Defining focus areas in a changing world

This year's survey reveals that global employers are increasingly narrowing their focus areas. Employers are concentrating on priorities which are tailored to the unique challenges and opportunities their businesses face.

The median number of focus areas has declined year-on-year globally

North America, with its focus on employee engagement and driving revenue and sales, is most differentiated from other regions.

While there are several shared common focus areas amongst multinational employers, several differences arise when looking across regional locations.

For instance, talent acquisition was more common for those organisations headquartered outside of North America, and talent development is a common focus area for Asia based organisations.

For other regional differences, the graphic below highlights the top five most common focus areas and how they compare across headquarter location.

Technology, environmental sustainability, and talent are the most common focus areas globally.

With the rise of AI and the ever-increasing focus on the environment, “implementing new technology” and “environmental sustainability” emerged as the two most common focus areas shared across organisations headquartered around the globe.

Also, while dropping in ranking from last year, talent-related focus areas round out the top five most common areas. This is consistent with last year’s survey findings.

Implementing new technologies and environmental sustainability are the top two most common focus areas, followed by talent related areas

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