Thank you for your participation in our 2023 Trends/Strategies survey. 

I have compiled a list of trends/strategies/challenges that I believe will be enormously important for 2023, and now I'm crowd-sourcing to find out which are most important for my community.

What are you going to be working on this year? Where are you in addressing these trends? What else are you thinking about? What's keeping you up at night?

I’ll use this feedback to prioritize my presentations, articles, posts and white papers to help you (and others in my community).

Thank you in advance for taking the time to do this!
You are also encouraged to add any commentary to more fully explain your answers.

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* 1. Strategic workforce planning
  • What it is: Proactively planning the number of people and the types of skills and abilities needed to achieve your business goals now and into the future.
  • Why it’s important:Technology, market disruption, shifting consumer demand and scarcity of talent are changing the products and services we offer, how we do what we do, and the type of people who are available to do what we need done. In order to ensure we have enough people with the right skills we must take a proactive approach and plan for the future. 

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* 2. Job design/redesign
  • What it is: Part of the strategic planning process which involves designing and redesigning your roles based on implementation of technology and the number, capability and demands of people in our workforce. 
  • Why it’s important: Technology and AI are automating tasks at an accelerated rate which is changing how we do what we do. At the same time economic uncertainty requires us to be increase productivity without further burning out our workforce. Finally, the empowered workforce is demanding different ways of working and we must incorporate these demands into our role design.

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* 3. Purpose and values
  • What it is: Having a compelling purpose that articulates the impact your organisation has on the world and a set of values and behaviors that serve as your operating manual.
  • Why it’s important: As we have emerged from the pandemic individuals increasingly want to work for companies that make an impact on the world and to do meaningful work in their day to day jobs. It’s also become more important to work for an organization with a strong set of values, especially amongst the youngest and oldest generations in the workforce.

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* 4. Strategic talent sourcing  
  • What it is: Developing strategic and innovative strategies to source enough talent to not only fill open roles, but to achieve business growth and objectives. These strategies involve looking at different skillsets and/or employee demographics.
  • Why it’s important: The old model of going to market to fill vacancies as they occur is outdated. In this talent short market, due to an aging workforce and mismatch between the skills and abilities needed and those available, we must take a more proactive and innovative approach to source our talent.

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* 5. Making the right hiring decisions
  • What it is: Developing and executing a thorough hiring process which also provides exceptional candidate experience. This includes training hiring managers on how to hire well.
  • Why it’s important: 44% of hiring manager rated their last hire as ‘not good’. We are in a talent short market and the cost to replace can be 3 times the amount of someone’s annual salary. Making the right hiring decision is crucial to the bottom line as well as team morale. 

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* 6. Increasing your talent acquisition capabilities
  • What it is: Increasing the number and/or calibre of your internal recruitment team.
  • Why it’s important: Technology and AI can assist in recruitment, but fascinating new research shows that the highest performing companies have the best internal recruiters. The research shows that this is due to the relationship that recruiters develop with candidates and the ability to act as talent advisors for internal stakeholders. Research also shows that 65% of candidates who opt out of the recruitment process do so because of a bad candidate experience, which a good TA team can help you avoid.

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* 7. Reskilling/upskilling your workforce
  • What it is: Identifying the abilities within your current workforce and providing them with the opportunity and support to reskill and/or upskill as the nature of their roles change. 
  • Why it’s important: Gone are the days when you can go to market to hire the people with the right skills and experience you need to fill your open roles. Upskillsing and reskilling your existing workforce is a critically important strategy to ensure you have enough of the right skills available to achieve your business goals. It can also help you retain your best talent as you can offer them new opportunities within the organization instead of having to look elsewhere.

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* 8. Pay strategy
  • What it is: Developing a strategy to pay people equitably (based on the value they add to the business), respond to wage growth and employee demand for off cycle pay increases. 
  • Why it’s important: Inflation and the scarcity of talent in the marketplace are increasing wages and empowering current employees and candidates alike to demand more money. Additionally, many states in the US and countries around the world are now requiring pay transparency in job ads. Research shows that businesses with a comprehensive and well thought out pay strategy are able to both attract and retain better people.

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* 9. Performance Management
  • What it is: Traditionally performance management systems take place annually or bi-annually. The new trend is to use outcome based objectives and to manage performance in realtime.
  • Why it’s important: Companies who set outcome based objectives and update them at least quarterly report up to 31% fewer performance issues. Economic uncertainty is increasing pressure on productivity and realtime performance management can increase productivity without increasing workload. Additionally, more frequent feedback on performance increases employee engagement and retention rates. 

