As we move through the back half of 2023, the challenges and opportunities impacting talent acquisition and talent management are only getting more complicated.
Layoffs have forced talent teams to do more with less. But recruiting and retention expectations have not diminished.
The movement to stop requiring college degrees for many jobs has expanded in both the public and private sector. AI laws, and pay-related rules and regulations, have proliferated worldwide.
ChatGPT and Generative AI in general are the talk of the business world.
“There seem to be a lot of new ideas emerging at the speed of light,” Anthony Ray, CHRO at Elgin Community College in Illinois, tells us.
And it has only been half a year.
SkyHive interviewed talent leaders from Intel and other companies; consultants like Jason Averbook of Mercer and Steven Hunt of SAP; leading economics professors like Wharton’s Peter Cappelli; analyst-researchers like the Conference Board’s Robin Erickson as well as Josh Bersin; public-sector executives, educators, and others worldwide about what’s on their minds.
Their thoughts, advice, as well as ours, are in a new report found here.
The report is free and includes the following six trends, as well as additional resources from Deloitte, McKinsey, and others to help you learn more about each trend.
Trend #1: Recruiting and retention challenges linger, even as the labor market shows signs of cooling. Hiring slowdowns and layoffs are fanning out to other sectors beyond the tech sector as monetary policy and fears of a recession cool consumer spending. But what employees want and need hasn’t eased up.
Trend #2: State governments are adopting skills-based hiring … and encouraging others to follow suit. To make a break from the arcane civil service exams and complex hiring protocols of the past, government personnel departments should emulate what’s working in the private sector to diversify and strengthen their candidate pools.
Trend #3: Regulators are targeting pay, AI. Pay-equity laws are proliferating in the United States. So are pay transparency laws, requiring the publication of salary ranges. We expect more of all of these regulations over the coming months. When it comes to AI, technology companies that don’t meet ethical AI standards will be in the crosshairs of government and will ultimately lose the trust of customers.
Trend #4: Generative AI is being quickly and widely adopted. The first half of this year, language models like those from OpenAI have proven their ability to generate human-like text in various forms, including poetry, prose, and screenplays. Mercer Senior Partner Jason Averbook believes that generative AI is already transforming human resources, and CHROs need to stay informed about it and adapt to it. “Ultimately,” Averbook says, “CHROs who embrace generative AI add it into their digital strategy will foster a more agile, innovative, and competitive organization, ready to thrive in today's digital age.”
Trend #5: Talent departments have shrunk but their workload has not. In some companies, the number of recruiting and human-resource jobs cut in recent months has numbered in the thousands. "HR departments continue to be challenged to attract the best and retain talent,” says Alexandria Smith, Chief HR Officer for the City of Memphis. Wharton Professor Peter Cappelli agrees. “The big worries are that [it’s] still hard to recruit and retain, still hard to deal with cost-cutting pressures.”
Trend #6: The skills ecosystem – governments, educators, employers, and individuals – will start coalescing. To date, there has been tremendous friction in the labor market contributing to this mismatch. Job seekers with valuable skills often find themselves frustrated, with little insight into how their skills are transferable to open jobs, or what they need to learn to bridge any skill gaps. Governments lack any deep insight into the skills and capabilities of their constituents. Educators lack real-time data on the needs of the labor market to plan curricula, and often find their graduates unprepared for careers, struggling to find jobs in the areas that were the focus of their learning.
Governments and community organizations, educators, and employers are finally working together to help match individuals to learning and jobs.
You’ll want to check out the free report, where a whose-who of experts in the talent field provide advice for talent leaders on navigating these six trends.
