Contractors underpin the ability of organisations to respond to “chronic unpredictability”, and so successfully navigate the ‘Human Age’, “a complex era where talent, as capital once was, is a key driver of economic growth.”
This is according to ManpowerGroup, which has launched a new report, Leading in the Human Age: Why an era of certain uncertainty requires new approaches to the world of work, suggesting a 10-Step Plan organisations can adopt to build a ‘Human Age Corporation’.
“In a world where economic, political and social turmoil are creating an era of uncertainty, companies’ flexibility and ability to adapt quickly to new market conditions is crucial,” explains Jonas Prising, ManpowerGroup President.
Flexible workforces provide organisations with competitive advantage
“With talentism now a dominant economic catalyst, a company’s strategies, processes and solutions to navigate risk must start with its people,” continues Prising. “Only by unleashing and leveraging human potential will a nation or corporation successfully navigate these unpredictable challenges.”
The report highlights that companies able to adopt flexible resourcing strategies that address the Human Age challenges will be able to outperform inflexible organisations that have more rigid, employee-based workforce planning.
In a world where economic, political and social turmoil are creating an era of uncertainty, companies' flexibility and ability to adapt quickly to new market conditions is crucial
Jonas Prising, ManpowerGroup
It adds: “Successful companies will create flexible workforce strategies aligned to their business strategy in order to boost productivity, build resilience and drive business results, even in changing circumstances.”
Skills shortages are forcing changes in how businesses operate
Several of the steps in ManpowerGroup’s ten steps draw on the data from its 2012 Talent Shortage Survey, which shows that over a third of organisations are “unable to find the talent their organisations need”.
Core contracting disciplines such as engineering, science, IT, accounting and finance feature in the hardest to find skills categories. ManpowerGroup’s first step for meeting the skills shortages challenge is to “take work to where the talent is”, by using a combination of technology and the mobility of global businesses.
If ManpowerGroup’s strategies gain adoption within just a small number of global organisations, it would bode well for the UK contracting sector, and the UK economy as whole. The positive impact on inward investment could be considerable, particularly as the UK is recognised as having one of Europe’s most flexible workforces.
Leadership styles adapting to using skilled and flexible knowledge workers
ManpowerGroup also sees organisations’ leaders and managers taking on new roles. Command and control management styles with leaders directing from the top in isolation have become uncompetitive, it notes.
New models recommend that leaders “should work collaboratively to drive performance”. That requires managers to be facilitative and coaching, rather than directing, recognising that highly skilled knowledge workers don’t achieve their best work through micro-management.
ManpowerGroup executive vice president of global strategy and talent, Mara Swan, explains: “In the Human Age Corporation, leadership style needs to change dramatically to become more participative and collaborative, as leadership that drives a culture of collaboration must be the heart and soul of tomorrow's organisation.
“Tomorrow's leaders will be visionary Human Age leaders, developing new skills to become curators of information and coaches for their teams. They will possess opposing skill sets; strategic yet tactical, conceptual yet action-oriented, the ability to anticipate and react, and always pushing the limits of what’s next.”
Using contractors to cope with accelerated uncertainty
According to ManpowerGroup, a fundamental difference between the previous age of capitalism and the new age of ‘talentism’ is not that change occurs, but the speed at which it happens. This is strengthened by the heightened ability of organisations using technology and new ways of working to respond to accelerated change.
“The challenge facing us today is not to understand exactly how and why [uncertainty] is happening,” notes the report, “but rather to begin to build the frameworks, structures, strategies and systems that will allow us to evolve with the human age, finding the fixed points within a sea of uncertainty.”
Workplace resourcing strategies that embrace flexibility, and flexible workers such as contractors, are the solution, suggests ManpowerGroup, alongside using technology to drive growth and productivity.
“A brave, flexible, inquisitive and innovative mindset will be necessary to successfully navigate these [seas of uncertainty], a mindset that is at the very heart of what it means to be human,” notes the report. “Once again, sheer human potential and the nature of the human spirit to problem-solve, adapt and succeed will be the key to winning in the Human Age.”