Human resource`s role with business recovery during and after a recession to engage employees and retain talent

A comprehensive literature review in the area of leadership development, employee engagement and talent retention to determine what does HR need to do to create people advantage in this new era of business recovery; HR`s role in leadership development; if there is a shift in HR`s focus from human capital to social capital; and how could organisations engage employees in decision making using their talents to help recover from the recession. While countries such as South Africa, New Zealand and Australia continue to experience leadership talent shortages, and the recession forces organisations to review the effectiveness of their leadership development programmes, meaningful change seems essential. Developing countries have similar problems. How do these developing countries prepare (crouch), develop (touch) implement (pause) and engage (involve) their employees to develop leaders for the future? Some findings are that today`s business leaders need to get personally involved in mentoring future leaders and in guiding their development; leaders need to be values-centred leaders focused on building sustainable organisations that serve society; it is challenging for most organisations to make leadership development a priority while leaders face an ever growing list of challenges such as cost cutting and customer demands, strategic planning and successful innovation, and fewer resources available to achieve their goals. Human resource managers have a huge role to play in these issues and they have enormous challenges but also opportunities to put strategies in place to help to recover from the recession.