TALENT IN THE POST-COVID AGE Part 6 - From Internal to International Mobility

Part 6: A World of Opportunities

Over the nearly three years since the onset of COVID-19, I’ve kept in contact with Talent Acquisition and RPO leaders from many industries. We’ve seen huge regional fluctuations, but in the end, we all went on the same wild ride – a massive hiring crash in 2020, followed by a rush to staff up again in 2021 and beyond. We’re still taking stock of how the TA landscape has changed. And yet, some basic truths remain.

?People crave opportunity. As TA professionals, we know that attracting and retaining the right people means offering them something to grow into. And apparently this demand is highly elastic: After a long period in which COVID protocols kept people from moving around much – either physically or in their careers – the global workforce is now making up for lost time.

From Internal to International

Every day there are people in your organization seeking to move upwards or laterally. Some of them are motivated enough to jump to another employer or even another city. That’s not new. But TA leaders are telling me that the whole idea of career mobility is different now. As competition for talent has gone global, so have the aspirations of many job seekers. Once you were competing with the company next door; today you’re competing with companies everywhere.

It’s yet another example of a trend enabled by technology, then galvanized by COVID. At the height of lockdown, tools like candidate self-scheduling and video interviews went from novelty to necessity. Virtual recruiting and remote work allowed us to source talent from anywhere – and at the same time, they enabled the global talent pool to seek opportunities everywhere.

?We’ve been moving in this direction for a while. It used to be that people were either looking for a job or they were not. As TA grew from a function into a profession, we became accustomed to the idea that everyone was a candidate; some were just passive rather than active. Now this new “international mobility,” together with the Great Resignation, is making things even more fluid. We see people completely rethinking the role of work in their lives. They’re ready to leave in pursuit of something better, whether that means moving up, moving around, or just walking away.

The APAC Experience

While the general pattern was similar all over the globe, the most dramatic examples have come from the Asia-Pacific region. They were the first part of the world to feel the impact, and among the last to see it subside. In between, the population endured some of the strictest COVID protocols anywhere. Disruptions to recruiting and other business functions kept hiring – and therefore turnover – artificially low for a very long time. It’s no surprise that workers across APAC grew even more frustrated and disenfranchised than workers elsewhere.

?A 2022 study by Accenture ?linked job satisfaction to a sense of “belonging at work” based on factors including career opportunities, psychological safety, and respect from peers and superiors. Employees throughout APAC scored roughly 10% below their peers in North America, Latin America, and the UK when asked if they felt they belonged at work. Asia Pacific workers also scored lowest in terms of feeling that they had agency in making decisions, and Japan scored lowest in all categories related to “belonging.” In fact, 68% of Japanese employees reported unhappiness on the job.

?Little wonder, then, that APAC has seen an even greater “slingshot effect” coming out of the pandemic. One TA leader at a global appliance company told me, “APAC has been the most tumultuous, then Americas, and then EMEA. At one point I had 100% turnover in 6 months on my APAC team.” Even now, “it’s estimated that up to 40% of people in APAC will change jobs in the next two years.”

?“People do like change,” she continued. “And what we’re seeing now is people start changing jobs, even if they weren’t planning to. It’s reshaped how we even think about global. We have London recruiters and Americas recruiters working on APAC requisitions just to get coverage. It’s not ideal, but it’s necessary.”

Where’s your opportunity? ?

When you can find willing candidates anywhere on the planet and there are so many ways to reach them, it’s tempting to go all-in on acquisition. And in fact, the rewards for doing so (and consequences of not doing so) are growing. But remember the first rule of talent management: It’s better, faster, and cheaper to retain a good employee than to hire their replacement.

?In other words, it’s time to focus on retention – and retention, as we’ve said, is about opportunity. In this age of maximum mobility, creating maximum opportunity is your best TA investment. Specifically:

?·????????Step up your engagement surveys. It’s especially important now to reassess how your people are feeling. Are they satisfied in their roles? Can they see their next step(s) in your organization clearly? What would they lose by going somewhere else? The “belonging” factors from the Accenture study are a good place to start.

?·????????Use all your internal comms to tell the team about your surveys. On the front end, this will drive participation. Throughout the process, it will keep employees invested. And on the back end, it will show them that you have listened to their ideas and are taking concrete actions around them.

?·????????Reassess and expand your internal development offerings. One of our clients, a regional healthcare network, developed a complete “nursing academy” to allow their nursing staff to broaden skills, earn required certifications, and enlarge their career path opportunities. In the nurse hiring frenzy of the pandemic, the academy provided a true point of differentiation. Post-pandemic, it has allowed them to retain and develop nurses who were hired with minimal qualifications during the crunch. It’s a valuable benefit that gives current nurses a reason to stay. And above all, it speaks volumes of a culture that values and cares for its people.?

?You probably noticed that I’m not suggesting you shift resources from acquisition to retention – I’m telling you to invest more in both. Easy for me to say, but this is what I’m hearing from so many colleagues. One recently told me that “even with the extra effort, we’re seeing more regrettable losses. So, we’re taking a very targeted approach to seeking top performers in key roles.”

?The good news??There are plenty of new tools and tactics worth of your investment – better data, more targeting, and AI, to name a few. I’ll tell you more about that next time.

?If you’d like to hear more about TA and RPO strategy in the post-pandemic hiring crush, watch for the 7th and final part of this series. You can also read all seven topics at once by downloading our white paper, “Talent Acquisition: Finding Balance on Shifting Ground.”