Since the beginning of this year, I’ve been talking a lot about the impact of disruptive change and how it has permeated every aspect of our lives. In this article, I’d like to focus on one particular area that has been greatly affected by this dramatic change, and that is the workforce.
In fact, the workforce and the talent landscape in general are now shifting faster than at any time before. This year will mark the first full year that Generation Z — those born from 1996 onward — will be settled into the workplace, so we will now see four generations in some workforces.
Now more than ever, it is essential that companies pass on the requisite skills to the younger, talented employees who will eventually lead their organisations in the near future in order to stay ahead of the game.
These younger talents have now become the lifeblood of the organisation, not only because they are becoming the biggest proportion in the workforce, but also because the next generation of leaders will come from their ranks.
In this sense, the ability to lead future talent is equivalent to developing your organisation’s future leaders, ensuring a healthy future and a healthy bottom line. Therefore, it is essential for leaders to understand and be able to adapt their styles and practices to meet the needs of this emerging cadre. On a broader level, organisations need to unlearn practices that are no longer contributing to success and to replace them with approaches that will.
Regardless of the industry you are in, this trend is becoming clear and it requires great understanding to implement specially designed strategies to attract, develop and retain these future leaders.
The problem is that most human resources practitioners and chief executives typically are not from this new generation; hence, they need to step up their games or they could risk losing a large chunk of their potential future leaders.
However, let me remind you that you cannot initiate talent management or development simply because “others do it, so why don’t we?” This could do more harm than good. If you haven’t thoroughly thought out who you need, how to attract them and how to develop them, you’ll simply be wasting time and budget funds with no sustainable result. As well, your talents might feel misused and that will lead to higher turnover.
How hard is it becoming to keep good people? Let’s take a look at some sobering figures to remind ourselves that the concept of the job for life is ancient history. Surveys show that the average life cycle of a job is currently between 12 months and three years, and in a recent survey of millennial workers, 44% said that, given the choice, they expected to leave their current employers in the next two years. That figure increases to 66% when the timeframe is extended to 2020.
Forbes magazine recently reported on survey showing that 76% of full-time employees were either actively looking for new jobs or open to new opportunities. A survey carried out by my company of 40 leading public and private companies in Thailand also found that 65% of them were struggling with retention problems.
To read between the lines, we can infer that the talent war is getting frightening, the skills shortage will become exacerbated and companies will need to double their efforts to acquire the right candidates, particularly the most talented ones.
Given the impact of digital disruption, even when the competition is tough for the best talent, the power has shifted into their hands. Thus, it is critical for companies to ensure that their strategy for talent attraction, development and retention is embedded with technology and that it is present, alluring and engaging enough to both existing and potential talents.
Last but not least, one element of a successful talent plan in this disruptive era involves using technology to craft and promote an attractive experience — be it online or offline — for existing talents and candidates alike. The idea is to create an experience that makes people want to be with your organisation rather than simply having to be there. This is one of the biggest challenges leaders are facing today.
In fact, creating and improving the employee experience can be a good way to future-proof your talent pipeline during the war for talent, and this is another topic I will delve into further in upcoming articles.
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Arinya Talerngsri is Chief Capability Officer and Managing Director at SEAsia Center (formerly APMGroup) Southeast Asia’s leading executive, leadership and innovation capability development centre. She can be reached by email at arinya_t@seasiacenter.com or www.linkedin.com/in/arinya-talerngsri-53b81aa
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