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* 10. Employee wellbeing
  • What it is: Supporting your workforce with physical, emotional and financial wellbeing
  • Why it’s important: If an employee feels unsafe, burned out or anxious it will affect productivity and performance. Mercer’s research shows that 81% or more of the global workforce is burned out. Hybrid work arrangements may decrease physical safety and may either increase or decrease employee stress, depending on the person. Inflation and economic uncertainty are causing financial stress.

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* 11. Hybrid work arrangements
  • What it is: Allowing your employees flexibility in when and where they work.
  • Why it’s important: The pandemic proved that employees can be as or more productive working from home than from the office and over 70% of employees now expect some level of flexility in their work. However there is a mismatch in perception between leaders and individuals as to how productive they are while working outside of the office. Hybrid work arrangements are here to stay, even in the face of economic headwinds because of the skills shortage. It’s important for companies to think through a strategy that works for the customer, the organization and the individual.

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* 12. Alternative work arrangements
  • What it is: Allowing your employees to work part time, job share, work from other countries, etc.
  • Why it’s important: The talent shortage is requiring all organizations to adopt alternative and innovative work arrangements to be able to attract and retain enough of the right people to achieve their business goals.

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* 13. 4 Day Work Week
  • What it is: A global trend that is gaining speed allowing employees to work 4 days per week and be paid for 5.
  • Why it’s important: The pandemic forced people to reevaluate priorities and change their relationship to work. While the 4 day work week is attractive to employees for obvious reasons the research is showing it’s also hugely beneficial for organizations.

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* 14. Employee retention
  • What it is: Retaining the employees you do not want to lose.
  • Why it’s important: It costs up to 300% to replace someone in today’s market, not to mention the toll it takes on team productivity and morale. Additionally, the talent shortage makes employee retention more important now than ever.

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* 15. Supporting employees with career management
  • What it is: Providing your employees with training, support and opportunities to help them grow their career.
  • Why it’s important: Helping your individuals learn, grow and develop is not only critical to employee engagement and retention, it helps your organization with upskilling and reskilling your workforce to meet future demands.

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* 16. Employee experience
  • What it is: The experience your employees have at every touch point with policies, processes, leadership and their peers during the entire tenure of their employment.
  • Why it’s important: Employee experience directly impacts employee engagement and retention, which can add or detract from your bottom line as well as the stress levels and workloads of your managers and teams.

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* 17. Diversity, Equity and Inclusion
  • What it is: Having a diverse workforce, treating people fairly and making them feel included and safe enough to be able to bring their whole selves to work.
  • Why it’s important: Strong DEI practices add to diversity of thought, employee productivity and company profitability.

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* 18. Leveraging the Gig Economy
  • What it is: According to McKinsey the Gig Economy is alive and well and extends far beyond Uber drivers and food delivery. There has been a significant increase in white collar independent workers who either land their own gigs trough word of mouth or freelance sites or work through staffing agencies. But the latest trend includes harnessing internal and external talent marketplaces to tap into the gig economy from both a ‘just in time’ talent perspective as well as an internal mobility and career development perspective.
  • Why it’s important: Gig workers can help fill gaps on a temporary basis or can bring a specialized skillset for a specific project. Allowing your own employees to take part in an internal gig economy provides opportunity for growth and development and gives them variety and control. 

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* 19. Upskilling leaders
  • What it is: The leadership model has changed significantly over the last several decades - but not as quickly as it has since the beginning of the Pandemic. It is no longer enough to be good technically and have adequate management skills. The new leadership model requires empathy, trust, the ability to listen and the ability to coach.
  • Why it’s important: People join organizations and leave managers/leaders. This is possibly the single best initiative you can take if your data suggests that one or more of your leaders is not able to retain staff.

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* 20. Layoffs/redundancies/letting people go
  • What it is: Severing employment with a segment of your workforce. This isn’t a trend, but will be a strategy that many organizations will need to address in 2023.
  • Why it’s important: Economic uncertainty, shifting customer demands, revised business models and underperforming employees may require you to sever employment.

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* 21. Is there anything else that you will be focusing on in 2023 or anything else that is keeping you up at night that you'd like information and/or support on?

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* 22. Name

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* 23. Organization

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* 24. Title

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* 25. Email (to send you the results)

 
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