insight | SUPPORTING GLOBAL BUSINESS PLANNING
www.thehrdirector.com
the legacy anchor
dragging
“DEVELOPING TALENT IS THE MOST IMPORTANT TASK - THE PREREQUISITE OF COMPETITION IN A KNOWLEDGE ECONOMY”. SO SAYS PETER DRUCKER. BUT DEVELOPING TALENT IS EVEN MORE IMPORTANT WHEN MULTIPLE TRANSFORMATION PROJECTS RUN ACROSS THE ORGANISATION, INTERNATIONALLY. IN THE DIGITAL AGE, TALENT TRANSFORMATION IS FUNDAMENTAL.
ARTICLE BY EMMANUELLE BLONS, AVP, CHANGE MANAGEMENT - INFOSYS
“India and China executives say they are ahead of competitors in staffing and completing their projects. A possible explanation could be that companies in both these countries are less bogged down by legacy systems”
In July 2019, our organisation surveyed more than 1,000 senior management executives globally from international companies, with revenue greater than US$1 billion. Respondents represented multiple industries and were based in Australia, China, France, Germany, India, the United Kingdom and the United States. The objective was to understand the role of human talent in global business in the digital age, what are the demand drivers and skill gaps and what companies are doing to address them. This led to the report Talent Radar 2019. Sourcing such talent across international borders has put tremendous pressure on organisations. What was once a talent war has become a talent famine, right across the world. In the UK alone, the skills shortage has caused organisations to spend a staggering £6.3 billion, according to the Open University Business Barometer. Most organisations are actively digitally improving their business, but for large organisations - those with a $1 billion revenue and more - digitisation isn’t about disruption or transformation, they use digital to achieve international business operations and objectives, and more focused objectives such as; improving customer experience and increasing productivity. Contrary to popular belief that large companies must disrupt in order to survive against digital upstarts, such companies have found that the best approach is through focused initiatives. However, incumbents shouldn’t fall into the trap of digitising by using a separate business unit, and must instead upskill the entire workforce, across the international operations network.
34 | thehrdirector | DECEMBER 2019
Globally, the three technical hard skills in highest demand are analytics (67 percent of digital initiatives), user experience (67 percent) and automation (61 percent). These technical skills are required to deliver digital initiatives at scale, so large companies need numerous employees with these skill sets. For analytics, the need has moved from beyond simply finding a solution to identifying an issue before it becomes a problem. User experience skills are highly sought after for initiatives that focus on customers and their experience. For soft skills, collaboration skills are valued more highly than individual skills. Teamwork and leadership are rated highest for digital projects, with three quarters of projects requiring these skills. To measure how organisations are positioned to meet current and future talent needs, there are five key areas. Companies were assigned scores between 0 and 100. Then using the Talent Readiness Index to classify companies into three clusters: Followers, Challengers and Leaders. Followers have fewer approaches to develop talent and don’t measure their results or effectiveness. Challengers invest heavily in anywhere, anytime training, but they still rely on traditional sources for talent acquisition. And Leaders build a lifelong learning culture and use it to retain top talent. India and China scored higher on the index than the other countries surveyed. All other countries, including the UK, received similar scores to each other. This takes into account the ability of organisations to meet skill demand at scale. India and China executives say they are ahead of competitors in staffing and completing their
projects. A possible explanation could be that companies in both countries are less likely to be bogged down by legacy systems. Lack of budget is cited as the most significant tangible barrier to reskilling the workforce to support the digital capabilities that are so essential to global business, while learnability is an undervalued intangible barrier. This is important to bear in mind as budget is a proxy for management priority, and undervaluing learnability hinders other talent initiatives from succeeding. This is particularly acute in consideration of global skills development. To address today’s global digital talent needs and prepare for the future; Cast a wider net for new hires so that talent can be sought from all possible sources globally. Reskill and redeploy in-house talent for experiential learning in a fail-fast environment. Engage temporary workers and gig economy strategically to maintain operational discipline. Align organisational structure to evolving business needs for self- managing, agile projects. Embracing multiple approaches is critical to develop and manage diverse talent needs and demands. With focus and persistence, HR leaders will be able to convert this talent famine into a talent feast.
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www.infosys.com
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