The End of the Talent Wars?

Time to wave the white flag on the talent wars.

Companies continue to wage a war on talent and guess what – no one is winning. Skills shortages aren’t something to fight over – it’s time to look differently at addressing the talent gap.

So why is the talent gap widening?

• There’s a shortage of hard skills, particularly in ‘new’ areas. For example, digital has created a whole new set of requirements and the existing workforce still hasn’t caught up.
• There’s a shortage of soft skills. According to Deloitte, this is a priority for 92% of business leaders, yet it’s an additional challenge when you’re already struggling for talent.
• It’s really hard to plan for new types of talent. Strategic Workforce Planning has become tougher – how can a plan work if you’re just creating more roles to fill.
• The workforce itself is changing. Research among the 60,000 high-end business professionals in the Talmix network shows that they want meaningful, purpose-led work which allows both the development of new skills and specialisms, AND allows for flexibility.

Deciding to wage war to address this – well it’s like most wars – pretty futile. But waving the white flag and hoping your business will thrive – well that’s quite naive too.

Make talent, not war!

• Explore and develop more talent connections. You can never have too many connections – match your requirements to every available source of talent. And do it fast.

• Be fluid in your workforce planning. Use those connections to create a workforce that is a mix of full time and part time, permanent and contingent, returners and independents. Changing the make-up of your workforce creates infinite possibilities.

• Throw away your org charts. If you build your business by adding in roles and layers, you’re not creating jobs, you’re creating spaces. And spaces don’t deliver results. 

• Projects not positions. Replacing the org chart with a project structure, allows you to see how mixing talent allows you to create teams that respond and deliver. to create teams to respond. The days of one person, one role are numbered.

The talent gap isn’t going away, but you can close it. Create connections and see where they take you.

About the Author

Sandeep came to Talmix with a background in consulting and finance and used this international experience to build and grow our commercial operations. He became CEO in June 2018 with a commitment to drive the next stage of growth and success and make Talmix the best solution for talent acquisition.

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