Predictive Success Blog

A pandemic, innovative disruptive technologies, the fourth industrial revolution – just some of the life-changing occurrences that will continue to impact organizations moving forward. At the forefront of these radical changes are a company’s greatest asset, its people. Human capital is often looked at as a costly asset but should be viewed for what they really are, the world’s most important resource. Often overlooked, this resource will be tasked to be resilient and adapt to stay relevant and pave the way for the future. How businesses choose to invest and develop their people will determine whether companies thrive or only survive. A new report from Lee Hecht Harrison (LHH) introduces a new meaning to the word ROI: A Return on Individuals.

Your people

People have the power to take businesses to new heights and fuel entire economies, “they are the innovators, the creators, the problem solvers, and the heavy lifters (Sousa, 2021).” To enable these movers and shakers, companies must abandon their old talent management strategies. They will need a new approach with a focus on adaptability and maximizing the potential of every individual. Organizations will have to give workers the skills and capabilities needed for the future workplace and allow them the mobility to support job transitions. This is a proactive approach to the huge shift in the labour market upon us. Organizations will find themselves making a different investment, an investment in their people.

The new renewable resource

With the labour market rapidly changing and the supply of skilled individuals dwindling, it will be critical for all organizations to “future-proof” their employees by investing in reskilling, upskilling, or redeployment. Most companies will find that by “redirecting the budget, businesses can extract additional value from their stakeholders and their workforce”. People will find themselves with boundless options when it comes to the variety of jobs available to them and companies will find that it will be difficult to have a life-long employee, far from the norm in the previous years. Employer-employee relations will change for the better by having a renewable talent pipeline. Their workforce will have “higher engagement, productivity, and profitability because workers know their futures are safeguarded”.

Building the path to a renewable workforce

In traditional approaches to talent management, individuals are often only viewed for their current set of skills. When these skills would become “outdated” or their role is found to be redundant, companies will often lay off that employee and hire a new individual that would fill their needs. If companies continue to cling to this traditional approach, “organizations [will be] trapped in a scenario where they need workers with new skills but cannot find them on the open market”. Clinging to this approach will only lead to scarcity in their talent pool.

A huge transformation is on the horizon for the job market and companies must be proactive in their people strategy in anticipation of this. The worker of the future will be the individual who has the “capacity to learn and apply new skills, embrace new mindsets, and assist in the creation of new cultures.” The future approach to talent management will require organizations to focus on reskilling and reenergizing the workforce by maximizing everyone’s potential. It is your people that will either bring you to success or lead you to ruin.

The best way to future-proof your people is by optimizing your talent. Learn more about talent optimization here.

See what our clients are saying about how Predictive Success has transformed their organization by helping them leverage their #1 asset, their people.

References

Lee Hecht Harrison. (2020). The new ROI: Return on individuals. Lee Hecht Harrison. Retrieved from LHH_The-New-Roi.pdf