THE FUTURE OF WORK
part one
PEOPLE DYNAMICS ARE CHANGING
How will they impact you?
Your starting point is understanding.
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You face five critical challenges:
1. Competition and change increases every year in this digital and AI enabled world.
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2. Pressure to perform is elevated from every direction self, bosses and customer.
3. It's an increasingly complex environment to navigate and in which to operate.
4. Standards of accountability, process and regulation get higher.
5. There's an acute talent shortage.
How will these impact your business?
Your #1 defining factor...
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​Between winning and losing in your marketplace. At stake, sales, P&L, market position...
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The difference between fully exploiting your potential and failing.
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Your exposure to going into a downward spiral, on a road to ruin.
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It's your people who determine your ultimate success.
WANT TO KNOW MORE?
1) A more complex and competitive environment.
In every industry, in every occupational type, the complexity of the work being done increases every year. What's required becomes increasingly more specific and standards are elevated. If you want to a build high-performance team you'll need to increase the importance you apply to recruitment, people development and retention.
2) An acute talent shortage.
The employment rate is at an all-time high #1, i.e. there are very few people unemployed. A talent shortage already exists against a backdrop of increased retirees #2, i.e., a decreasing proportionate working population.
3) People are more demanding and less loyal.
Employee side, people are more demanding, independent and less engaged in their work #3. The amount of time people are staying with employers is reducing! More than one in five of your employees will leave every year #4.
4) It's taking 3-6 months to hire
When making senior hires, it takes upwards of three to weeks to source candidates. You've then got three to six interview stages over two to six weeks, offer/accept/resign another week or more, then a notice period of perhaps four to twelve weeks.
5) It takes another 3-6 months to ramp up
They've got to get familiar with your systems and any product knowledge and integrate into teams. And for many roles in leadership, sales and project management - they need to develop an output, a workstream or in the case of sales roles, a pipeline. The more senior the role, the higher up the value chain... the longer it takes.
Sources of information:
#1 Current employment rate is 96.2%, i.e. just 3.8% of the working population is unemployed, and it's the lowest since 1971. A similar dynamic has applied in the USA since 1969. Sources UK & US Government published stats.
#2 Decrease in the percentage of working-age people by 7.5%. (Source: UK Census Survey)
#3 Just 20% of employees are engaged in their work (Source: Gallup)
#4 Cross-industry, cross-job type average employee turnover is 20%. (Source: Department of Labor Statistics, US). The average turnover rate in sales jobs is 31% (Source Xpert HR)
Your hiring expectations are in an upward spiral
Robert Tearle pictured states "When it comes to hiring people, the trend is towards assessing people against an increased set of criteria, and doing so with greater scrutiny."
As economic growth slowed in 2023 some SaaS vendors made headcount cutbacks but the tec sector continue to grow, c 5% growth in 2023, and projected growth of 8% in 2024 - stats according to Gartner.
However, every year expectations become more specific what we're observing is that for senior, specialist hires it's not unusual for employers to consider 21 or more characteristics:
Location
Working style i.e. hybrid, remote first or office
Seniority level, scope and dimensions
Functional area expertise (1)
Functional area expertise (2) sometimes an additional definition
Industry sector familiarity (1)
Industry sector familiarity (2) sometimes an additional definition
Employer size
Underlying competencies
Likeability
Track record
Emotional intelligence
Challenge-related qualities
Cultural match
Values
Motivations
Stability and agility
Growth potential
Salary parameters match
Availability to start within an acceptable timeframe
Does the candidate want to take up this job
So there's an acute talent shortage and...
At at the same time employers are more specific about the criteria required, applying a greater level of scrutiny, involved more interview stages/events
Consequently hiring is becoming more difficult, more time consuming and cycles longer every year.
When it comes to hiring into senior and specialist roles, current sourcing methods are inadequate.
Here's why:
Conventional recruitment connects with just 30%.
Sourced from ads, CV files and jobs boards. It works well for regular and non-time-sensitive hires.
It's a mixed talent pool. Heavily populated with low to mid-performers.
A high proportion has been let go for underperformance.
Employers rarely let go of their best people.
Five to ten years ago, you'd have just about got by using conventional hiring approaches.
You'd probably have found some acceptable hires using them.
However not now there's an acute talent shortage.
Most employers find hiring is painfully long.
Carrying an unacceptable opportunity cost.
To make "A" player hires with very precise criteria, you need to tap into high-performance passive talent.
Access to this pool is via pipelining and headhunting. You need to re-prioritise senior level hires.
What's required today is pinpoint accuracy looking beyond the 30% active candidate pool.
You need to tap into 100% of the talent.
And win over, the best of the best!
Having a complete highly productive team will determine the difference between success and failure.
Success versus abject failure
Failure to operate your business with a full headcount of "A" and "B" player types, will translate into failure to meet your business goals for growth, profitability and shareholder value creation.
A complete team of highly effective people, translates into success.
Having gaps, translates into missing goals.
Having gaps, and "C" player types, translates into abject failure.
Compromise on team quality, and quantity and you'll either fall short of meeting your plans or see your business meet with abject failure!
There's a relationship between realising your goals and your headcount capacity.
Failure to make the right hires on time, and to fully develop and retain your best people will delay your progress toward achieving your goals.
Workforce planning requires both a quantitative and qualitative approach.
There's a relationship between your team capacity and capability, and your overall business performance.
Failure to make the right hires on time, and to fully develop and retain your best people will delay your progress toward achieving your goals.
Workforce planning requires both a quantitative and qualitative approach.
Your realities are:
What you do to build great teams this year will affect your ability to perform next year.
There is a ripple effect.
In year hiring has shortcomings
High achievers who you want to keep, will leave.
Low performers, will stay.
Hiring will take longer than you anticipate.
You'll make hiring mistakes.
"In the past you didn't have to plan. But you do now".
Robert Tearle