Just as it happened in 1886 with the demand for an 8-hour working day, today we are facing a new technological revolution, which is also producing profound disconnects between labor supply and demand, many of them structural.
One of the main challenges is the talent shortage: according to ManpowerGroup’s 2023 Talent Shortage Survey, 8 out of 10 employers in Argentina cannot find the candidates with the skills they need. As companies have been forced to accelerate their digital transformation processes, the gap between what organizations need and what is on the market is greater, and year after year this rate is increasing.
On the other hand, the needs of the people and their priorities also changed and now they want to choose how and where to work, placing more and more emphasis on flexibility, health, well-being, integration between family and work life.
It is no coincidence that while companies are discussing how to attract and develop talent, the debate about a 4-working-day shift instead of 5 slipped onto the agenda.
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What is striking is that while the 97% of employees who did a pilot test in the United States, want to continue with a compressed scheduleonly 1 in 10 organizations would consider offering this scheme.
Digital transformation is about how organizations manage to attract, inspire and unite talent so that, by adopting the new technology, they produce competitive changes at a higher speed. In short, it is a human transformation, which requires a profound rethinking of how we understand learningwhat is the role of people, companies and the State.
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This implies, among other things, rethink our educational system to adapt it to the needs of the market. Imagine a high school that meets the need to generate a real job opportunity or university systems with an offer of more short, dynamic and updated careers.
8 out of 10 employers cannot find the right candidates
Many companies are considering whether today a university degree should be a filter in some of the positions and given the lack of skills, they are investing much more in training their workforce. finally, the idea of self-development requires a major cultural change.
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With the democratization of access to knowledge and the use of free online courses, part of the responsibility for learning has gradually been transferred to people, and for this reason one of the most required skills is “learning capacity”which implies having a predisposition to be continuously learning autonomously.
If we have learned anything from disruptive technological changes, it is that the breaking of old paradigms and the tension between supply and demand, can generate a hard, traumatic and very painful process for society. Like an invisible force that process continues until the damage has already been done.
It is up to all of us to anticipate and adopt measures so that what is urgent does not make us mortgage the future of the next generations and we put the great challenge presented by talent on our country’s agenda.
*General Director of ManpowerGroup Argentina
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