7 minute read
talent management
The changing workforce: remote but country-centric, agile but tech-bound
What might the changing workforce look like? Country-based operations, remote hires, and management strategies, and diversity and inclusion as the key to successful upskilling: these are some suggestions by talent management experts from the Will Group by Mint kang
Caleb Baker Claire Teden Kate Coath
The pandemic has changed, perhaps permanently, the way many organizations see hiring and even the way they structure their workforce. After a full year of layoffs, hiring freezes, cutting back of operations, withdrawals from markets, and many more forms of business contraction, not to mention the sweeping changes brought about by accelerated digitalization, the workforce is starting to look very different, and so are many jobs.
People Matters spoke to three experts in the talent management and HR technology industry to get a better understanding of how the workforce is evolving. What they shared about today's market for talent is paradoxical, but also logical given the changes in today's business environment.
Managed by country, hired across geographies
Caleb Baker Managing Director for Strategic Growth, Technology and Talent Solutions at HR solutions group Will, shared that he has observed regional organizational structures being challenged by the pandemic, essentially leading to more, and possibly smaller, leadership teams.
“Demand for regional leadership roles is softening,” he told People Matters. “We’re seeing that multinationals, both western and Asian, are implementing a country-based organizational structure where in-country leadership and client-proximity are needed to drive effectiveness in the absence of travel.” He raised two potential signifi-
cant challenges: firstly, an increase in organizations’ cost base as more leadership hires will be needed, and secondly, how global leadership is to manage this more distributed structure. “It is proven that less collaboration and leverage is achieved in such a structure,” he noted. “However, the opportunity, of course, is clientintimacy, as mentioned earlier—this structural strategy and in-country investment enable organizations to get closer to their customers.”
But even as leadership structures become country-centric, hiring is crossing boundaries, enabled by technology and by a greater acceptance of remote teams arising from the forced flexibility of pandemic lockdowns.
“With the growing confidence that productive work can be done remotely, roles are no longer confined to geography,” Baker observed. “This has expanded talent pools, allowing employers to reach more diverse and possibly more qualified candidates. In the same way, job seekers are benefiting from new opportunities made possible through remote work, without the need for relocation.”
This, it turns out, can be a real boon for locations that are suffering manpower shortages from travel restrictions, or—even after the restrictions are lifted— geographical isolation or simply lack desirability as a working location. Claire Teden Managing Director of Ethos BeathChapman in Australia, shared that in Australia specifically, developing new and diverse talent pools has been challenging. “With Australia having limited migration, we are seeing a significant skills shortage. The benefit for the talent pool is that employers are now more accepting of remote-based candidates and job seekers are becoming more flexible with time zones and training programs,” she said. Flexible workforces: new opportunities and challenges
The shift towards a more flexible, agile workforce is manifesting itself not only in remote hiring but also in what Baker described as a “measurable regional shift” towards contracting. Citing a 17 percent slowdown in Will's permanent recruitment and executive search businesses, he said that in comparison, contract revenue went up 8 percent year on year during the pandemic and that the increase is expected to continue.
“Demand for contractors has always been strong within technology, financial services, and fintech, and will continue to grow at an accelerated rate,” he said of this trend. “Over the past year, we’ve also witnessed contract demand support services within the healthcare industry that grew in response to COVID-19. Job types that are easily executed remotely are also the ones more likely to see this shift towards contracting.”
He also pointed out that the present demand for
contracting is at least partly fuelled by the onshoring of jobs that had been previously offshored. For example, call centers in Australia are bringing jobs back into the country and seeking contractors to fill the positions.
Kate Coath Chief Operating Officer of Melbourneheadquartered DFP Recruitment, corroborated this: “In Australia, we have seen stronger hiring sentiment with an increased demand for contractors,” she said. “Clients are indicating that they are still grappling with the global instability and economic uncertainty and prefer the flexibility of a scalable workforce. There is also feedback in relation to the longer-term strategy around job design and geographic location, and engaging contractors provide an interim solution. There are also significant transformation projects that have a defined timeframe requiring skilled and highly specialized project capabilities.”
This shift, although a significant opportunity for employers to broaden their talent pool and to offer flexibility as an engagement tool, does bring its own challenges, Baker cautioned—in particular, how to cultivate a culture within a mobile workforce.
“Employers need to strengthen their talent experience and develop a strategy that not only attracts and engages talent wherever they are in the world but also provide the tools to onboard and enable them to succeed,” he said. “In short, employers must put job seekers at the center of the talent experience, build trust and bring them across a technology-enabled hiring process.”
Employers also need to be additionally mindful of the leadership capabilities they look for, he pointed out. Even as they source leaders for country-based teams, they have to ensure that those leaders are able to manage not just the in-country teams and team members, but those who are remote as well.
And job seekers, of course, will have to polish a whole new set of skills: making a good impression and building rapport digitally, and demonstrating their ability to work remotely reliably but with a degree of independence. “It will be important for job seekers to demonstrate to their potential
Employers are now more accepting of remote candidates. Job seekers are becoming more flexible with time zones and training programs, and leadership capabilities have to evolve to properly manage hybrid teams in the workforce of the future
employers the flexibility to work remotely, self-start, and be present on different time zones,” Baker recommended.
The need for new skill sets is endemic today, with digitalization popularly cited as creating millions of new jobs worldwide. But from what the industry experts have observed, these new
jobs are not new per se— they are existing jobs that have suddenly gained prominence in industries where they traditionally played much smaller roles if any.
“I would define a job as 'new' when technology and/ or automation enables it to become more meaningful and unlocks new avenues of professional growth for the individual,” Baker noted.
Both he and Teden cited examples from their own firms, where jobs emerged within their operating models that did not previously exist within the function.
“These are not new jobs, but jobs that are new to our functions because of digitalization. Some examples include technologists, data analysts, process improvement managers, marketing and communications specialists who are new to the HR function,” Baker
listed a few. “We are also seeing the trend of roles traditionally regarded as “non-tech” that now require tech, digital or data fluencies. These are roles requiring hybrid skillsets which can include lawyers specializing in data privacy and cybersecurity and customer service officers needing social media community management and chatbot administration experience.”
Teden similarly pointed to roles in cybersecurity, privacy, or risk analytics as jobs that are not exactly new but have simply gained prominence. “These roles have existed for a few years, however, we have noted a growth in this job sector and as such, these roles have evolved,” she said.
The path forward: inclusion and skilling
So, what does it take to keep abreast of these changes and evolutions? The immediate solution is, of course, a stronger talent management strategy—recruitment to acquire the skills organization lacks, training to develop the skills internally, and engagement to retain those skills.
But in the long term, Baker believes that the way to bridge the gap between the old and the new workforce lies in one particular shift that gained traction in the last year: the growing emphasis on diversity and inclusion.
“Besides training and reskilling the workforce, organizations must consciously build working groups that are truly diverse in thinking, age, experience, and skills to give employees the opportunity to close the gap,” he said. “Research has proven that this is the most effective way to upskill and future-skill the workforce.”
