Singapore, Mar 18, 2010: RSA Singapore, a leading recruitment consultancy for the life sciences, has revealed results from an international survey conducted amongst the biomedical sciences industry. The findings show that the biomedical sciences industry sees talent management as a top priority for the coming year. And 68% of the respondents stated their organization had no clear leadership succession plans. This is a potential risk for organizations, which could be negatively affected, should senior management leave the company.

Ms Laura Thomas, Managing Director, RSA Singapore said, “The international survey provides important lessons for Singapore. Although, our biomedical sciences industry did not experience downsizing last year, ensuring that the workforce remains relevant through retraining and up-skilling is crucial.”

The respondents of the international survey were mainly from the UK with some having offices across Europe and the US. Given the significant levels of organizational restructuring that has occurred over the past 18 months, over 90% of respondents indicated that talent management is a top strategic priority for the organization. During this period, 60% of organizations experienced restructuring or a review, in order to improve efficiencies and in many cases downsizing was part of the review. Those employees negatively affected by the review were selected based on: 1) feedback from managers and performance reviews; 2) lack of fit within the organizations; and 3) formal talent assessment exercise.

However, despite realizing that talent management is critical, only 26% had an active strategy in place for retaining talent. Another interesting trend revealed by the survey showed that while 60% of the organizations stated that the time taken to recruit middle to senior management required up to 6 months and incurred significant costs to the company.

“RSA Singapore remains in close communication with the industry to understand their demands better. We look forward to playing a role in growing Asia’s life sciences sector,” said Ms Thomas.

RSA Singapore serves not only the local market, but also regional countries, including Malaysia, Vietnam, the Philippines, Japan, Thailand, India, Korea and Australia.