Talent Edge Weekly - Issue #39

Welcome to this week’s issue of Talent Edge Weekly - the weekly newsletter for strategic human resources practitioners, bringing together talent and HR insights from various sources.

This week's Edge covers the following resources:

  1. The Future of Jobs Report 2020 | World Economic Forum

  2. Untangling The HR Tech Market 2021 | HR Tech Conference Keynote - Josh Bersin 

  3. Transforming Talent Acquisition for the Future Report| Alexander Mann Solutions

  4. Diversity & Inclusion Report 2020 | DDI

  5. Tech Is Transforming People Analytics. Is That a Good Thing?| Harvard Business Review 

  6. How Trust Considerations Influences Workplace Return Intentions | Deloitte Insights

  7. Video: Women Are Dropping Out Of The Workforce | Bloomberg Technology

If you enjoy content like this, you can access additional articles and resources at www.brianheger.com

If you find this issue to be of value, please share the newsletter link or any of its articles with your social media networks. To share an article summary, you can click the “share” icon located below the summary.

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Have a great week everyone!

Brian

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Brian Heger is a human resources practitioner with a Fortune 150 organization and has responsibilities for Strategic Talent and Workforce Planning. To connect with Brian on Linkedin, click here.

THIS WEEK'S EDGE

As the COVID-19 pandemic continues to accelerate the arrival of the future of work, this new 163-page report provides several insights on the future of jobs and skills over the next five years. A few findings include: 1) The most in-demand skills are a mix of hard and soft skills. 2) The most in-demand skills of the future will consist of working with people, problem-solving, and self-management skills such as resilience, stress tolerance, and flexibility. 3) Reskilling for the future roles will require a time investment ranging from three weeks to five months. 4) On average, companies estimate that around 40% of workers will need reskilling of six months or less, and 94% of business leaders report that they expect employees to pick up new skills on the job, a sharp uptake from 65% in 2018. 5) By 2025, 85 million jobs may be displaced by a shift in labor division between humans and machines, while 97 million new roles may emerge. This report is replete with insights that have implications for strategic workforce planning, talent acquisition, upskilling and reskilling, and all aspects of talent management. 

While the HR technology market was already undergoing radical changes, the coronavirus pandemic has accelerated this disruption. Faced with a more significant number of employees working remotely and an overall need to leverage AI and automation to transform their workforces, organizations are working hard to identify the HR tools and technologies in which they should invest. With this as the backdrop, this year's HR Tech Conference (which was virtual and took place last week) was especially timely for many organizations that seek guidance as they make these decisions. Josh Bersin used this 85-page deck in his keynote address as he shared insights on eight HR tech areas: 1) Core HR Systems 2) Talent Management  3) Employee Voice Platforms 4) New Generation Learning Platforms 5) Careers in the Future of Work  6) Wellbeing Meets Employee Experiences  7) People Analytics 8) Creating an Employee-Centric HR Tech Architectures. This reference is essential for all buyers and decision-makers of HR technology platforms. 

COVID-19 continues to transform the talent acquisition (TA) landscape. And as TA functions continue to adjust their practices and approaches to reflect a new environment, this 28-page report provides several insights on how the crisis has shaped TA this year and into the future across North America, EMEA, and APAC. Page 16 shows how eight components of the TA process (Recruitment Marketing, Sourcing, Screening, Assessing, Interviewing, Hiring, Onboarding, and Candidate Care) has evolved and how it has stayed the same. The report notes that, for many companies, there is currently no standard around measuring and improving quality of hire (QoH). And in a post-pandemic world, firms will need to reimagine what defines QoH, which should go beyond performance and retention. QoH might reflect the extent to which a worker demonstrates attributes--such as emotional intelligence, resilience, and flexibility-- that are increasingly essential to many firms' organizational culture and new ways of work.

The business and societal value of Inclusion and Diversity (I&D) in the workplace has been established through various sources over the years. And although these benefits have been articulated, we must remind ourselves of this value and how firms can capture it through their workplace practices. This new report examines responses from HR executives and leaders worldwide on aspects of I&D. It reinforces the relationship between firm performance and gender and racial/ethnic diversity representation and how firms that qualify as "Best Places to Work" are rated substantially higher across several areas related to I&D. The report also points out that women may still be struggling to advance to leadership roles because they typically receive less coaching or feedback compared to men. This premise aligns with recent research on which I commented, Women Hear More White Lies in Performance Evaluations Than Men, and The Real Reason Women Aren't Advancing. These findings indicate that firms can strengthen aspects of I&D through performance management and other feedback mechanisms, which are talked about less often as drivers of I&D. 

