of mobile employees the researchers focused on R&D alliances in the pharmaceutical industry, where partnerships are a common mode of innovation as they diffuse the burden of costly drug development. They collected data on alliance formation amongst the 55 largest pharmaceutical firms over a 16-year period, identifying all scientists that moved between these firms. Of the 130,000 scientists the researchers tracked, more than 8,200 moved from one firm to another. (more…)

Firms in the FTSE 100 are on track to reach the target of 33 percent of women on boards  by 2020 that was set by the Hampton Alexander Review. In its July update, the organisation reports that 27.5 percent of FTSE 250 board positions now held by women, up from 24.9 percent three years ago.  The figures suggest that if progress matches the same gains made over the last 3 years, then FTSE 100 companies are on track to meet the 2020 target. Just under a third (32.1 percent) of FTSE 100 board positions are now held by women, up from 12.5 percent in 2011. (more…)

The Monster Jobs Confidence Index, published for the first time by jobs board Monster.co.uk and the Centre for Economics and Business Research (Cebr), claims that workers and job seekers confidence in the UK labour market has dropped by 10 percent, from 77 percent to 67 percent. The report defines confidence as how an individual feels about their ability to find a suitable job in the short-term, realise their career potential and build a better future for themselves.

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