Article: Future Ready, Job Ready: Where and How to Find the Best Talent for the Future of Work

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Future Ready, Job Ready: Where and How to Find the Best Talent for the Future of Work

As the world recuperates from the pandemic, organizations are faced with the challenge of rethinking workforce planning for the emerging new work environment.
Future Ready, Job Ready: Where and How to Find the Best Talent for the Future of Work

As the world recuperates from the pandemic, the pendulum is swinging back from remote working to a combination of work from home and physical offices. Organizations are faced with the challenge of rethinking workforce planning for the emerging new work environment.

Today, the scenario is one of no clear division between working in the office and working from home. Organizations are increasingly looking at adopting a hybrid working model where the business makes it feasible. At the same time, the increasing adoption of digitization has led to employees with the skills to remain relevant in a world of work where automation and ‘smart’ AI-powered machines have displaced many jobs. These factors are making it critical for organizations to find the right talent that is future-ready and job-ready!

While skilling and reskilling on the job is one aspect, organizations also need talent that has acquired the knowledge along with the understanding and insight to function successfully in the new tech ecosystem.

However, the challenge for organizations is where and how one finds talent that is ready to face the new hybrid world of work powered by automation and technology! The talent should also be ready for the next round of disruption that technologies such as AI, blockchain, cloud computing, and 5G will bring about in the not-so-far-away future.

A World Economic Forum (WEF) report on the Future of Jobs speaks of tasks, jobs, and skills transforming by 2025, which is merely three years away! A Brookings Institution analysis indicates that around 61% of jobs will face medium to high exposure to automation in the coming decades. In the years to come, this will essentially create a kind of double-disruption with certain jobs becoming redundant, while jobs that require new skills will flourish. 

This also makes it clear that while there will continue to be a demand for talent, it will be specific to skills required for the jobs of the future. The need will be for talent that is future-ready vs market-ready. Changing employment trends show an exponential increase in the demand for talent in technology-driven roles.

According to upGrad’s Career Trends Report for the month of April – September 2021, the top 5 roles which recorded the highest demand from employers include Data Scientists, Data Engineers, Digital Marketers, Management Graduates, and Product Managers. The report also indicated an increased demand for upGrad’s Technology offerings from their learners, with certification in Data Science and certification in Machine Learning & AI garnering the highest intent and enrollments, followed closely by non-tech offerings like Advanced Certificate in Digital Marketing & Communication. 

At the same time, the drop in the ratio of job offers to joining has dropped to between 35% to 60%. This is creating challenges for organizations with an increase in the cost of acquisition and onboarding of skilled candidates.

One way to address this is to drive employee scalability through skilling and create a future-ready talent pool. However, the current workforce may consist of market-ready talent who are currently employable but don’t necessarily have skills essential for future jobs. It is here that online skilling and learning platforms are playing a crucial role in ensuring continuity by preparing a future-ready workforce. However, just skilling is not enough. Support in placement that such platforms have begun to provide are changing the game for organizations.

For organizations, platforms like upGrad Placements serve as a one-stop window that provides a solution to the talent gap that exists in the market. These play a key role as an enabler in supporting career transitions through bringing the right opportunity that meets the needs of talent, helping organizations match their objectives with those of the talent.

Matching the right talent with the organizational resource requirements also ensures that there is a reduction in attrition level along with optimization of hiring costs.

In addition, with a wide base of talent, these platforms also provide customized requirements based on organizational needs at any time and at every level. With a significant number of future jobs being unpredictable and requiring a different set of skills than those displayed by the current crop of talent, this provides organizations the confidence to continue with business as usual.

 Organizations need to equip the workforce with the functional, technical and behavioural skills required to serve as a part of the Future ready talent pool. To stay ahead in the changing game, there is a need to shift from being simply market-ready to becoming talent and future-ready. It is the only way for organizations to adapt and succeed and the time to start was not now, but yesterday!

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Topics: Recruitment, #Hiring, #Hire Future Ready# Workforce

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