For me Steve its Talent, Talent Talent - attracting and retaining.

With a severely tightening labour market. With a reduction in overseas availability and with increasing (maybe short term) economic uncertainly the pressure point for me and my business for 2018 will be all about getting one of the fundamentals of HR right - the other stuff (as important as some of it is) will be secondary.

It's difficult to disagree with any of the concerns raised because they are all relevant. However, I think there is a bigger concern that doesn't appear to be on anybody's agenda; a potential upsurge in industrial unrest.
A generation of business leaders and HR professionals, probably two generations, have been fortunate to work in an environment where the focus on people management has been hugely positive, forward thinking and in many ways visionary. They have never had to face the challenges of the late 70's, early/mid 80's.
For a number of reasons I think the employment landscape could change quite dramatically over the next twelve months. Pay and remuneration hasn't always kept pace with inflation, living standards are barely at pre 2008 levels; employees are now more empowered and therefore more confident to challenge; the gig economy, for all its positive benefits, has created a large group of unorganised and in some cases disenfranchised workers; trade union membership is at a comparably low level which means that there is scope to recruit new members and finally, should their be a change of government, Momentum, Jeremy Corbyn's campaign vehicle have shown themselves to be very good at organising. What if they change their focus from politics to the workplace?
"We've moved on" I hear you say; "we're never go back to the bad old days".
Perhaps you are right, but at the very least the possibility should be on the agenda of HR Professionals in 2018.

I definitely agree with all of these concerns but definitely hear what Keith is saying! We've experienced significant difficulty recruiting for certain skilled roles - there seems to be a real skills shortage within the IT/cyber security sector at the moment and I don't think it will improve.
Might make for some interesting conversations amongst the Leadership team... the first hurdle will be changing some mindsets over our benefits package!

In reply to Shelley:

Interesting. Claire says that she is struggling to recruit to the children's services sector, while Nicola says she has not found it so hard to fill roles for more than a decade.

Is anyone else having trouble recruiting?

Hi everyone, and Happy New Year :) This latest podcast covers some HR and L&D challenges for 2018 - might give some food for thought to add to the discussion. www.cipd.co.uk/podcasts

In reply to Steve Bridger:

And yet according to Timewise Foundation research almost two million people are unable to access work because they need to work flexibly - that's an awful lot of talent going to waste! timewise.co.uk/.../

I agree, top of our list of HR priorities are the GDPR, Gender Pay Gap reporting and well-being. Some companies are charging a fortune for courses and information relating to GDPR and it is difficult to ascertain reputable training for this for specific areas.

In reply to Shelley:

Completely agree with you - we are having real trouble recruiting into this area

In reply to Sarah Catherine Fulton:

Very much a candidate-led market at the moment! We're really having to up our game in terms of our attraction and retention strategy (which was well over-due!).

Just uncovered this thread from last year started by Emma Bullen asking a similar question...
www2.cipd.co.uk/.../64678