GKB: Internal Audit in a Post-COVID World, Part 1: Talent Management
After more than 30 months, the COVID-19 pandemic lingers in varying intensity around the world, and it continues to test organizations and governments on myriad levels. Its impacts add unwanted complexity to vexing risks, from managing climate change and supply-chain disruptions to cybersecurity and a looming global recession. Yet its greatest impact may be on how citizens of the world view work.
Whether manifesting as waves of unprecedented resignations around the world beginning in early 2021 (the Great Resignation), a fundamental rejection of societal pressures to overwork in China’s tang ping (lie flat) movement, or the current near-universal expectation of work-from-home options from job seekers, the pandemic has dramatically changed the social contract between employees and employers.
This Global Knowledge Brief, the first of three to examine the pandemic’s longer-term impact on risk, looks at talent management in a post-COVID environment. What emerges is a picture of employers struggling to define a new equilibrium that embraces work-life flexibility to attract and retain top talent while maintaining productivity, resilience, and innovation in a rapidly changing world. This will invariably impact internal auditors, both in maintaining effective internal audit functions and delivering high-quality assurance and advisory services over this changing risk area.
