|
Confront the Talent Crunch and Find the
Employees Your Company Needs
By Jan Coetzee, Managing Director, Manpower South
Africa
Global talent shortages are rendering today’s
organisations leaner than ever before. The consequence of this is
that if just a few vital positions are vacant, entire
organizations may find it hard to operate efficiently and
effectively. The situation is set to worsen over the next 10 years
as social and demographic changes such as falling
birthrates, aging populations and increased migration
take hold. This leaves employers not only with a requirement
to increase the flow of workers across the entire talent spectrum,
but also with the need to find the right candidates with the right
skills to fit the demands of their companies.
Governments around the world are taking initial steps to counter the
effects of these talent shortages. While many government
initiatives are in place to educate and train the global workforce
in ways that are needed by the world economy and employers, results
will take time to come to fruition.
In the interim,
employers can work to fill the skills gap and attract the right
talent themselves by increasing their investment in training and
development schemes. This includes company-wide initiatives that
provide training to encourage the re-skilling and up-skilling
of existing employees, allowing them to be migrated across an
organisation from, for example, a role that has become redundant, to
a much-needed newly created position. Employers will also need to
ensure the provision of education and training programs for
potential new employees. Combined with other benefits, from flexible
working hours to generous maternity/paternity leave, these programs
are an attractive proposition for many jobseekers and may prove
essential in becoming an “employer of choice” in the changing world
of work. While these training offerings may prove
to be a costly initial investment, they will pay dividends by
ensuring that a pool of qualified talent is attracted and
maintained.
Employers should consider attracting students into their workplace
by inducting them during work-placement activities, forming part of
their school education. Moving from a situation where students
simply undertake passive job shadowing to a true introduction to the
realities of the workplace and necessary attitudes to work, will
help to prepare the younger generation for entry into the world of
work and benefit employers in the long run.
Employers should also remember that many economies have a wealth of
unemployed or under-employed individuals who have both the potential
and the desire to acquire new vocational skills and provide a
resource pool that can be effectively tapped into. The challenge is
that these individuals are from diverse backgrounds, and all have
different job requirements and motivations for work. This group
would include the disaffected jobless young; single mothers and
people with disabilities; part-timers who would prefer full-time
employment; and older workers needing to work longer to subsidise
their shrinking pensions. Employers must adapt and be prepared to
provide training in basic work skills and an introduction to the
organisation’s work ethic to successfully embed these people into
new careers. They will have to create an environment that is
attractive to these workers in order to draw them into the
workforce.
For example, employers should think about how they can embrace the
older workforce within their company culture and prevent this
valuable resource from leaving employment. With impending talent
crunches lying ahead, employers cannot afford to lose aging,
talented employees. Offering flexible and less stressful roles to
would-be retirees who can add considerable value by sharing
institutional knowledge and training new generations in the skills
they have acquired is a smart move for employers to make.
Managing and planning talent is not only relevant among the older
generations. By embracing labor flexibility and planning for talent
requirements, employers can create a potential pool of reserves
which will provide their organization with added flexibility in
maintaining the skills it needs.
Employers may also consider introducing contingent talent to their
workforce (temporary, contract, consultant and outsourced workers)
who can accommodate variability in demand.
Establishing a partnership with a specialist provider of employment
services can help companies navigate the talent crunch, allowing
them to adopt a strategic approach to “global” talent management and
providing employers with the tools they need to anticipate the kinds
of talent they will require and when. The trusted employment
services partner will be aware of the client organization’s likely
future needs, in terms of numbers, skills and culture, and will be
able to develop plans to source, train, and prepare the required
talent for delivery as and when needed.
Another way that employers can combat the talent shortage is by
investing in high-demand job re-design, determining which aspects of
these jobs could be re-designed or automated. By analyzing
high-demand positions and reducing the amount of non-essential work
involved, employers will see productivity enhanced and the total
demand for the number of people needed in these positions reduced.
At the same time, new lower-skilled jobs from off-loaded elements
will be developed, for which more people could be qualified and
available, creating an opportunity for other qualified individuals.
A final strategy that
employers can implement to fill the skills gap is to embrace
cross-border recruiting opportunities. Cross-border recruiting to
lower wage or more abundantly supplied labour locations – either
through wholly-owned foreign subsidiaries or by outsourcing to
cross-border suppliers – will continue to be a possibility for many
business operations moving forward. In developing economies where
workers are continually enhancing their English language
proficiencies, employers can take advantage of continuing to shift
work to these emerging labour pools to help them maintain
competitiveness.
However, employers
must consider that only certain jobs lend themselves to this
approach, and cross-border recruiting will only remain possible in
locations where outsourced labour is still cost-effective.
Jan Coetzee is the Managing Director of Manpower
South Africa, a subsidiary of Manpower Incorporated, the global
employment services with over 4400 offices in 74 countries. In South
Africa, Manpower was established in 1999 and currently operates from
the nine branches in Johannesburg, Durban and Cape Town.
For further media information please contact:
ChatROOM media and design
Zukiswa Nomnganga
Tel: 021 422 2806
Email: zukiswa@chatroom.co.za
|
Member
Content 
