HR Accelerates to Keep Up With Mega-Trends for the Future of Work
Economic factors, social changes and technological advances are driving multiple changes in and outside the workplace, posing even greater challenges for the HR profession.
Businesses are struggling to get the skills they need to execute their strategy. Even companies that are using more automation, AI and machine learning foresee a growing gap in the skills and experience workers need to utilize these advanced tools. According to a recent study by Korn Ferry, a global organizational consulting firm, by 2030, there will be a global human talent shortage of more than 85 million people, roughly equivalent to the population of Germany. Left unchecked, in 2030 that talent shortage could result in about USD 8.5 trillion in unrealized annual revenues¹.
Workplace turnover is increasing and an estimated 42 million, or one in four, employees in the U.S. will leave their jobs in 2018. In September 2018, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported the average employee tenure was 4.2 years, down from 4.6 years in January 2014². In the US alone, 2018 had an average of 6.9 million open positions at any given month with only 5.7 million hires every month³.
More than 50% of millennial workers are already freelancing according to a study released earlier this year by Upwork and Freelancers Union, and in 2019 alone, 57 million Americans freelanced representing 35% of the entire U.S. workforce. In fact, most jobs created in advanced economies don’t offer permanent contracts but are self-employed or freelance work⁴.
Skills shortages, accelerated turnover, contingent workforces and the gig economy drive a volatile and disruptive global labor market. In this reality, finding, engaging and retaining the right talent and tracking the skills and expertise available across an organization’s total talent supply chain of incumbent, contingent and alumni workforce, proves to be even more challenging without access to the latest big data and AI technologies.