Talents, DLTs & (R)evolution in Job Markets

Anticipating that the job markets will become more and more liquid it’s like acknowledging ice melting at the poles: it happens regardless you admitting it. Instead, depicting how fast and irreversibly it will happen requires lot of imagination, brave attitudes and unconventional wisdom. Current Job Markets’ Cassandras - shamelessly taking harsh cynic stance vis-à-vis the most valuable of all values, TIME - will soon look like ruthless, anti-social anarchists; supporters of traditional work practices would soon find themselves parked aside as ailing dinosaurs.

Without being trapped into refined sociological debates, consciousness that things are changing (in job markets too) may help us better coping with the tremendous challenges our society will face over the next decade, or so, to (i) give answers to widespread quest for human dignity (including the Right to Impact) and (ii) integrate Robotics, AI, sharing economy & wealth redistribution.

In this fast moving environment, running data on Distributed Ledger Technology (i.e. blockchains) will add that spice we would rather keep off. However, safe distance simply doesn’t apply ….we’re just in the midst of job markets revolution and we’d better get ready, whether we want to ride it or escape from it.

Trendsetting

In finance glossary, a market is (i) efficient when relevant information are timely reflected in prices and (ii) liquid when transaction costs are lower; by analogy, Job Markets’ evolution can be analyzed in accordance with two major areas of investigation:

• Efficiency vs. Effectiveness
• Work Performances’ Securitization 

Efficiency v s. Effectiveness

If we apply these two paradigms to job markets’ drivers (namely, supply vs. demand and talent scouting), it seems pretty clear that better informed recruiters, helped by more flexible employment regulations would eventually perceive their decisions less risky, allocate budgets more comfortably and be better inclined to on-board talented, yet inexperienced resources.

Certainly, an improved set of information (certified skills & references, performance rating) will lead to more efficient workforce sizing, individual compensation mechanisms, fixed/variable/benefit mix, etc, thereby shrinking information asymmetry, creating more jobs and reducing scope for compensation bargaining.

The dark side of the coin is that a more liquid job market eventually leads to higher turnover and, hence, it diminishes the incentive for companies to invest in training talents, as HR managers are afraid that they may not retain talents long enough to recoup the money spent to empower talents’ skills. The risk is starving a fading corporate culture, nurturing a trading organization with fewer values to share.

Finally, a more efficient market would probably support multiple individual job identities, allowing an individual to execute different tasks in different businesses, with one’s monetary KPIs that may differ even substantially across different engagements.

Work Performances’ Securitization 

Efficiency vs. Effectiveness and Multiple Individual Job Identities help us develop a contemporary approach to job markets in fast motion; but if we take a few steps beyond, disruption takes the scene. Imagine a marketplace platform where job performances are commoditized and traded through tokens, professionals have a rating whose determinants are stored in DLT architectures and businesses retain earn-outs – through appropriate smart contracts - on trained resources after they left.

It does sound like a nightmare. Yet, it’s more likely than not.

Current technologies allow all that, and regulators will eventually lower some barriers; as businesses across industries are eyeing flexible organizational modeling and striving to opportunistically accessing diverse resources to empower robust growth strategies, the very concept that borders between professionals and businesses are blundering lead to an unprecedented room to innovate job markets. Long-life employment remains last century's legacy, but atomized & fragmented job markets are not necessarily the one answer.

Putting Values back on Stage

Platforms supporting (i) instant competitive bidding on valuable resources and (ii) betting on one’s career may be interesting ventures for daring start-ups; certainly, a securitized job market is a tough challenge for policymakers.

Though, downplaying job markets’ evolution to a tech-driven Risiko is a perspective way too narrow. Eventually, businesses do exist to match users’ expectations for trustful delivery. Measuring business performances by pure economic KPIs (i) yields a shadowy rationale to buy a company’s products/services and (ii) puts you miles away when it turns to selecting the company you want to work with.

Putting Values back at center-stage, instead, is betting on “Why” at the expense of “How”, empowering businesses to attract talents better tuned and retain them longer, thereby fostering resilient and cohesive practices and culture at the Users’ & Workers’ satisfaction