How do we attract, engage, retain, and fully leverage the millennial population? How do we manage the impending talent shortage? How are we going to be challenged in the future?
These are some of the questions that Diane Locke will be addressing in the break-out sessions she will be leading at the 2015 Workplace in Motion Summit on April 16 in Toronto.
“We are going to need to restructure our workplaces,” said Diane. “They need to be more agile and less bureaucratic. And that kind of stuff doesn’t happen easily – it takes time.”
“We are going to face an impending labour and skills shortage,” Diane said. “Most organizations haven’t done a very good job at developing their internal talent, and most HR folks know that. As HR professionals, we’re going to need to really harness that internal knowledge and expertise before it exits the workplace, and we need to find ways to transfer it to people who are going to need it.”
Diane points out that we also need to invest in the development of the future leaders. Part of that is understanding what we’re going to need from our talent in the future, because it might look different than what we need today.
“Products and services are easily replicated these days. The only way we can really build competitive advantage is to develop and leverage strong talent pools. We know that the baby boomers are going to be retiring on mass in the next decade and there’s an impending talent shortage that’s looming. It’s been delayed by the fact that most of the boomers have postponed their retirement, but it’s inevitable. They can’t stay there forever.”
Since millennials will replace baby boomers as the largest cohort in the workplace, organizations need to develop workplaces that are attractive to them, that are going to enable them to be effective, and to leverage the differences in the talent that they bring to the table.
“Successful organizations are the ones that will be able to attract and retain skilled talent,” Diane said.
Organizations will also need to facilitate the movement of that talent across the organization; for some that will mean moving talent across the globe, or taking advantage of talent pools outside of Canada.
“This Summit is really about hearing from some organizations that are doing some good things, and learning from that some best practices around how do we prepare for the future world of work. This will give people an opportunity to speak with other HR professionals who are facing similar challenges and see what kind of steps they’ve taken.”
Diane Locke is a senior partner at a Toronto-based human resource management consultancy. She has more than 20 years of experience in the areas of executive assessment, leadership development and talent management, including both internal and external consulting roles. Diane is the lead facilitator for the Queen’s IRC Talent Management program. At the 2015 Workplace in Motion Summit, Diane will lead the break-out sessions geared to HR professionals.
