45% – yes, 45% of employers recently surveyed by Manpower Group (no – we’re not related!) were struggling to fill roles. Just try and wrap your head around that. If you’re like many of our clients (and we are actively recruiting on their behalf 😉!!), you are facing similar struggles because the talent shortage in our profession is much more acute – which hopefully is great news for compensation levels 🙂 . There are many implications to this and the brevity needed for blogs forces me to briefly touch on some critical points.
- Going global in terms of satisfying your needs may no longer be a viable option, given that we are almost at full employment. 5 of the top 10 worst affected areas are in Asia Pacific – remember that 45% is just a global average (according to The Economic Times). And if you don’t have a Competency Based Talent Management (“CBTM”) strategy in place, you are assuming significant risk. The talent you have in your organization is the only asset you have to create value for your company.
- If you are in the midst of conducting sourcing on any kind of services related category, especially in the professional services arena, you owe it to your stakeholders to ensure that availability of top notch talent is a major driver for your sourcing strategy, not getting the lowest rate cards out there. You would also be well served to start doing some R&D with the HR function of your service suppliers to educate your own HR organization on how to best recruit and retain talent.
- You must also identify this as a risk factor for your suppliers and ask them to present their talent risk mitigation strategy. Not doing so will expose your company to significant risk. Understanding if there are any Tier 2 suppliers that your supplier is dependent on becomes much more critical.
- Many companies have started adopting a “Boomerang” strategy where they have started identifying employees who left and have started active re-recruiting efforts. This used to be a much frowned upon tactic but not anymore.
- According to Jonas Prising, Chairman and CEO of Manpower, “With record talent shortages around the world, it’s no longer a question of simply finding talent; we need to build it,”….”organizations need to accelerate efforts to upskill and reskill employees for the new world of work so companies succeed and people have employment security for the long term”. What this means is an immediate adoption of CBTM AND developing a Strategic Workforce Plan.
And here is the kicker: the skills and competencies needed are no longer the functional skills we used to value the most. I know, I know – you’re saying you’ve heard us repeat this mantra many times. According to this research, “As companies go digital and roles transform, finding candidates with the right blend of technical skills and human strengths, such as communication, collaboration and problem solving, is more important than ever.” You could have copied those exact words from our (TMG’s) various blogs, presentations, webinars over the years as we have constantly been talking about the importance of Strategic competencies. The more and more we automate (RPA, Blockchain etc.), the less and less we need functional skills. Strategic competencies will play an even more significant role going forward and sadly, most companies have yet to make the fundamental shift away from tactical skills. For example, the ability to collaborate and persuade while working with internal stakeholders is what will drive value creations for them, NOT the ability to write the best RFP and negotiate with suppliers. The latter is already becoming obsolete.
As a leader, your ability to manage the Talent Supply Chain is of far greater importance to your company. Are you ready? Are you well equipped? Are you prepared? We can send you all kinds of research and tools to help – just whistle. You know how to whistle, don’t you?
