‘Embrace talent fluidity’ to get ahead

According to a recent Gartner report, organisations are struggling to deliver on talent needs, and employee performance is struggling as a result.

A report undertaken by Gartner in June 2024 of 190 HR leaders revealed that 41 per cent agreed that their workforce lack the required skills, with 50 per cent also agreeing that their organisation does not effectively leverage the skills that their workforce does have.

Other findings discovered that 62 per cent agree that uncertainty around the future poses a significant risk.

“When an organisation’s talent is not consistently ready to meet changing business needs, overall employee performance decreases by 26 percentage points,” said Dion Love, vice president in Gartner’s HR practice.

“To win at talent management, employers must embrace talent fluidity.”

Those organisations that have that so-called “talent fluidity”, according to Gartner, can efficiently build and buy business-critical skills, redeploy talent to where it has the greatest impact on the business, and respond quickly and appropriately to changing business conditions.

Common barriers that hold businesses back from implementing talent fluidity are:

• Uncertainty about skills needs and assets – only 8 per cent of organisations have reliable data on the skills the workforce currently possesses and those that have the greatest impact on business success.
• Employees and managers impede mobility – fewer than 20 per cent of organisations move talent effectively to fill skill gaps.
• Difficulty balancing current and future skills needs – just 23 per cent of organisations effectively develop skills of the future.

“Organisations that successfully embrace fluid talent can increase their talent readiness by up to 60 per cent. However, only 10 per cent of organisations are taking a targeted fluidity approach,” said Love.

In-house talent is being constantly deployed to close the internal skills gap, Yet, fewer than one in five leaders from the Gartner survey agreed that their organisation can effectively move talent based on business needs.

“Many organisations have invested in building the case for internal mobility, yet it’s not coming together the way it should,” said Love. “To achieve internal mobility, employers must address the real costs associated with mobility, namely the risks felt by employees and the compulsion of managers to hoard their best talent.”

Although learning future skills has been a common talking point throughout workplace discussions, Gartner identified that HR should prioritise proficiency in today’s core skills over learning future skills. In fact, according to Gartner’s research, focusing on today’s skills has a five times greater impact on sustained performance than the skills of tomorrow.