Amidst the pandemic, the need for new skills has grown, with as many as 86% of enterprises considering talent shortage to be a key barrier to achieving their desired outcomes . Meanwhile nearly 40% of HR leaders are not aware of the abilities their employees possess . Effective management of remote and diverse teams requires a good understanding of your workforce as well as being able to effectively manage the skillset of your specialists - it can mean “life or death” for a company. The Talent Alpha report, From Headcount to Skill Count, produced in collaboration with global partners: Everest Group, Global Sourcing Association, Global Technology & Business Services Council, EPAM Systems, Venture L, Transformant and Pro Progressio, gives you insight into how to change your approach to managing resources and maximize your employee’s potential in the post-pandemic world. Covid-19 and rapid digitization has changed the nature of the workplace. Companies must augment their effectiveness and flexibility, as their daily influence on employees is increasingly diminishing. Specialists are spending less and less time with their managers, with teams becoming more and more diverse – geographically and culturally. This applies to employment models as well, with 32% of companies eager to expand their utilization of external resources.On top of this, the demand for new skills, especially in IT departments, and the need to be able to learn and manage one’s own time and development, is also fuelling this transformation.
- We find ourselves in a ‘new reality’ – a Covid-19 era where the demand for new types of talent is inescapable as digital transformation accelerates rapidly. At the same time, the skill half-life is now no more than 5 years, making lifetime employment obsolete and impossible to execute. It is better to focus on securing the specific skills that are required to get a given job done. A good starting point is recognising the hard and soft skills available to the organization. At Talent Alpha we believe in the power of examining the Talent Genome of an individual or organisation, and the implementation of tools that allow for specific project skills to be identified and found fast - says Przemek Berendt, CEO of Talent Alpha.
Stepping away from managing headcount to managing skill count, means engaging specialists in tasks that suit their strengths. A person’s career history is less important than his or her hard skills, soft skills, and motivation. Over the last 10-15 years, according to data from Everest Group, company productivity has actually been declining, but newly introduced working patterns and styles may arrest this slide. These new models may increase the efficiency of work, with one person being able to work on a number of projects simultaneously, and certain tasks not just being handled in-house, but by an ecosystem of talent (Human Cloud). Key in implementing this strategy is the recognition and measurement of specialists’ skillsets which, coupled together with solid data and the use of modern tools for talent management, can bring about flexibility in both augmentation and the scaling down of required resources.
- We’re seeing many of our customers accelerate their digital transformation initiatives due to the stresses and strains brought on by Covid-19 and the rapidly changing economy and shifting customer demand. With that comes the need for companies to quickly pivot their resources and enhance their teams with skilled engineers, designers, and consultants to focus on these transformation strategies – scaling up and down requirements as they arise – said Larry Solomon, Chief People Officer at EPAM Systems.
Manage your talents, as never before
In the new, more virtual reality, the office will become a center for management and education, rather than work, so specialists will spend less and less time with their managers and teams. Furthermore, they will be motivated by specific goals and the prospect of a successful project rather than the culture of the workplace. Companies will increasingly use outside resources to achieve their tasks and for effective collaboration between different teams of specialists who are engaged in different tasks, there will be a need to implement new HR Tech solutions (the report describes several examples of growing platforms and tools).
- One challenge that Covid-19 has brought to the fore, however, is the efficient and effective management and development of remote teams. Although we are now able to build highly skilled, specialized, and diverse teams, remote leadership is a relatively new skill that is now present in nearly all workplaces. Identifying core personality types and engaging, as well as motivating teams, is the métier of collaboration. Yet it is a skill that many managers have yet to develop - comments Monique Burns Thompson, Senior Lecturer of Business Administration, Harvard Business School.
Responsible companies will have to face the dilemma of whether to invest in the development of their talent, as it is now particularly important to educate people on how to effectively develop, discover and nurture their abilities, and to take responsibility for their own development and career.
- We are shifting our paradigms, particularly between our talent and the company, as we seek to inspire and ‘unboss’ everyone. We are building an empowered, learning-focused organization wherein each associate, having been given a directional map, trust, and the space to complete the journey, charts a course toward goals and outcomes. In return, leaders guide and encourage - Kristina M. Hardy, Disruptor, Novartis Business Services X Team.
The race with technology
The rapid digitization process and the lack of certain abilities is becoming one of the key challenges for companies. According to Everest Group, almost 75% of organizations will experience problems with hiring IT talent.
- When creating the report, From Headcount to Skill Count, we analyzed global data for the IT market. Even though they are based on different methodologies - defining talent differently and analyzing different periods of time - we were able to draw them together and assign a common value. We estimate that the current global gap, when defined as the shortfall between market demand and the current supply in the ICT sector, stands at close to 10 million jobs globally - explains Mikołaj Zioło form Talent Science team in Talent Alpha.
In the report, Everest Group describes four global trends that are influencing the widening of the technological gap and the intense rivalry for talent. Firstly, rapid technological growth is creating new roles and at the same time, reducing the lifespan of existing positions. There is a need, not only for skills involving: AI/ML, big data, blockchain, RPA, IoT, but also those connected to managing remote workforces or managing the grid. Secondly, the talent gap will be even more visible in developed countries.
- Developed markets have the largest demand-supply gaps across key emerging IT skills, with demand outpacing supply, sometimes by nearly double, for skilled blockchain resources. Developing markets such as India offer a lucrative talent-cost proposition with relatively lower demand-supply gaps, higher scaling potential given the large talent pool, and a vast educational system that produces five times more STEM graduates each year than the US - says Rohitashwa Aggarwal, Practice Director - Global Sourcing, Everest Group.
Thirdly, the accessibility and quality of talent is significantly over-estimated. For example, several sources list the talent pool of AI in India as 100,000, whereas in reality, the analysis provided by the Everest Group suggests that the chances of work in this field for prospective employees are estimated at just under one in seven due to lack of practical experience. The fourth trend is the re- and up-skilling of employees. Everest Group suggests that 60% of organizations think that this will be the dominant course of action, with it being more cost-effective to invest in an existing team rather than hiring a new one.
From Headcount to Skill Count - more information in the new Report
From Headcount to Skill Count, presents the latest HR trends in the new reality, and the tools which are helpful for measuring and developing the skillset of specialists. The report contains the opinions of international experts in the field of HR, Innovation and IT, as well as, analytics and industry specialists from companies and institutions such as Everest Group, Harvard Business School, Staffing Industry Analysts, companies such us Novartis, EPAM Systems or GFT, as well as Fortune 100 and BPO/SCC advisors. You can download the report here: https://talent-alpha.com/future-of-work-report/.
