Picking and Choosing - It is not easy
Global enterprises are forced to make contradictory talent choices. Cost cutting and changes in revenue markets look to reduce the in-house pool of talent. New products and services demand new talent capabilities and problem sizes demand capacity (quantity).
Selecting and retaining talent in an enterprise is not always straightforward due to local laws and societal norms. Labor mobility (between enterprises and geographies) is limited in many countries and markets. Legacy patterns of continued learning and talent investment also reflect the rate of technological change. Entry into talent markets reflects legacy patterns where demographics created patterns of delaying and deferring talent entry with extended academic education/apprenticeships, entry-level jobs forcing career changes, and training under national service.
Conflicts continue at retirement and departures from the workforce (including ‘mommy tracks’ in many societies) with talent retention (and keeping domain knowledge) becoming an increasing problem. The global competition for talent will change the entry, development, continued investment, and retention of talent.
Housing patterns in Asia and developing countries have been driven by increased wages for ‘office’ (knowledge) workers. Slowdowns in demographic and social upward mobility have global consequences. The resulting demand changes and shifts impact raw materials (concrete, metals), infrastructure (transportation, energy, communication), goods (households, apparel, electronics), and services (health care, social services for the elderly, education). Each large scale shift in talent pools affects global economies and interconnected societies.
A key competency is the assessment and evaluation of talent. The need for this competency is at all levels of an enterprise. Unfortunately, this competency is hard to find at many levels of most enterprises. A good supervisory/manager development training sequence is going to help many things and disproportionately benefit an enterprise as managers grow from supervisors to senior managers. Each part of the process (collecting assessment data thru career path evaluation) requires overhead people time, solid HR process, compliance, and willingness to deal with individuals and their contexts. If there is no appreciation of this process and competency in the enterprise bad results will result.
The next post in the series will deal with the talent complications created by the need for new and different talent sets to address the problems of Climate change, and infrastructure.
You can read this and other posts at www.ekalore.com/hunt-for-talent
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