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Total Workforce Index Addresses Organizational Challenges Most Impacted by Lack of Growth Talent

Total Workforce Index Addresses Organizational Challenges Most Impacted by Lack of Growth Talent

ManpowerGroup’s Q4 2021 Employment Outlook Survey confirms hiring intentions have returned to pre-pandemic levels. Though organizations are aggressively pursuing growth opportunities during the tightest labor market in 80 years, 69% of employers globally say they are having difficulty filling roles due to a lack of skilled talent. This is running at a 15-year high, breaking a previous high set in Q3 2021. The data suggests it has never been more difficult to attract, activate and retain talent that can fuel growth.  

Business Challenges Most Impacted by Growth Talent  

Why is this particularly challenging for businesses? The lack of growth talent is a severe threat to competitiveness—both for individual organizations and entire economies.  

“Growth talent” offers competencies that expand digital transformation, accelerate speed to market and deepen product or service personalization. Let’s take a closer look at each of those respective areas and what they mean for organizations: 

Digitization of Business Models or Processes

Digital transformation and automation of routine tasks are escalating demand for skill sets related to areas such as robotic process automation and information security, as well as greater digital literacy across workforces.  According to recent ManpowerGroup research, 38% of companies are speeding up digitation and automation as a result of the pandemic while 17% have put plans on hold.

At the same time, more jobs are being created than eliminated – 86% of employers that are automating plan to increase or maintain their headcount, compared to just 11% of employers who plan to reduce or hold plans to automate.1

Every business is now a digital business. And without the right talent in place to fully scale up to meet the demands of a digital world, companies will suffer and ultimately fall behind their competitors. 

Speed-to-Market and Operating Agility

In a rapidly evolving, innovation-driven economy, the ability to compress time-to-market depends on access to a wide range of skills—everything from API engineering and sales acceleration to product and project management.  

In an on-demand world, consumers have become accustomed to getting what they want, be it a product, service, or information, with a simple click or swipe of their finger. Furthermore, bringing new, innovative products to market quickly attracts customers while building both perceived value and brand recognition---critical in a hyper-competitive environment. 

Personalization of Products and Services

Companies that are able to meet consumers’ evolving expectations for more personalized experiences are better positioned to fast-track growth. This requires high-level, hard-to-find information and analytics capabilities that enable organizations to convert data into meaningful consumer engagement. Personalization tends to increase perceived quality, customer satisfaction, trust, and especially loyalty toward a brand. 

Get a Competitive Edge in Optimizing Workforce Investments 

Market intelligence tools such as the Total Workforce IndexTM (TWI) empower organizations to leverage comprehensive data and insights to address these pressing workforce challenges and secure the growth talent needed to compete.

For eight years, the Total Workforce Index has provided a vital edge in the race for talent focusing short, medium, and long-term investments on labor markets with the most potential in sectors or skill sets that will shape the post-pandemic world.  It's a one-of-a-kind tool that assesses workforce potential based on over 200 factors across 75 global markets to provide a comprehensive view of four key areas: workforce supply, cost efficiency, productivity and regulation

The next article, Total Workforce Index™ Finds Opportunities Exist…If You Know Where to Look, explores the key opportunities for organizations and how employers are already gaining an edge in the race for growth talent by shaping workforce strategies with leading market intelligence. The Total Workforce Index enables organizations to conduct customized analyses with the weightings for data adjusted to factors that drive growth uniquely within a specific industry and markets, and the opportunities for customization are extensive. 

Download the 2021 summary report and visit the TWI website to explore the data and rankings. Reach out to the Talent Solutions Consulting team to learn more about customizing the TWI for your organization.

1 Humans Wanted: Robots Need You. ManpowerGroup, 2019