New approaches to solving the labour shortage 

Job advertisements are no longer as effective as they once were. The trend of diminishing returns has online job boards reporting ever-climbing historical ad numbers corresponding with declining response rates.⁶ Companies now need far more proactive talent attraction processes for skills and roles at all levels. Previously reserved for executive-level roles, targeted sourcing is increasingly utilised. Effective talent acquisition now begins with mapping the market to figure out who is out there with the skills you need — both within and outside the industry. With the help of this data, personalised approaches to individuals are proving to be a much more effective strategy. 

Employers also need to manage their own expectations of pay levels in the labour shortage. In a recent case study, a retail client, long accustomed to paying minimum wage for transient retail workers, had a “jaw drop” moment when presented with the latest compensation data for digital skills.   

Begin attracting talent early. Hiring processes are taking longer than you think, so plan ahead and begin attraction processes before staff shortages become a business-critical problem. 

In the interview process, engage potential employees by explaining what the company has to offer and exhibiting a mindset that says, “How can we work together?” Don’t ask prospective employees to impress you. You were already impressed enough by their resumes to meet them. 

And finally, organisations need to relax their requirements. Smart, willing and capable people step up and do better when there are challenges in their roles.

Highly engageable⁷ employees — the type of talent organisations often wish to attract — want development, career paths and new skills. To be a compelling option, a company needs to offer progression opportunities — vertically and laterally. A great example of innovative upskilling that benefits both employees and employers is the Capgemini and Amazon Web Services (AWS) partnership. 

The agreement to train people on cloud skills — free for six weeks— is producing surprising benefits beyond upskilling and talent retention, including the building of an AI tool with 97.5% accuracy in sperm whale identification. To date, well over a third of Capgemini’s 10,000+ employees have at least one AWS certification.⁸

If you can’t find it, build it. From strategic workforce planning to learning and development, organisations have to be serious about training for new skills. And it’s not just about having ad-hoc modules available. To truly solve labour shortages, companies need to build learning journeys that result in the future skills and capabilities they’re looking for. You need to create a life-long learning culture in which individuals are inspired to make time to learn and train. 

However, it’s important to remember that not everyone wants to stretch and upskill, so appropriate respect, reward and recognition also need to be defined for that valuable section of your workforce. 

Employees lived different personal and professional lives during pandemic lockdowns, and some found better work-life balance. They left commercial centres, spent more time with their families, and kept up productivity without the set hours and need to commute. The flexibility suited them. Progressive employers understand that to withdraw that flexibility — without truly valid reasons — will prompt resignations and exacerbate employee shortages. 

Some careers opted out to care for their children and/or parents. So, there is an opportunity for organisations to attract careers back into the workforce with flexibility and/or subsidised care solutions. 

When talking about EVPs, there is a misguided perception (in some HR circles) that “we are giving in to demands.” Such thinking isn’t a constructive mindset and certainly isn’t conducive to solving employee shortage challenges. 

The premise of an effective EVP begins with putting your most valuable assets — your employees — at the centre of everything you do. 

Values evolve, and for the most part, the world becomes a better place as a result. There is now a definitive expectation for companies to step up and reflect the values of society. Progressively working on your EVP is part of that alignment of the world of work with societal expectations. Rather than “giving in,” the new approach is “how do we reflect the values of our people?” and “how do we help them meet their reasonable needs?”

Start by asking your employees what they want. And while it’s tempting to “keep up with your competitors,” it’s useful to remember that the unique composition of your organisation means your EVP offerings should also be unique. Your competitors are composed of entirely different groups of people from those in your organisation.  

Invest in things that have a longer-term impact. Across all processes, it’s important to ask yourself, “Is this a good employee experience?” Onboarding is a case in point. It’s often an unnecessarily admin-heavy and cumbersome process. There is undoubtedly a lot of information to share with new employees, but most companies are doing the bulk of it digitally. They push information to people (“You can only have a security pass when you have completed these five OH&S and Compliance modules”) instead of taking a step back and being more mindful about what people actually need to know at that point in time. Could companies do this better? 

You don’t have to take a year to redesign your EVP. Make an impact today by communicating what you already offer — and how it can benefit individuals — while evolving what you have. 

Again, remember that success begins with putting employees at the centre of what you do. Be empathetic and be led by unmet needs. 

Humans are social animals. A 2018 study by the University of Salento  found that 91.7% of advertisements featuring human faces attracted more attention than those that did not, showing that even on a flat surface, humans prefer humans. Cultivate a culture of tactile connection over digital tags and you’ll be better positioned to retain your talent. It’s easy to leave a brand but much harder to leave people you like.

In our world of access, everyone knows what’s happening almost immediately, and if they don’t like what’s happening, they have platforms to make their displeasure heard. As many organisations were pulling out of Russia in protest of the war in Ukraine, some French companies decided to keep operations in Russia. For some, their actions had a major impact with employees and consumers alike, provoking petitions and calls for product boycotts. Companies need to remember that solving for labour shortage begins with keeping the employees you have.

Organisations are expected to participate in solving the existential problems of our time. Progressive organisations that actively take environmental, social and governance (ESG) factors into account — for example, moving to carbon neutrality and ending modern slavery in their supply chains — are more likely to attract talent. And those employees that join responsible companies then push for even more progressive actions. The virtuous cycle not only exists, but it is accelerating.