The Hindu Business Line : Strategies to beat the talent shortage

Today, social and demographic changes such as falling birth rates and lengthening life spans are resulting in a lack of skilled individuals for available jobs. This talent crunch is creating many changes in the global workforce and employers that are not paying attention could find their businesses healthy one year and in trouble the next. To win in this changing world of work, employers need to reduce the number of jobs for which talent is in short supply while increasing the total available pool of employable talent. While some employers have already taken steps to improve their talent pipeline, there is more that can be done to address the growing talent shortage.

One thing employers can do is to establish links with local schools to provide meaningful work placement opportunities. This gives students a true taste of real work skills and helps prepare them for eventual employment. In addition to developing their own home-grown pools of suitably qualified talent, employers should invest more in work-based vocational and technical training. It’s an investment that will help grow and sustain much needed talent supplies.

Employers should also think about re-skilling and up-skilling those individuals who are in roles that are becoming redundant or obsolete so they can fill newly created positions. For example, an employer that lays-off 1,000 employees in one department only to hire 1,000 different employees in another department a week later has made a serious and costly mistake. This employer has lost the opportunity to up-skill the first group of employees who already have a knowledge and understanding of the company and place them in the available jobs. This results in higher costs, additional training and time invested in filling those new positions.

Cross-training creates flexibility

Encouraging cross-training can create a group of employees with the right skills and knowledge to fill several different positions. These people can then be moved between roles within the organisation as workload demands change, thus creating more flexibility for the company to have the right person in the right place. Employers can also introduce more contingent talent — temporary, contract, consultants and outsourced — into their workforce to accommodate the varying levels of demand.

For most organisations today, contingent labour is a core part of the HR strategy, with an estimated 20 per cent of the workforce coming from contingent labour sources.

Many economies have unemployed or under-employed individuals who could be brought back into the labour force to increase supply. Bringing these individuals back to work, particularly those who have been inactive for a long time, involves providing training in basic work skills and an introduction to good work ethic. One example is our company’s workforce development programme, TechReach. This programme prepares unemployed and underemployed individuals in the US and Canada for well-paying IT positions by providing intensive training, certification, job placement and mentoring in an effort to provide businesses with a new source of skilled technical employees.

Attracting women, older individuals, people with disabilities and minorities into the workforce can also reduce the skills pinch. Employers need to work to set expectations and change the workplace culture to one of inclusiveness to help bring such groups into the workforce in greater numbers. Employers can invest in technology for individuals with disabilities such as computer readers that vocalise on-screen text and adapted PC controls for those with physical disabilities. They also can make Web sites accessible for the visually impaired.

In addition, older workers whose jobs could potentially remain unfilled if they retire need to be encouraged to stay in employment. Employers can offer them retraining so they can return to less stressful and time-consuming roles. They can also be offered part-time work opportunities. This flexible approach increases the pool of knowledgeable, skilled workers by prolonging an individual’s active working life.

Employers of choice

In a talent-poor competitive future, all organisations will need to become employers of choice. This includes getting better at attracting the talent they need and at retaining that talent for the long-term. This means providing opportunities for varied experience, good prospects for promotion and the right mix of working conditions including flexible hours, maternity and paternity arrangements and generous annual paid leave allowances to create an acceptable work–life balance. Such approaches will attract individuals to the company and encourage employees to stay in their positions longer.

While the talent crunch is an issue that will affect governments and individuals as well as private sector employers, it is the employers who will feel the crunch first when there are fewer people applying for jobs.

It is in the employers’ interests to address the growing talent shortage by acting now — it’s the only way to ensure a strong workforce for today and tomorrow in the changing world of work.

(The writer is Managing Director, Manpower India.)

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