Why a flexible workforce?
Leading companies are beginning to ask these key questions about their workforce to ensure that they are able to retain the talent and stay competitive. The imperative to look for solutions to these questions is driven by these key workforce trends:
- • How do you retain your best people as they navigate their career continuum over time?
- • How do you retain women and increase the number of women in management positions?
- • Is your organization at risk of losing a significant proportion of your workforce as the baby boomers retire?
- • Are the logistical challenges of global teams increasing turnover within your organization?
Leading companies are beginning to ask these key questions about their workforce to ensure that they are able to retain the talent and stay competitive. The imperative to look for solutions to these questions is driven by these key workforce trends:
- The Retention of Women: Over 60% of women with MBAs opt out of full-time work within 6-8 years of graduating from business school but 93% of these women want to return to work part-time. Companies that tap into this talent pool by accommodating their request for flexibility will create a competitive advantage in the talent war.
- The Impending Retirement of Baby Boomers: Companies in certain sectors will face a significant skilled labor shortage with anywhere from ? to ? of their workforce eligible for retirement in the next ten years. Many of these baby boomer employees, however, would prefer to ease into retirement by working in a flexible capacity. Very few companies have a knowledge management system to facilitate knowledge transfer.
- The Retention of the Voluntary Workforce: In certain sectors such as high-tech, many highly skilled employees no longer have to work and are leaving because they are unhappy with a lack of work- life balance. Companies unable to accommodate their need for more balance are at risk of losing them to their competitors.
- Logistical Challenges of Global Teams: In practice, globalization requires that employees work continuously in order to communicate and collaborate with colleagues around the world. As more employees are experiencing burnout, companies need to think beyond 9 to 5 and implement flexible schedules to meet these challenging logistics.
- Access to a Broad Labor Pool: There is an untapped labor pool of highly skilled, experienced professionals. By establishing a flexible work construct, companies will be able to attract talent that their competitors can't access.
