Part I
2022-06-21
The challenges concerning talent and the future generation of the workforce continue, with organisations facing the raging war on talent, talent shortages, and are struggling to attract and retain talent. Job vacancies are at an all-time high, with employers having to incorporate better flexible working policies and focus on having to retain talent by prioritising career development and learning to keep the best talent.
In the days leading up to the Centuro Global Expansion Conference in May, we met with four panellists who are experts to discuss the current Talent market, the drivers of change, and expected outcomes.
The impactful reflections of the panel that arose from these conversations were highlighted throughout the conference, but the powerhouse team that represented the four different sides of the Talent space could have led an engaging and meaningful discussion for much longer than the session.
In this article, we would like to reflect on the key takeaways from Imraan Arbee, founder of RB Partners Executive Search, to view the Talent space through the recruitment lens.
This article is one of a four-part series, in which we highlight some of the key discussion takeaways that managers and HR teams can take on board to help tackle the talent crunch.
Work-Life Alignment
It goes without saying that the biggest shift towards work-life alignment occurred in 2020, as organisations turned to remote work at the start of the pandemic. Certainly, the evolution of technology in recent years enabled remote work to occur with an almost seamless transition from the majority of office work to the majority of remote work.
After some initial growing pains and replicating of the office environment in the home space, many organisations adjusted to a more flexible approach to remote work. Output-led initiatives have become more common across industries, allowing employees to focus on finding the right balance between work and home life each day. One of our expert panelists, Imraan provided an example of a Nordic-based company that goes so far as to actively dissuade their employees from working outside of office hours, with the CEO leading the charge by scheduling lunch-time rock climbing breaks for himself.
HR leaders and teams will have to rethink their learning and development programmes to ensure that they are still engaging the workforce whilst upskilling them. Although workers demand more flexibility and better working environments, there is a high demand for more development and priority of the worker experience.
Diversity
One of the challenges with creating a more diverse workplace, particularly in executive roles, for many companies is that to date, the talent pool from which candidates are chosen has not been very diverse itself.
Remote work has allowed companies to access wider pools of talent and build diverse talent pipelines by supporting, for example, women in the workplace who have historically been unable to take on roles that required frequent time away from home. On an international level, remote work has also allowed organisations to gain a diversity of thought by accessing talent from different cultural backgrounds. But remote work only takes diversity so far: traditionally, leaders looked and sounded similar across businesses.
Some companies found that their leaders might look the part, and sound the part, but the output wasn’t delivery-focused. The shift to output-led task delivery has helped companies identify high-performing individuals to achieve a greater amount of success alongside greater diversity.
The future generation
How does Imraan view the changes in the talent space with the next-generation workforce? He poignantly reflected that his hope for the future generation(s) is that they will have the best of both worlds: they won’t have to work in the way that it was prescribed until 2020 and will have the flexibility that has come in recent years, but will have the work ethic of the environment that existed before and up to today.
As organisations look to reshape their various policies around hiring and retaining talent, they will have to ensure that they manage to develop talent whilst balancing the new working environment.
Stay tuned as we share more insights into the key discussion points of the talent crisis.
