3 TRENDS THAT WILL HUMANIZE WORK IN 2022

Clearly, the talent gap is widening — and that pattern will continue. McKinsey estimates that up to 107 million workers may need to change jobs by 2030. That’s roughly 12 million more than our pre-pandemic estimate. But as anyone in HR knows, qualified hires are hard to come by — and the resources required to locate and secure top candidates are getting increasingly costly. Organizations need to rethink their hiring strategies to meet changing demands. One powerful strategy is reskilling. Reskilling is training current employees on a completely new set of skills to take on an entirely different role. For example, a bank may reskill a customer service representative to become a software engineer. Not only does this approach preserve and invest in in-house talent, but it’s also cost-effective. One study found that companies could save $136k per person by reskilling existing tech talent versus imparting layoffs and new hires. Reskilling isn’t only an internal strategy. More and more businesses are using reskilling as a way to build — and broaden — candidate pipelines of junior talent. This strategy not only helps businesses fill roles but also allows them to tap into a more diverse pool of high-potential talent. As far as the common fear of investing in employees only to have them leave, reskilling seems to encourage the opposite, actually boosting engagement and loyalty. It actionably shows employees that their employer is invested in them. On average, companies who have reskilled with General Assembly have seen retention rates at 91%.

Digital transformation can make workers feel uneasy. When they hear about new technology automating tasks that were once theirs, it can come across as a threat to their employability. Employee resistance is one of the reasons over 70% of digital transformations don’t reach their goals. Moving forward, companies need to focus less on what systems, tools, and tech to buy, and more on how to enable the people who will use them. This is an attitude that needs to come from leadership. “Investing in training programs puts your employees at the heart of your transformation,” says Nathalie Doré, a transformation leader at BNP Paribas Cardiff. Over the past three years, she’s partnered with GA to continuously upskill members of the company’s 8,000-person workforce for the future of work. The program has changed not only what people do but how they think: “We saw an impact on the mindset of employees. The idea that someone studied marketing but can be a UX designer tomorrow… I think knowing they can learn new skills without having to leave their job encourages people to think differently about what they can do in the company and what their career path could be.” In the end, effective transformation isn’t about simply handing work off to machines to complete in isolation. It’s about integrating technology more seamlessly into daily workflows to elevate the entire work experience — and that message must be made abundantly clear.