1 | © 2017 Tammy Erickson. All Rights Reserved. The Future of Talent Tammy Erickson Professor, London Business School 2 May 2017 Managing Talent: A Changing Workforce . . . and a Changing World NFI Industries Annual Customer Advisory Board
1 | © 2017 Tammy Erickson. All Rights Reserved.
The Future of Talent
Tammy Erickson Professor, London Business School 2 May 2017
Managing Talent: A Changing Workforce . . . and a Changing World
NFI Industries Annual Customer Advisory Board
2 | © 2017 Tammy Erickson. All Rights Reserved.
Understanding Future Talent
Capabilities of Technology
Nature of the Population
Type of Work
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Source: U.S. Census Bureau, 2000
Age
80
70
60
50
40
30
20
10
0 1000 1200 1400 1600 1800 1900 2000
25 30
35 36 38
47
76.5
Year
The “Sudden” Boom in Life Expectancy
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More Healthy Years After Traditional Retirement
13.6
19.4 20-25
1.2
30 +
Years
Source: Age Wave, based on U.S. data, and The Concours Group (now Tammy Erickson Associates)
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Births per
100 Population
4
6
2
0
1
3
5
1820 1900 1950 1998
Africa
India
Brazil
China United States
Western Europe
Japan
Source: "Changing Global Demographics," H.S. Dent Publishing, 2007, based on data from the United Nations.
Declining Birth Rates Around the World
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Shifting Populations Shapes
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No Crisply-Defined “Generations”
Generation X Boomer Traditionalist Generation Y Re-Generation
A spectrum of shifting mental models over time
Born 1928-1945
Born 1946-1960
Born 1961-1979
Born 1980-1995
Born 1996 Onward
Typically marked by major events – prompting a significant change in the focus of adult conversation
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Sensorimotor stage (birth-2 years old)
Concepts about how physical objects work based on direct physical interaction with the environment
Preoperational stage (ages 2-7)
Intuitive intelligence related to concrete physical situations
Concrete operations (ages 7-11)
Logical structures related to concrete objects or physical experiences (numbers, for example)
Formal operations (ages 11-15)
Conceptual reasoning and abstractions
Mental models that persist throughout adulthood
Cognitive Structures Form from the Interpretation of Events
Piaget’s Four Developmental Stages
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Shared views and common
perspectives
Our Mental Maps Are Shaped by Many Factors
National and
global events and
trends
Parents’ views
Religion
Race and ethnicity
Gender
Socioeconomic status
Many other factors
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Critical Differences Around the Globe
No “global” generations
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Who Are They . . . And How Are They Different?
Traditionalist
Collective
• Eager to join • Loyal • Hierarchical
Boomer
Competitive
• Zero-sum • Hard-working • Idealistic
Gen Xer
Self-Reliant
• Mistrustful of institutions
• Options-based
1928-1945 1946-1960 1961-1979 Born: Born: Born:
Outlook on Life
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Who Are They . . . And How Are They Different?
Millennials
Immediate
• Live each day to the fullest
Re-Gens
Patient
• Defer gratification • Build your own
future
1980-1995 1996 Onward Born: Born:
Outlook on Life
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The Re-Generation: The Meaning of Money
The Re-Generation: Born 1996 Onward
• They save, defer gratification, and are reluctant to incur debt
• They will rent – and generally access goods and services in innovative ways
• They will downsize – objects don’t confer status
• They recycle, share, borrow, trade, and barter
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Nature of the Population
will consume in very different ways
Consider for the Future . . .
A very different customer base:
• Proportionately older
• More diverse
• With new views on money
• Seeking variety, challenge, and flexibility –
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New Technologies . . .
• Make it possible to find almost anyone or anything, anywhere easily and quickly
• Dramatically reduce the cost of communication – transactions, coordination, pattern detection
Copyright: vivilweb / 123RF Stock Photo
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Transaction Costs: Determine Institutional Structure
• Why a firm is of a certain size
• Why activities are performed within
the organization’s boundaries
Ronald Coase The Nature of the Firm, 1937 Nobel Prize for Economics, 1991
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Rethinking Processes – Removing “Control” of Resources
• In the 1980’s and 1990s: lower costs of communication facilitated companies’ ability to spin off non-core activities
• Today: lower cost of coordination will lessen companies’ need to “own” resources . . .
