What the Dickens connects The Muppets and The Great Resignation?
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My favourite version of the classic Christmas Carol story features talking animals with American accents. I fondly remember getting a VHS of The Muppet Christmas Carol from my brother in 1992, which is why watching it with my kids now is such a joy, particularly as we all find Rizzo the Rat equally funny.
You're probably asking yourself what this has to do with the future of work. Well, the truth is, much like you, I'm in dire need of some time off, and in a state of fatigue and winding-down mode, my brain is deviating to some unlikely places.
That said, as we near the year's end, reflecting on the past, the present, and what lies ahead seems apt. To keep it relatively brief, though, I’ll focus on one underlying theme driving changes in how we work: skills.
2021 (the past):
2021 is the year in which bargaining power has shifted from businesses to workers, resulting in an incredibly competitive talent market and wage inflation. Whether it's a case of pent-up demand following the prolonged stasis experienced by many businesses during 2020, a reassessment of people's work/life priorities, or, possibly, a bit of both, something is going on.
If you believe it's more a case of the former – a lag from 2020 - then you might consider this a temporary phenomenon. However, I've spoken to hundreds of companies and received data from many more that tells me that attitudes and behaviours among the most highly skilled parts of the workforce have fundamentally shifted.
That last part is crucial here because we're slowly waking up to a global skills shortage as the quality of education and training has failed to keep up with the rate of innovation in business.
The skills problem isn’t just caused by a lack of technical capabilities like cyber security and machine learning, although this is an issue. We also need to reevaluate how we train ‘soft skills’ and determine where to redeploy talent from waning industries to dynamic new categories.
And it’s not just a matter of the skills people don't have. It's also a lack of visibility of those they do. The long outdated CV and its modern counterpart, the LinkedIn profile, are insufficient for the demands of the current and future jobs market, as I discuss on this week's podcast with Dror Gurevich.
How are you supposed to screen candidates effectively when 80% of people admit to lying on their CV, and when you're limited to a handful of cherry-picked references, at best?
2022 (the present):
If it's challenging to get a sense of a candidate’s capabilities during the recruitment process, things aren't much better internally.
While more and more businesses invest in HR and Workforce tech, generally speaking, it's yet to impact performance. One reason for this is the relative infancy and proliferation of people analytics. The more significant issue is managers' lack of skills to extract insights from data.
All of this makes reassessing managers' roles and training priorities for businesses of all sizes next year, particularly given the shift to remote and hybrid work. Management should never have been about proximity, and it certainly can't be now as the location of teams will be varied and unbalanced, between those who opt for more office-based work and those who work 'from anywhere'.
The most successful organisations and leaders will balance soft and hard skills: clear, consistent communication and empathy, with a keen understanding of how to use data and technology to support the measurement of each individuals’ contributions and, critically, their skills profile – the things they're best at, the areas in which they can help others, and those in which they need support to develop.
2023 and beyond (the future):
The consulting firm, Korn Ferry, estimates that by 2030 a global shortage of skilled workers will result in $8.5 trillion in lost output. Unlocking this unrealised revenue can't be achieved by businesses alone. Many national governments are overdue a rethink of their education strategy and how they prioritise skills like creativity and critical thinking.
And this isn't exactly a new idea. We've seen an explosion in the growth of digital learning platforms like General Assembly, Udacity and Udemy over the past decade, and it’s the subject of the most popular TED talk of all time.
Alongside an improved approach to education, we also need to rethink how people record and share their skills. These may be in a format we’re used to, like training accreditations, but more likely through a more dynamic approach to endorsing their contributions and expertise from employers and collaborators. After all, there are few more frustrating and inefficient things than losing all the insights from a great manager when you start a new job. Or on the flip side, onboarding a new member of the team and having to learn from scratch what makes them tick and where their strengths lie.
Here’s where Dror Gurevich’s vision for the ‘Internet of Careers’ comes in. Starting with the most basic information, like identity, eligibility to work, and employment history, the principle that every individual should own a data wallet, which they take with them throughout their lives, seems entirely logical, which is why Dror founded Velocity Network Foundation, intending to reinvent how we share career records across the global market.
As I look ahead to 2022, 2023 and beyond, we can create a modern alternative to the CV that doesn’t just show potential employers and collaborators where we worked and when. Instead, this work/life wallet will be a living, breathing representation of our careers, highlighting how we work best, with whom, and the superpowers that make each of us unique.
I can't wait to hone my relaxing skills over the next couple of weeks, but I look forward to sharing more of my thoughts on these topics and more in 2022. Thanks for all your support this year, and take care!
Ollie
You can listen to my conversation with Dror Gurevich on this week’s episode of the Future Work/Life podcast, HERE.
Any Other Business:
As this is the year's last edition, rather than sharing my top content from the week, here are my top Future Work/Life podcasts and newsletters from 2021. Enjoy!
PODCASTS:
Christine Armstrong - Making Work Better
Damian Hughes - The Non-Negotiables of High Performance
Jennifer Moss - Burnout & Happiness
Melissa Daimler - Culture lessons from Adobe, Twitter & WeWork
Rory Sutherland - The Future of Work, Offices and Cities
NEWSLETTERS:
AI, decision-making, and the future of jobs
Flipping the switch on hybrid work
Hybrid work? Just go with the flow
Why a flexible talent strategy could be your competitive advantage