Companies Must Act Fast to Address Skills Gap, Future of Work Report 2021 Finds
Companies around the world must take urgent action to respond to rapid changes in the world of work and address a global talent gap, which is set to widen to 160 million employees in 2025 in the tech sector alone, according to the annual Future of Work Report.
The report, titled The A3 Revolution, analyzes how work has shifted to an “Anytime, Anyplace, Anywhere” model, examining the three megatrends of flexible working hours, new forms of employment that are replacing full time contracts, and a lack of geographical constraints. The document was published by Talent Alpha (a platform that connects over 680 tech companies all around the world, allowing them to share talent in a cloud) and its international partners including EPAM Systems, Everest Group, Global Sourcing Association, Global Technology & Business Services Council, Open Assembly, Stratigens, Sourcing Change, Tolson Consulting and Pro Progressio.
A challenge or a chance?
Close to 86% of enterprises consider talent shortages a key barrier to achieving their transformation plans, according to the Everest Group, a global research firm. The change in the way people work and in their expectations connected with the A3 Revolution are widening the talent gap, which is increasing attrition, lowering engagement, limiting innovation and eating up companies’ budgets. The attrition rate in the IT industry has increased in past three months by 10.5 percentage points and companies are offering 20-40% above peer roles to employees possessing IT skills, Everest found.
At the same time, the emerging solutions connected with working from Anytime, Anyplace and Anywhere can allow companies to interact with specialists in new, more satisfying ways and deliver new solutions for sourcing and sharing skills.
“Like any revolution, the world of Anytime, Anyplace, Anywhere work offers tremendous challenges, but also great opportunities for the companies that are bold enough to seize them,” said Talent Alpha CEO Przemek Berendt. “Regarding the talent gap, it’s time to face the truth that the market is fundamentally unbalanced, and will remain so. Companies need to look for new solutions: reskilling and upskilling to build supply; automation to help reduce the demand; increasing pay to bring the two curves closer together; and finding new models that will make the market more efficient.”
New models
Among these new solutions, Talent Exchange could be crucial. Human Cloud platforms can offer new methods to source and share skills, providing a way for large enterprises to connect with other companies or smaller providers all over the globe who have unused capacity.
Companies are turning to an Open Talent model that looks beyond traditional concepts of full-time employment, according to Barry Matthews, CEO of Open Assembly, the world’s leading learning resource and consulting marketplace for the future of work and open talent economy.
“It helps to think of how work gets done as a series of tasks or activities that need to be completed, and then considering the best way to deliver them, rather than thinking of Open Talent as a way to replace job roles or titles,” Matthews said.
Talent from anywhere
The A3 Revolution also offers strategies for companies to address the Great Resignation, the high rate of skilled employees leaving full-time jobs for other forms of work – strategies that will become a permanent part of how enterprises do business.
In addition to practical advice for companies grappling with the shortage of skills, the report also includes tips for individuals seeking to chart a career path in a world of Anytime, Anyplace, Anywhere work.
“The old formulas no longer work in a rapidly virtualizing talent market where individuals become their own asset,” said Deborah Kops, a principal at Sourcing Change, which helps companies drive transformation by designing, counseling, sourcing and connecting with talent. She prescribes five ways for IT professionals to succeed: openness, risk-taking, constant learning, building networks and generosity.
The entire report can downloaded free of charge here.
Talent Alpha
