February $1,2024$ Cian O Morain

The year ahead promises to keep organizations on their toes as continued economic uncertainty, public layoffs at major

enterprises, RTO mandates and the increasing use of generative AI continue to disrupt the workplace. The ongoing

complexity of work will make it harder for talent management leaders not only to motivate but retain their best talent.

While employee expectations and desires continue to shift, leading organizations are embracing the head of talent

management role, a leader who is responsible for ensuring their organization is equipped to build the workforce of the

future.

Here are the four most critical trends heads of talent management must address now:

Unsettled employee$-$employer relationship

HR leaders are grappling with a shaky employee$-$employer relationship. Anxiety, misalignment and mounting tension

between organizations and their workforces are negatively affecting several key dimensions of how work gets done.

$$ The fight for flexibility: While return$-$to$-$office mandates are becoming more popular, employees often choose not to

comply as they still value flexibility above all else. According to a Gartner survey of over $1,200$ job candidates conducted in

October, $56\%$ of candidates chose greater flexibility in when or where they work as a key driver in choosing a job.

$$ Disconnect on employee productivity: There is a mismatch between employers and employees

regarding productivity right now. Organizations perceive current levels of employee productivity as low, contributing to their

desire to push employees back into the office, whereas employees are experiencing high levels of burnout and feel their

productivity levels are too much to sustain long$-$term.

$$ Pervasive sense of mistrust: Today, only about half of employees trust their organizations and the feeling is mutual$$

roughly $60\%$ of HR leaders indicate that their organizations trust their employees$$according to an August Gartner survey

of $3,540$ employees and $287$ HR leaders.

HR leaders must take the lead in reinvigorating trust and engagement with employees.

Persistent skills shortage

With rapid improvements in technology and constantly changing business priorities, the skills required to meet

organizational needs are continuously evolving. Shifting skills coupled with multiple years of high turnover rates have made

it increasingly difficult for organizations to deliver on key business objectives. As a result, many heads of talent

management are considering a shift to skills$-$based talent management, which allows for greater flexibility in how talent is

deployed and prevents critical skills from getting trapped in one area of the business.

Skills$-$based models focus not on the role as the dominant way to manage talent but instead on skills proficiency. In this

type of model, HR encourages line leaders to rethink how they staff projects or backfill positions by focusing on the skills

needed to complete critical tasks rather than simply an employee$$s current title. A skills$-$based model can also help

recruiters expand their target talent pools by focusing explicitly on skills proficiency rather than traditional qualifications like

degrees.

Transformative technology innovation

As HR functions increase their investments in generative AI in $2024,$ talent management processes will become the

sandbox for this experimentation. These technologies$$whether built in$-$house or provided by a vendor$$will attach to

human capital management platforms, and talent management leaders today will need to be at the forefront of assessing

their ROI on improving employee experience and efficiency.

Some organizations are exploring the use of large language models such as ChatGPT to automate tasks such as creating

job postings or drafting performance reviews. Before doing so$,$ it$$s key to determine the potential use cases for this

technology, identify the risks and set guardrails accordingly.

It$$s important for HR leaders specifically to be involved in setting these guardrails. Right now, HR$$s involvement remains

limited$,$ with only $22\%$ of HR leaders reporting they are highly engaged in enterprise$-$wide discussions on generative AI$,$

according to a June Gartner survey of over $150$ HR leaders. This year offers the opportunity for HR leaders to contribute

more proactively to this conversation.

Pressure for operational efficiency

Finally, HR leaders are under ongoing pressure to achieve operational efficiency. What began in early $2023$ in response to

economic uncertainty and inflation has sustained and will remain a prominent focus in $2024.$ This will have several

implications for talent management leaders, including:

QUESTION $1(20$ Marks$)$

Examine the importance of talent management in an evolving business environment and include examples from the case study.