The Myth of the Skilled Workforce Shortage

In today's competitive job market, the so-called "skilled workforce shortage" and the "war for talent" have become pressing concerns. Employers are locked in fierce competition to secure the few "ready and qualified" candidates available—those who can seamlessly integrate and immediately contribute to the company. These "turn-key employees," who are expected to be "found - hired - ready - go," come however with a significant price tag.

It's important to remember that hiring such pre-trained geniuses can be more costly than developing talent within your organization. This doesn't mean hiring trainees but rather considering individuals from different fields who possess other key skills. This is known as "lateral hiring" or recruiting "career changers."

Even when hiring someone with the right qualifications, it typically takes three to six months, if not longer, to train them properly within the company. The anticipated return on investment (ROI) often doesn't materialize until at least four months into employment, and the higher the position, the longer this period extends. The previous experience and training of new hires can sometimes fall short of expectations.

In my experience, both internally and externally, across various international settings and after conducting thousands of interviews and placements, I've noticed a common trend. Employers often place too much emphasis on hard skills. While these are essential, especially for specialized roles like doctors or nuclear physicists, it's crucial to prioritize no more than three key competencies.

In today's rapidly changing environment, what worked yesterday may no longer be effective. As a result, we must constantly adapt and change, making it more important than ever to focus on upskilling and reskilling our employees beyond just hard skills. Some companies face unique challenges for which no formal academic training exists yet, and in some cases, such training isn't even necessary. Therefore, employers need to adopt a systematic approach to onboarding and training new- or transitioning employees, enabling them to reach performance milestones more quickly.

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Surprisingly, only a few growing companies have implemented a structured onboarding and training process. Many hire employees without a systematic and consistent approach, making it difficult to determine whether high turnover rates are due to performance, competence, or internal processes. Instead of focusing solely on hard skills, it's often more effective to prioritize other important factors such as team fit, character traits, and soft skills. By hiring individuals who excel in these areas and then training them in the specific hard skills required for the job, companies can more easily and successfully integrate new hires. This approach is often more beneficial than seeking candidates with perfect experience from competitors.

To excel in hiring and reap benefits from lateral hires and career changers or even people with academic background and experience in the field, three key factors are essential: a systematic hiring approach, personality assessments, and a robust Onboarding and training system.

If you want to learn how to streamline your hiring process, discover tools to evaluate candidates' compatibility with your company and team, or create an Onboarding and training process to efficiently hire and train new employees for swift profitability, book a free strategy consultation with our ISG consultants – we support companies in establishing an intern process or support your team or you may outsource it to us until you have your process in place. We do this for 25 years in 40 countries with 800 employees and in Türkiye since 2010. ?

Andreas Vetr

www.isghr.com

www.isg.com

https://www.youtube.com/@ISGhr

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