The most alarming trend in this year's PwC Annual Global CEO Survey is again the availability of key skills, PwC New Zealand chief executive Bruce Hassall says.
Eighty-five percent of New Zealand respondents cited it as a top threat to business growth while 51% were planning to increase headcount over the next 12 months.
In New Zealand, there was the additional challenge of an ageing population. New Zealand ranked second among OECD countries, behind Iceland, in harnessing the talent of workers aged 55 and over.
To try and develop the workforce they needed, nearly 75% of chief executives were changing workplace culture and behaviours to remain relevant and competitive and 43% were focused on building a pipeline of leaders.
‘‘This new generation of leaders has grown up in a different world and may be better equipped to tackle thorny societal issues.
‘‘The ability to align the entire workforce behind business and growth goals is also critical to execution and proving challenging for New Zealand organisations.''
Despite the importance of finding the right talent, only 34% of New Zealand chief executives were making changes to their focus on skills and adaptability in their people, Mr Hassall said.
Despite embracing technology in all things customer-related, companies were doing little to change either how they used technology to improve productivity or their use of workforce analytics.
People were critical to delivering goals for the businesses and innovation to the marketplace.
New Zealand chief executives were well aware of that, putting a skilled, educated and adaptable workforce (91%) at the top of their wish list for government priorities.
‘‘This is such a vital issue in New Zealand that chief executives see it as a top priority for business and government - together.''
In terms of the importance of tying workplace culture to behaviour, 72% of chief executives in New Zealand were making changes to their talent strategies, Mr Hassall said.
Companies that were highly coherent - those with strong alignment between their value proposition, capabilities, and products and services - viewed their culture as their greatest asset.
Also, 72% of New Zealand chief executives said they were making changes to values, ethics and codes of conduct to reflect changing stakeholder expectations.
When it came to a focus on diversity and inclusion, New Zealand organisations again lagged behind their global counterparts, he said.
In the 2015 New Zealand survey, 35% of chief executives said they did not have a plan for diversity nor did they plan to adopt one, compared to 17% of global respondents.
This year, only 17% of New Zealand chief executives said they were focused on diversity and inclusion to retain and engage the people they needed to remain relevant and competitive. That compared to 39% in Australia, 27% in the US and 22% globally.
New Zealand organisations could be missing out on a talent pool with 90% of female millennials saying an employer's policy on diversity, equality and workforce inclusion was important when deciding whether or not to work for them, Mr Hassall said.