Tackling talent scarcity through ESG commitments

The bat­tle for tal­ent is being waged by organ­i­sa­tions of all sizes across the UK and beyond. Busi­ness­es need to stand out; to con­nect with their work­forces and not only retain the tal­ent they have, but to ensure prospec­tive employ­ees want to join their organ­i­sa­tions.

Those com­pa­nies that com­mit to their ESG strate­gies and com­mu­ni­cate that to employ­ees will be the ones that suc­ceed.

Research by Man­pow­er­Group, par­ent com­pa­ny of Tal­ent Solu­tions, found that two-thirds of employ­ees want to help improve soci­ety through their work. Half would change jobs to work for an employ­er that ben­e­fits their well­be­ing. Most impor­tant­ly, peo­ple want to find an employ­er that is aligned to their val­ues.

The stronger the com­mit­ments an employ­er makes to improve the envi­ron­ment, soci­ety and its gov­er­nance, oth­er­wise known as ESG, the more like­ly it is to attract the best tal­ent, accord­ing to the McK­in­sey Quar­ter­ly. Man­pow­er­Group has increased its com­mit­ment to ESG as well, a posi­tion­ing that will sup­port its own employ­ees, as well as its clients, can­di­dates and asso­ciates.

Jonas Pris­ing, ManpowerGroup’s chair­man and CEO, says, “Our pur­pose is clear: we believe mean­ing­ful, sus­tain­able employ­ment has the pow­er to change the world.” As part of this objec­tive, Man­pow­er­Group has worked with over 8,000 young peo­ple in 26 Euro­pean coun­tries to pro­vide men­tor­ing and upskilling. Sim­i­lar­ly, it has com­mit­ted to see­ing women make up at least 50% of lead­er­ship roles by 2025.

Organ­i­sa­tions like Tal­ent Solu­tions help­ing clients to sup­port women through­out their careers might just be the change that is need­ed to ensure female tal­ent isn’t lost. Women are 51% less opti­mistic about their career prospects than before the pan­dem­ic, says Deloitte. And Man­pow­er­Group found that 57% of women plan to leave their cur­rent job with­in two years. That, com­bined with the data around hybrid work­ing – name­ly that Man­pow­er­Group has found that 35% of employ­ees want full flex­i­bil­i­ty about when and where they work – points to a cru­cial busi­ness risk in the bat­tle for tal­ent. Women aren’t sat­is­fied with their cur­rent roles, work­ing arrange­ments and com­pa­ny fit. Los­ing expe­ri­enced female tal­ent will not only be a blow to diver­si­ty and equal­i­ty but will fur­ther exac­er­bate the ongo­ing scarci­ty of tal­ent already wor­ry­ing busi­ness lead­ers.

A holis­tic tal­ent strat­e­gy, though, goes beyond gen­der equal­i­ty. Racial diver­si­ty is not only a proven ben­e­fit to busi­ness­es, but will help ease the tal­ent crunch, too. Part of the Man­pow­er­Group that sup­ports clients with end-to-end work­force strate­gies, Tal­ent Solu­tions, focus­es on inclu­siv­i­ty with­in the work­place, a strat­e­gy that informs its objec­tives for clients as well.

The results are vis­i­ble in prac­tice. In the UK, Tal­ent Solu­tions is work­ing with defence com­pa­ny Qine­tiQ on build­ing a tal­ent pipeline for sys­tems engi­neers and oth­er crit­i­cal lines. Tal­ent Solu­tions reviewed Qinetiq’s long-term objec­tives to cre­ate a bespoke class­room and on-the-job ‘train-to-fit’ pro­gramme in part­ner­ship with the client. Designed around the can­di­dates’ spe­cif­ic needs and QinetiQ’s busi­ness objec­tives, they took a less con­ven­tion­al hir­ing approach, build­ing a diverse tal­ent pool of indi­vid­u­als with trans­fer­able skills and upskilling them. At the end of the train­ing peri­od all can­di­dates were offered roles by Qine­tiQ.

This mod­el can help com­pa­nies tack­le skills short­ages in a way that also does good for soci­ety.

