The HR Factor: Shoring Up Skills Shortages May 09, 2008 Edited by Jeremy Cohen
Finding, developing and keeping talent—as opposed to merely filling vacancies—will be the new role of human resources management in the future, thanks to some fairly dramatic changes on the horizon for the global labor pool.
"This new role of HR management comes as a consequence of three trends converging: globalization, demographic change and skills shortages," says Donna Murphy, managing director of the Adecco Institute. And based on a survey Adecco conducted with 5,000 HR professionals, many companies risk being caught off guard by this sea change.
Globalization in developed countries is increasing the demand for skilled and highly qualified labor, while the demand for unskilled work is simultaneously shrinking. This increased demand for a qualified workforce is compounded by demographic effects: Older, more qualified workers are retiring and fewer young people are replacing them. In the U.S. alone, the number of workers aged 55 and older is projected to grow by 47% in the next eight years—approximately 5.5 times the 8.5 percent growth of the labor force overall.
Yet surprisingly, the Adecco survey reveals the average planning horizon of HR professionals today is only 1.1 years, and that companies are unprepared for the exodus of knowledge and expertise resulting from the impending mass retirement of the Baby Boom generation. Some 35% of the HR managers interviewed are already experiencing particular skills shortages in technical knowledge, with another 19 % having problems finding job candidates with the IT skills needed for the positions they try to fill.
"Whereas in the past, business success was primarily a matter of successfully competing for customers, in the future, business success will increasingly depend on successfully competing for qualified employees," says Murphy. "This scarcity of one of the most critical of all resources—human talent—will position HR management as one of the most forceful factors in a company's growth and productivity."
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