While regulatory developments rose on directors’ priority rankings in this busy election year globally, talent also remains an important item on the board agenda, particularly in the US, where 70% of directors ranked it a top-five priority, compared with 56% of directors across the Americas. Further, 42% of director respondents across all countries noted they wanted to spend more time on talent.

Complicating the challenge of talent oversight are some of the significant shifts in the talent landscape — a very different context than most directors experienced in their careers. Traditional concepts about career, rewards and even the workplace itself are being upended: the EY 2024 Work Reimagined Survey found 38% of workers saying they were likely to quit their job in the next year, up from 34% in 2023. Further, that flow of talent is foundational: even among employers with strong talent health — a measure of employees’ likelihood to recommend their employer — employees are eyeing the door. Many are driven by opportunities to increase their total pay, including incentives to recognize performance and ensuring pay keeps pace with the rising cost of living.

Given this growing cost of talent, companies are seeking stronger productivity growth, including by harnessing new technologies. For example, the same survey found the share of employees who report using GenAI in their jobs has more than tripled, from 22% in 2023 to 75% in 2024, signaling a transformative shift in work practices and underscoring the importance of ongoing skill development and training. As hybrid and remote work have become commonplace, fostering a cohesive, healthy culture for a diverse and dispersed workforce is another prong of the talent agenda.

Boards can help enable competitive advantage in this complex environment by championing a more resilient talent strategy. This includes gaining deeper insight into the employee experience through direct employee engagement (e.g., participating in listening sessions with employees, conducting worksite visits, connecting with mid-level executives from different business lines), discussing talent and total rewards investments with executives beyond the chief human resources officer (e.g., chief technology officer), and weaving human capital considerations into strategy and risk discussions. It also includes boards’ overseeing how skills and training programs are aligning the talent strategy with the company’s technological investments, such as GenAI, and guiding a culture that is aligned with the demands of the future talent pool.