Lack of  employee engagement and big gaps in the leadership pipeline top the list of issues facing businesses, according to Deloitte's Global Human Capital Trends 2015: Leading in the New World of Work report.

The top three issues identified in the report are familiar but much more urgent, according to Deloitte:

1. Culture, engagement, and retention are now the top issues globally. Eighty-seven percent of companies surveyed rated them as high priorities, with 50 percent rating it urgent.
2. Gaps in the leadership pipeline remain an urgent issue, and there has been almost no progress from prior years.
3. Corporate training and learning is now "in the spotlight." The importance of learning has jumped from No. 8 to the No. 3 issue. The report goes on to say, "The training industry is in the middle of a renaissance, and companies should re-engineer their employee learning experience to give people the equivalent of the on-demand, highly engaging materials (and access to experts) they can get on the public Internet. Building a culture of learning, creating a modern digital learning experience, and bringing experts to help teach is now critical to business success."

There is a tremendous opportunity to leverage your learning and development activities to deal with all of these top issues. Our research finds that the 4 Cs of talent development can become a secret to recruitment and retention, increase engagement, and business performance. The four Cs are developed in the context of the business vision, values and strategy. They include the following:

1. Competency: What are the critical, differentiating priorities of the business?
2. Career path: What are the levels of positions in the business and how are they mapped to a career path?
3. Curriculum: Do you have a curriculum by level and competency that equips your workforce with the most important skills?
4. Cloud learning: Do you have a portfolio of training in multiple formats, including on-demand and nano-leaning to support your busy workforce?

Let the Business Learning Institute help you win the war for talent by holding a strategic learning summit and approach your talent development in a systematic and strategic way.