Every Skill Counts: How Talent Heat Mapping Can Help Local Governments Plan Their Economic Recovery

As the UK & Ireland face the unpredictable challenges that come with globalization and immigration, Local Governments are being forced to consider new approaches for boosting economic growth within their regions.

Cities must accommodate people moving from rural areas to find employment. While the lack of jobs that drive the migration to cities in the first place compels rural areas to build the infrastructure that will attract businesses, retain talent, and entice new talent to move in.

Here's a secret. Many people who work in the city will tell you they dream of moving to the countryside to live and work. There is a certain appeal, particularly for the young, of relocating to a place without too many distractions, to bask in the sunsets, open fields of wildflowers, and long, cool evenings by the river. If you listen to these conversations it is hard to avoid the impression that cities may not be the engine-room of the future economy.

Of course, the issue isn't one of urban vs rural, the issue is talent vs location. With the increasing mobility and greater connectivity afforded by the internet, companies have found that for hiring decisions, location no longer is the decisive factor in attracting great talent. Instead, talent is the deciding factor when choosing where to locate - virtually or physically.

In fact, many employers are struggling to fill available positions because there is a growing skills gap between the jobs to be filled and the skills available in their countries of origin. A 2016 EU study and subsequent article revealed, '85% of founders who have established companies in EU countries outside their home states have moved far from their regions, for example, from the Nordics to the Mediterranean or from the Baltics to Benelux.'

"71% of all founders rate “access to talent” as the most relevant factor for startup location." 

"Monthly costs and ease of obtaining capital occupy the bottom rungs of the ladder as far as innovative business-owners are concerned. So clearly, entrepreneurs are on the move and their final destinations may be predicted by pinpointing their major preoccupation – talent".

However, locating and gathering information about an area’s talent remains a major challenge. As governments' data needs have evolved beyond conventional census data, it has become increasingly difficult for them to deliver the first-party, comprehensive and timely information needed to attract investors. Here’s where Talent Heatmapping could help.

 What is Talent Heat Mapping, and What Is It Good For?

Simply put, Talent Heatmaps are graphical representations that show the relative scarcity or abundance of various skills within a geographical area. The maps are dynamically updated based on available data and are useful decision-making tools across a variety of sectors. For example, Talent Heatmaps help companies target the right workforce and take full advantage of an individual’s academic and professional background, and their potential for contribution to the enterprise, regardless of their location.

In academia, Talent Heatmaps allow universities to predict and refine their talent acquisition strategies by offering predictive insights into incoming talent so they can optimize their efforts on the recruitment front. Similarly, a hospital might use Talent Heatmaps to know when there is a shortfall of psychiatrists, nursing assistants, specialists, and so on.  

For Local Governments, Talent Heat Mapping can be especially valuable. It can be used as a way to perform a headcount showing the areas where talent resides, and to identify talent that needs to be tapped. In addition, it can be used:

• To aid decision-makers and stakeholders in making new investments in infrastructure and help them understand what is and isn’t needed in areas such as transit, connectivity, roads, and other public services.
• To explore various locations to find which specialized skills are hard to find within an occupation category.
•  To identify existing talent in a particular field, show the diversity of talent, and provide a degree of knowledge about talent in the state/county that will attract businesses to relocate to their regions.

These maps are valuable not only because they present a view into the location of talent but also because they are the first authoritative data source on which to base much larger and more comprehensive decision-making processes. In many cases, local leaders can perform complex real-time analyses of workforce trends without needing additional expertise or having to draw conclusions from year-old census reports. As such, they can make better decisions on how to:

• Provide a competitive environment that accelerates the talent attraction and retention cycle.
• Facilitate public-private partnerships and the spread of such public-private economic development partnerships.
• Develop innovative financing models by creating city-investor partnerships with commercial banks, utilities, and others.
• Establish a balance between fiscal limitations and improved citizen services that will draw talented residents in.

How Talent Heat Mapping Helps Local Leaders Attract Investment

Talent Heat Mapping is also an essential first step to attracting local investment. It gives investment partners, over time, a more nuanced and integrated picture of a region’s general talent make-up, enabling them to more effectively align their investment. Because investors’ organisations are typically not aware of how a regional labour market is changing due to factors such as inward and outward migration, publicly-funded Talent Heat Maps give them a window into where qualified talent is moving around their market and a window into a region’s talent concentration. Using this insight investors can identify areas where they want to focus greater investment, target the most talent-rich areas in their region, and protect their organisation against talent shortages. 

 Ultimately, Talent Heat Mapping offers Local Governments a compelling way to capture the information cities and regions need to lure and retain the best talent to their locations and attract investors offering good-paying jobs. We also know that while it is possible to use basic data sets (university enrollment, completion, median salary, etc.) to create talent heat maps, using first-party, self-reported data augmented by Machine Learning, is the best way to capture an accurate view of the talent landscape.

What will most likely enhance the value of Talent Heat Maps is the way Local Governments can use them to create business cases to attract investors and to facilitate how talent is matched to opportunity in their location. You may be interested in learning how Wexford County in Ireland is using Talent Heat Mapping to their advantage, see the case study. If you are a Local Government Official interested in learning more about Abodoo’s Talent Heat Mapping Solution, please visit our website here for a personal demonstration.