The UNLEASH community has taken the global lead in showcasing case studies, research and insights on the driving forces needed for human change such as workforce technology, happiness, health and financial wellbeing, productivity, and robust artificial intelligence (AI).
Managing a company’s talent pool should not be about recreating the wheel and relying on tools that have only been used in the past, but instead companies should learn from one another and adjust talent plans based on economic changes and globalisation, and plan for future generations.
How Finland used data to aid public wellbeing
A great concept is how Finland is putting the wellbeing of their citizens at the heart of policy. The Finns have long been motivated to improve the wellbeing of their citizens and, according to the United Nations, they are the happiest nation on the planet. European Union member, Finland meticulously researches their five million citizens to understand how to improve their health, employment, wellbeing, education and much more.
The Scandinavian nation now has a social welfare system, and is a champion of financial and social equality, making it easy to forget that once Finland was one of the poorest European countries. In perhaps the greatest case the world has seen of the progressive use of citizen data, the Finns have created and enabled a sense of security for their people: the idea that if something is needed, they are going to get it. Finland is a great example for all organisations, companies and countries alike, that really care for the wellbeing of their people.
How globalisation is impacting the talent economy
We are living in a globalised economy, where processes have been centralising for efficiency and the epicentre for modern human resources planning and strategy. Global political turmoil suggests globalisation is no longer a given, aiding nationalism and even leading to the prospect of reverse globalisation.
Recent evidence for this can ironically be observed through Brexit, with jobs heading home to Japan from major UK manufacturers such as Nissan, Honda and Toyota. This has huge implications for talent mobility, relationships, employee privacy, diversity and inclusion, and further disruptions at an unprecedented scale.
We now live in a land of centres inspired by HR’s finest influencers, HR departments and workplaces that compliment a century trying to turn employees into machines, splitting roles into primary tasks and optimising people in the hope it would unleash them.
Additionally, the talent and knowledge economy has entered the productivity, performance and networked age where people, trusted communities, wellbeing, learning and global networks are the magic ingredients needed for sustainable growth.
The nature of work has been completely reinvented
Education systems are on their knees, resulting in an explosive growth in micro-learning over the past 12 months. The growing number of unaccredited tech education startups providing one-year programmes are enjoying 98 per cent success rates in graduate job placement. Compare this with traditional tertiary education for certain functions: they are more expensive, it takes a longer time to complete them and they require students to learn skills and take courses that will not be necessary at the workplaces of tomorrow.
It is easy to see why work has been completely reinvented in the last four to five years and it is all because of the pace of digital and exponential technology.
To reinvent work and help communities thrive, we must evolve how we recruit and manage talent to bring to the surface the real potential of the networked business.
While change is inevitable, organisations must now carefully choose how they respond to the change that is already happening and to the change yet to come. Thanks to AI, the robots have arrived. We need to retrain ourselves in being human and embracing our creative curiosity, so we are less like programmed algorithms and instead continue to put our people, and humanity, first.
