The Talent Shortage and How To Overcome It

Good day to everyone from another edition of the Workforce Bulletin. Today, we’re diving deep into the reasons why talent shortage is a real issue and provide you with some insights as we consult McKinsey's and LinkedIn’s research papers which suggest solutions to the same problem through different perspectives.?

Bleeding Out Talent Due To Skill-Gaps?

There has been enough share for everyone in technological developments of recent years. Increasing demand in data analytics and management, having complex software that handles complex business processes, task automation, and at last, generative AI led the workforce to acquire new and advanced skills to help their companies stay competitive.?

This created a demand for the company's digital transformation through providing new technology to its employees, but it also required teaching them how to use the new tech. Complexity of the tech brings the same for the skills of the employees. Employers now have to identify the soft skills and future skill needs besides the hard skills. For example, the ability to use AI effectively is as important as having the data analyst lens nowadays.?

The research done by McKinsey demonstrates how radically the expectations can change due to change in technology.?

An immense change of 15% in Apache Kafka requirement for the tech roles is incredible and hard to adapt by employees. The talent scarcity also relates to reduced need for a skill such as the need for Apache Hadoop going from 20% to 10% in job descriptions; people will be left with ineffective skills once such a turn happens.

In such cases, looking for certain hard skills is becoming ineffective for companies; instead, they start to look for soft skills indicating the candidate’s performance in case of acquiring new skills and adapting to change.?

To solve this problem, it’s inevitable for companies to start providing learning and development (L&D) services to its employees. Upskilling and reskilling of existing talent is more than ever a mission-critical responsibility of employers in order for them to maintain talent retention.?

Increased Mobility of Talent

The Great Resignation, which happened in the US between the years ‘21 and ‘22, triggered something big in the workforce. With a massive increase of around 30% in the number of people quitting their jobs, a message was sent to the employers: It would be a lot harder now to retain the top talent in the company.?

The increased mobility of talent through a variety of catalysts such as remote work or improved work conditions, some of the companies started losing their talent to their competitors. The reason behind this is the successful companies seeing and understanding what that message was about.

Top talent would now ask for better benefits, ability to work from anywhere and grow during the job, a good amount of effort spent to improve their experience as an employee and an employer with a good reputation. LinkedIn’s research revealed that 75% of job seekers consider an employer’s brand before even applying for a job, while 77% would say that the reputation of a company is important.?

In order to have a winning employer brand, companies need to make sure that their teams are diverse enough, and there is a known culture that nurtures the talent within through a variety of processes: Gaming events, teamwork exercises, equipment and guidance providing, and making employees feel cared for are only some of the things an employer can do for a better branding.

Putting enough effort is the key for the employer, once the employee realizes that they’re being cared for, the trust will start to build leading to higher talent retention rates.?

Adaptability and Agility?

The most adaptive and agile one tends to survive in nature. Businesses are no different; the ones that adapt will consider their costs as investment and pay willingly while the others will pay their costs harshly.?

The cost of not adapting could be missing the talent that will scale the business, losing your existing talent to the competitors, or unfilled vacancies that will damage the agility.?

Remember, if it seems impossible to expand your services for retaining the talent, you can always outsource it until you find a possibility for providing your own.?