Strengthen your sustainability in times of uncertainty

Facing the shortage or avoiding it

Let's ignore the glaring labor shortage in certain specific sectors (restaurants, health care, etc.) that lack minimum wage positions. Many other companies are desperate to retain their skilled talent or attract new talent.

Of course salary is a lever, but it's not the only one.

Have a motivating business plan

Whether recruiting or avoiding turnover, companies must define their project. Is it known and communicated to everyone? Is it motivating? Are the company's values authentic and in line with the reality of the employees? 

Attractive working conditions

Then there are the working conditions. They can easily compensate for a salary that is less attractive than what the competition offers. An employee can be better off if he knows that there will be flexibility in working hours, for example, or that part of the childcare costs will be covered, or that ergonomic equipment is available.

Foster a healthy work environment (stability and well-being) with training to help incumbents or reluctant applicants retrain or move to another region. Beyond scooters and ping-pong tables, the organization and its leadership must be able to offer :

• respect (listen, encourage and take feedback),
• meaning (what does everyone contribute to? and is the company's mission and vision motivating?)
• and recognition for the work done (even if there are no tangible results attached).

A training plan

Providing employees with a training plan will ensure their employability, career progression and performance. Both the company and the employee benefit. The company, because it is the best way to avoid being left behind and thus to maintain its competitiveness (and its survival). The employee, because it is a strong sign that we are counting on him/her, that he/she counts. Continuous training allows us to keep up with the emergence of new tools and the new needs of our customers. No employee wants to be pushed out the door because they no longer have the skills. It is up to the company and the manager to ensure that there is a training plan in place that will keep the employee competent. 

Conducting recruitment properly

When a position opens up, it is important to ensure that there has been an internal consultation first. The company has a pool of talent from which it can draw, before going out and looking for talent. In doing so, it underlines several things. One, that it has faith in its employees to progress and become the managers of tomorrow. Two, that it has a succession program in place. Three, that knowledge transfer is assured.

Whether it is necessary to recruit new skills externally or develop those internally, nothing is ever certain. There are no magic recipes for HR to make the right choice every time. However, some of the tools available to HR can help them get a better idea of whether a person is the best fit for a particular position. Some have even reduced astronaut selection time from weeks to hours (or even minutes). 

Anticipating turnover

Turnover is inexorable and shouldn't be catastrophic. A company doesn't want to be rated poorly on Glassdoor, but it also can't prevent its employees from going elsewhere to see if the grass is greener, as long as it's not too often and it's not the entire workforce that wants to leave. People who stay with the same company for twenty years are the exception, not the rule. We have to live with this and plan for it by preparing the transfer of knowledge. Too many services still rely on the knowledge of a single expert and are potentially at risk in the event of an accident or retirement.

Rethink or improve your internal organization

Innovate

The objective is to encourage creativity and innovation to improve quality, reduce costs and decrease time to market. In a word, to stand out from the competition. A good process, an open management and a healthy work climate increase the capacity of an organization to offer innovative products. It is not a given that a need identified by customer service is passed on to the technical teams to find a solution that will then be brought to market by marketing after validating a commercial potential. This simple flow is favored by the personality of the leader, the presence of internal talent, the diversity of points of view... which favors a certain form of organizational agility made of collaborative management and collegial decision making.

Some companies choose even more radical options, with autonomous cells to gain agility (adhocracy). Each group makes its own decisions according to its own objectives, without losing sight of the overall vision of the company (which they adapt to their scale and needs).

Beyond these major trends, there is a pragmatic aspect to everyday life.

Does the company have cloud solutions that are: accessible, simple and secure? That employees have control over (or support for)? There is an underlying understanding that IT has a key role to play, but are they ready? Do they have the resources/availability to handle both novices and super users?

Accelerating digital transformation

The pandemic has at least had the virtue of pushing companies to beef up their digital environment, automate some of their processes and modernize their tools. This was probably already on their roadmap, but in a more distant timeframe. So they had to re-prioritize budgets and business objectives. Often with the help of a partner to start in the right way, with the right service, at the right time and to avoid costly pitfalls. A.I. is a solution, but not for everything and not in any way. This imposed transformation also requires a re-evaluation of the situation, an appreciation of the importance of the economic changes in the market, to start again with a strategic reorientation.

On the human level, we need to think about digital transformation in terms of tasks and skills, by separating them. For a job that is going to be digitized as a result of a transformation, it is possible to list the tasks to be performed and the associated skills. From then on, it is possible to diagnose more precisely the skills that will be affected (and therefore less necessary) and those that will have to be developed (machines and AI cannot do everything). This does not mean that a full job will not be eliminated in the end, but it does not mean either that the person who occupied it should be fired because there is room for retraining.

The challenge for companies is to bridge the gap between the skills they need for their transformation and those available internally or on the market from candidates.

Conclusion

As we can see, there is no simple solution, but it is possible to identify ways of working that will allow organizations to continue, to accommodate while restoring meaning.

Starting with having values that will generate support for an ambitious common project of which internal people can be proud. It's not just about selling, but about understanding why we sell. Employees who are mobilized and who feel fulfilled in their work are more autonomous and able to roll up their sleeves when challenges arise.

It is up to the company to develop a healthy, equitable culture and to ensure that its employees are rewarded for their contribution. It is also up to the company to set up a training plan that will allow the development or acquisition of skills to ensure the professional development of employees and maximize the company's performance.