The talent landscape is changing. Again. And we all need to change with it.

Over the last five years, COVID brought us “the great resignation” – or what I call “the great job switch”. And with it came massive changes. To business strategies and company cultures. Talent markets and succession pools. To the expectations we have for our people – especially our leaders. And the employee / employer relationship.

It’s led to a new era that’s impacting businesses and leaders across industries and geographies – “the great detachment”. An era that’s changed the mood at work. People feel less satisfied with their jobs and less connected to their organizations than they ever have before.

Addressing these challenges will require a new way of looking at talent. Organizations will need to move away from one-size-fits-all people development, to deliver talent programs that are more targeted, bespoke, scalable and strategic. And they’ll need more hands-on help to do it.

CEOs and leaders we speak to tell us they’re focused on several challenging areas that directly contribute to this new mood:

1. The external talent market is harder to understand. During COVID, it was difficult to hire people into positions, and many organizations hired people they wouldn’t normally have. People boomeranged between employers and even moved from one occupation to another, searching for fulfilment – and not finding it. Now, the labour market has opened up and there are a lot more people available to choose from. But they’re harder to assess and evaluate. Leaders might need professionals, but are finding generalists. Or they find people who are good, but who don’t have the right skills. So leaders are very interested in the external labour market and understanding how they can harness what they need from it.
2. The “silver tsunami” has huge impacts on internal talent. A recent Forbes article indicates four million boomers retire each year, and more than half of them are leaders. Organizations across every industry are losing leaders in droves. These executives have built wealth throughout their careers and now are looking forward to retiring. It’s leaving a massive gap in organizations that haven’t planned appropriately for succession. Companies that haven’t consistently and intentionally identified and developed the right people to take over the C-suite. Many leaders see this gap approaching and are concerned about ways to address it.
3. Culture is deteriorating. Over the last 20 years, organizations spent lots of time and money on HR programs and systems to ensure their people are happy. And people are not happy. In fact, they’re becoming less and less happy. Hybrid work environments, virtual meetings, an uncertain economic environment, constant organizational and strategic changes, job and team changes, lack of connection among employees, and disconnection between people and their organization’s mission or purpose, all contribute to the eroding and unraveling of workplace culture. CEOs and leaders see the impacts on their organizations, and struggle with how to address the decline and rebuild their cultures.
4. People struggle to achieve a sense of purpose. Since 2020, people have been working virtually and in hybrid environments more than any other time in history. They’re not spending time with each other, building strong bonds, collaborating and developing trust. They don’t clearly understand how what they’re doing aligns with their teams or their organizations. They don’t feel like they’re contributing to their organizations in meaningful ways. And they don’t feel they’re developing themselves and growing their careers in ways that fulfill them. Leaders see the lack of alignment their people feel toward their organizations, and are looking for ways to help them connect the dots.

The solutions to these challenges come down to changing the ways we address talent in our organizations.

To better understand external or internal talent markets, we need to move away from recruiting and focus on developing talent. If we’re looking externally, we need to find the good people who fit with our culture, values and mission, and help them develop the skills they need to succeed. Internally, we need to look now for the best succession candidates two or three levels below the Director or Partner role. And then give them the coaching, mentoring and training to develop the skills they need to be our leaders of tomorrow.

To uplift a struggling organizational culture, we need to clarify for our people how they connect with and fit into the organization.

How their skills and personalities contribute to the organization’s success. We need to ensure they understand the organization’s mission and purpose – and how they align with them. We also need to bring people together regularly because physical presence helps build trust. Meeting in the same room to solve challenges or build strategies helps us understand each other and our needs. It helps us communicate with each other in more constructive and innovative ways. And it helps us build strong bonds that are the building blocks of a thriving culture.

To help people achieve a sense of purpose, we need to work on the employee / employer relationship. That’s because purpose, fulfillment, and happiness at work are a two-way street. As an employer, I can’t make my people happy if they don’t want to be happy. If my people do want to be happy, and something I’m doing makes them unhappy, we can have a dialogue about it and address it. We can have open conversations about what we want and need, and how we can help each other achieve them.

We can’t keep evaluating leaders and expecting them to fix people or culture issues in a vacuum. As in any relationship, both parties have to take ownership of and contribute to its health and wellbeing.

The changing talent landscape has never been more challenging. It’s something many leaders are interested in and see as a key strategic focus for their organizations. Tackling it will require new ways of looking at our people. Innovative ways of developing talent within strong cultures that value open and honest dialogue. And we’ll need courage and engaged leadership to work alongside our people to drive our organizations forward and thrive.

Impact can help

Are you ready to help your people develop themselves in alignment with your organization’s strategy and goals? Contact us.

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