“We stand up for the greater good and col­lec­tive ben­e­fit, to do all we can to be anti-racist, as well as pro-diver­si­ty, pro-equi­ty and pro-inclu­sion, so that com­pa­nies can con­tin­ue to grow and suc­ceed by access­ing the skilled tal­ent they need and so that every­one can be part of future growth and pros­per­i­ty,” says Jonas Pris­ing, chair­man & CEO of Man­pow­er­Group in the recent ‘Work­ing to Change the World’ report.

Build­ing a stronger employ­er propo­si­tion relies on tak­ing a more com­pre­hen­sive approach to ESG. Man­pow­er­Group is the only com­pa­ny in its indus­try that has set ambi­tious goals to tack­le cli­mate change, includ­ing reduc­ing car­bon emis­sions across the board. The com­pa­ny has already cut glob­al emis­sions by 37% over its 2018 base­line and is well on its way to reach­ing net zero.

But it’s not just about the sup­ply chain or emis­sions, HR strat­e­gy makes an impact on the envi­ron­ment too. Sus­tain­able work­ing prac­tices can align with employ­ee desires for hybrid or flex­i­ble work­ing pat­terns. Sim­i­lar­ly, reskilling or retrain­ing staff can also build stronger tal­ent pools in low-car­bon and sus­tain­able job roles.

Gart­ner not­ed that 58% of all employ­ees will need new skills to get their jobs done in future. While com­pa­nies have thus far relied on ben­e­fits and salary bumps to attract and retain tal­ent, skills devel­op­ment may become the new fron­tier in tal­ent man­age­ment.
Skills devel­op­ment can also allow for a broad­er range of edu­ca­tion­al back­grounds, neu­ro­di­verse indi­vid­u­als and non-tra­di­tion­al tal­ent pools to emerge, all con­tribut­ing to a company’s abil­i­ty to com­pete in a tal­ent-scarce land­scape.

And in a world in which 60% of com­pa­nies are link­ing their ESG goals to their cor­po­rate pur­pose, HR can’t afford to lose ground. Pris­ing says, “Our ‘Work­ing to Change the World’ plan is about col­lec­tive­ly car­ing for peo­ple and plan­et with new aware­ness and urgency. Advanc­ing towards net zero by mea­sur­ing and reduc­ing our cli­mate impact (and off­set­ting only when we must) while accel­er­at­ing social jus­tice to address inequities will dri­ve job cre­ation and demand for new skills and will progress oppor­tu­ni­ties for all.”

For employ­ers to make a pos­i­tive impact for their com­mu­ni­ties and the envi­ron­ment into the future, they must be run eth­i­cal­ly and have a strong sense of their gov­er­nance strate­gies and account­abil­i­ties. Sev­en­ty per­cent of employ­ees say hav­ing lead­ers they can trust and fol­low is impor­tant for them. Not only does this require com­pa­nies to set out hon­est gov­er­nance strate­gies, but employ­ees also want to see organ­i­sa­tions tak­ing a stand for pos­i­tive change. They want to see their employ­ers advo­cat­ing for racial equi­ty or vot­ing rights or action on cli­mate change. Doing so will only help busi­ness­es build stronger con­nec­tions with their pur­pose-dri­ven work­forces.

Man­pow­er­Group has led by exam­ple with regards to gov­er­nance. Not only was it named the ‘World’s Most Eth­i­cal Com­pa­ny’ by Ethi­sphere for the 11th year, but it has a glob­al human rights pol­i­cy in place that rein­forces its eth­i­cal recruit­ment and HR prac­tices.
Being an attrac­tive com­pa­ny takes more than a strong bot­tom line. Employ­ees want an employ­er that sees beyond the num­bers. Tal­ent Solu­tions has led the HR indus­try on the issues that mat­ter. But it takes a broad­er com­mit­ment from com­pa­nies across the UK to cre­ate a pos­i­tive social impact and deliv­er sus­tain­able employ­ment with the pow­er to change the world.

Find out more about how Tal­ent Solu­tions can sup­port your organ­i­sa­tion, at talentsolutions.manpowergroup.co.uk

Pro­mot­ed by Tal­ent Solu­tions