. . . including the need to employ workers full-time
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Digital Changing How We Get Things Done
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Consider for the Future . . .
Technology has already dramatically reduced the cost of transactions –
Capabilities of Technology
and will fundamentally change the way work is done – how it’s done, where it’s done, when, by whom, in what organisational construct – and how it is financed
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Where Is This Century’s Opportunity to Excel?
Peter Drucker
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MOBILISING INTELLIGENCE
The Most Important Work Today
• Combining different types of knowledge and expertise to come up with something better
• Harnessing the smallest units of knowledge
• Determining what information to share, with whom
• Tapping individual’s particular knowledge and capacities in ways that contribute to the success of the whole
• Creating insightful relationships with customers, suppliers and others
• Detecting and responding to market and environmental shifts
• Learning
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New Models of Leadership – and New Organisational Designs Are Essential
Create Context
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Type of Work
it is fundamentally different from industrial work and will drive new organizations and work practices
The highest-value work leverages intelligence –
Consider for the Future . . .
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Characteristics of Future Organisations and the Challenges of Talent Management
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How Work Is Organized: Tasks
Self-managed projects Discrete activities
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What Might This Look Like?
• Few people will have broad organisationally-defined titles
• Titles will be time-bound and action-oriented
• Some people will take on multiple projects at a time
• Some projects will be short (months); others very long (perhaps a decade or more)
• Compensation will be tied to the project (‘this project pays x amount’)
• People will have great flexibility in choosing or bidding for assignments on various projects
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What Does This Mean for Talent Management?
• Break work into activities or projects
• Eliminate or downplay broad, position-based titles
• Create ways to allocate projects that allow individual choice and tap the best expertise
• Create new performance review process: task-based, aligned with task milestones, and reviews done by peers on the task team
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How Work Is Integrated: Coordination
Real-time coordination –
when and where needed
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What Does This Mean for Talent Management?
• Redesign processes: look for opportunities to substitute some form of coordination
• Identify resources, including skill sets, that you don’t need to “own” full-time – prepare to tap them as needed
• In doing so, embrace a variety of flexible arrangements (share, rent, borrow)
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How Organizations Relate to Those Who Work: Portfolio Staffing
A variety
of work
arrangements
A community of individuals
“on tap”
Processes to
develop and
maintain
long-term
relationships
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Weaving Individuals Together
A strong employment brand will become essential
As the relationship with workers takes on an episodic nature, the need to provide continuity between episodes of work will be critically important
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Changing Metrics
• Although important for some tasks, tenure will no longer be a metric applied to the overall workforce
• A more relevant metric will emerge, related to “fit for purpose” – the extent to which individual projects are staffed by people with the ideal skill sets.
• How many of our tasks are staffed by people with the full complement of skills desired?
• How close is our staffing to the ideal?
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Changing Selection Criteria
• College degrees will diminish as a currency in the job market
• Employers will seek more task-specific credentials
• “Badging” – some way of signifying and communicating on-the-job learning and achievements – will grow
• Companies will compete for talent on the basis of the learning they provide
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What Does This Mean for Talent Management?
• Offer a wide variety of work arrangements
• Tap skills anywhere, anytime, matching talent from all over the globe with task
• Establish a reputation as a great place to work
• Cultivate a long-term relationship with pools of individuals that you may need to tap in the future
• Emphasize learning and development; create a system to provide marketable credentials to those who excel in your organization
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How Differentiating Value is Created Discretionary Effort
Confidence In Your Organisation’s
Unique Identity
An Employee Experience
Consistent with Your Implicit
Promise
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Meaning Is the New Money
Old New
Adopting best practices Crafting unique experiences
Trying to be all things to all people Attracting and retaining people who value what you have to offer
Offering a little of everything Excelling in specific areas that align with your values
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What Does This Mean for Talent Management?
• Identify your own powerful set of “design principles” (values)
• Create a powerful, differentiating employee experience, orchestrating elements throughout the organization: leadership behaviors, people practices and processes, day-to-day work experiences, as well as corporate stories and legends
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INTRIGUE
CONNECT
ENGAGE
DISRUPT Ensure a continual infusion of new perspectives
Ask questions – framing challenges in ways that are evocative and inspiring
Make it easy to share insights, observations and ideas
Communicate a compelling purpose ~ understand the implicit promise
~ deliver on the experience to both employees and customers
Four Contemporary Tools of Leadership
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