Earlier this year, I made a post on LinkedIn's 2020 Global Talent Trends report, which outlined four trends that are changing the way organizations hire and retain talent. In that 93-page report, which can be accessed through the post link, one trend is people analytics (PA) - (pages 27-45). And while the rise of PA was well in motion before the pandemic, the crisis has accelerated the use of data to understand and predict employees' behaviors. However, as mentioned in this HBR article, as firms continue to leverage PA, it is essential to deploy these tools ethically. In fact, a recent article in Personnel Today highlighted how H&M Group, a family of retail brands, was fined for intrusive data collection and analysis of hundreds of employees' activities. The HBR article notes that one way to address the privacy issue in PA is to "adopt a PA ethics charter that helps them to govern what they should clearly or shouldn't do, in the same way that they have guidelines for the usage of customer or financial data." Such an approach can unlock the value of PA while upholding high standards of ethics and privacy.  

While we do not know when the pandemic will subside, many organizations continue to rethink, rebuild, and develop reentry strategies for their workforce. And as firms refine these plans, they should ask: How likely is it that workers even want to return? What should business leaders expect? How should workers' intentions inform back-to-the-workplace plans? To help answer these questions, this article (18 min read) gathered information about workers' pre–COVID-19 workplace experience and satisfaction, their experience transitioning out of the office, their current work experience and satisfaction, and return intentions. One driver that will influence workers' likelihood of wanting to return is Trust - "our willingness to be vulnerable to the actions of others because we believe they have good intentions and will behave well toward us." As leaders continue to plan, they should ensure that they do not forget about the importance of engendering Trust among their workforce. Doing so can accelerate a firm's recovery and enable it to thrive in a post-pandemic world. 

THE SOUND OF INSIGHT

A few weeks ago, I posted on and shared the 63-page Women in The Workplace 2020 report from Lean In and McKinsey. One of the report's several findings is that 1-in-4 women is considering downshifting (working in a reduced capacity) their careers or leaving the workforce due to the pandemic. In this 4-minute video news segment, Rachel Thomas, CEO of Lean In, elaborates on a few findings from the report, highlighting what some call a "Female Recession." Rachel mentions how three women's segments have been especially impacted by the pandemic: 1) mothers - who are doing more caregiving at home than before and concerned that their performance is being negatively judged  2) senior-level women - who feel they need to be working harder and are burnt out, 3) Black women - who are less likely to feel supported at work during COVID-19. I also include here a 90-second news segment from NBC news where Vicky Nguyen talks to women from across the US, many of whom say they were forced to choose between family and career.

OTHER RESOURCES

Book Recommendations on HR and business topics, such as:

People Analytics

Learning and Development ROI and Analytics

Strategic Workforce Planning

Performance Management

Employee Surveys

Upskilling

Recommended Tools I use for my personal learning and productivity, such as two of this newsletter's affiliates:

  • Soundview Executive Books Summaries which provides 7-8 page PDF summaries, and audio summaries, on the newest ideas and strategies from the best business books. They offer both individual and corporate plans, which can be monthly or yearly. One free sample is available for download.

  • Audible, who offers a 30-day free trial where you will get two free audiobooks immediately. You get to keep the two free audiobooks even if you decide to not purchase a monthly or yearly Audible subscription.

COVID-19 Resources for HR. These resources were gathered from March through May and contain 150+ references that can be leveraged as HR practitioners continue to lead their organizations through the recovery phase and beyond

WHO IS IN THE HR JOB MARKET?

If you are a subscriber to this newsletter and searching for an HR-related role, I am more than happy to list your name, a link to your Linked In Profile, and a sentence or two that describes what you are looking for, in a future issue of this newsletter. If interested, please send me an email from the email address that you used when signing-up for this newsletter.

The following subscribers are in the HR job market:

  • Cathy Ellwood - is looking for roles at the Director and Sr. Director level in Talent Management, Talent Acquisition, Organization Development and/or Learning & Development. Cathy especially enjoys roles where she can lead in each of these areas, but it is open to leading just one. Fully relocatable (currently in St. Louis), with a first preference of Columbus, Ohio.

  • Nora Kinsela - is currently seeking a mid/senior level Talent Management/Development role in the Greater Boston area. The ideal company is one that looks to create an engaged workforce by providing career development opportunities needed for them to thrive and be their best selves.

  • Serguei Zaychenko - is looking for an Executive Recruiter/Talent Acquisition Recruiter role in the metro New York City area. Serguei worked both for large, Fortune 500, as well as small, entrepreneurial companies and thrives in hyper-growth environments.

SHARE YOUR IDEAS

While I try to read as much as I can and share resources and ideas that I believe would be of value to readers, there is only so much that one person can possibly uncover! This is where I ask for your active contribution to this newsletter.

If you have an article, report, or resource that you recommend, please send me an email at [email protected]. I would love to review it and potentially share it in a future newsletter.

And, if you have any ideas or suggestions on how this newsletter can be improved or deliver greater value (including topics you would like to see covered), please send me a note with your suggestions.

FINAL COMMENTS

If you aren’t yet a subscriber to Talent Edge Weekly and want to have it delivered to your email inbox every Sunday, you can subscribe by entering your email below.

If you enjoy this content and would like to access all issues of Talent Edge Weekly, you can do so by clicking here. You can also access content at www.brianheger.com

If you found this issue to be of value, please share the link above with your social media networks.

I look forward to sharing more ideas in next week’s Edge!

Brian