In an economy powered by innovation, where there is less opportunity for being the second company to create a product or a service that disrupts the marketplace, attracting top talent isn’t just an important thing; it’s everything.
Leaders know this, of course, but the secret to attracting creative, dynamic young workers remains elusive for many organizations. Salaries, benefits, flex time and other perks don’t necessarily hold the appeal that attracted younger workers in decades past. That’s because by its nature, a disruptive and innovative economy is also an insecure economy where workers are concerned. In fact, the very innovation that innovators introduce can, ironically, put their jobs at risk.
By now it’s clichéd to say that technology is disrupting workplaces and making workers feel insecure about their futures. While some people may have a sense of deja vu about this change — those who experienced the microcomputer revolution of the 1980s or the internet boom of the 1990s, for example — this wave of disruption is different.
For starters, it’s moving at a pace that is exponential rather than linear. It’s also generationally agnostic because revolutions in AI and automation don’t spare or privilege younger or technologically proficient workers like previous technological revolutions.
Take the finance sector, for example. Some predictions suggest that AI technology could replace up to 50% of people currently working in banking and finance within the next 10 years. For the most part, these are young, skilled and educated workers, but even they are not safe from automation.
With this extraordinary pace of change, skills expire quickly, and a four-year degree simply isn’t enough anymore. We live in an age where few if any workplaces can offer a “job for life," and as such, younger workers have developed their own path to job security.
To keep pace — and to take advantage of new jobs created by new technologies — millennials have gravitated toward learning for life. This is significant because they are now the largest segment of the labor market and, as such, are in a position to influence what employers offer workers. This demand for learning and growth is the No. 1 ask of more than half of job-seeking millennial workers, as reported by HBR.
And therein lies the key for leaders and hiring managers. If they want the young, talented, adaptable innovation worker that will help the organization be first to market, they need to make sure they’re providing employees with the ability to learn and develop.
This brings us to the tech sector — arguably the sector of the economy where the competition for the best workers is most intense and global. Tech companies have a remarkable reach. They are able to choose from a diverse and exciting pool of worldwide talent. However, that very competition means that it’s of paramount importance to have a unique value proposition to attract those high-value workers.
Increasingly, offering “learning” is just table stakes. To really stand out, tech companies need to offer personalized learning, which is as different from traditional learning as network television is from Netflix.
Traditional learning centers on the classroom and takes place when it's convenient for the instructor, which may not be the best time for the business or the learner.
Personalized learning is on demand, centered on the learner and takes place anywhere, anytime and on the learner’s schedule, which is better for the organization and the learner.
In addition to being learner-centered and self-directed, contemporary workplace learning also includes strategies such as peer learning, which is about tapping into subject matter experts from within the company to share knowledge. It can also involve social or video platforms where any employee can be a content creator.
Gamification is another learning tactic that can be employed by using game mechanics such as competition, laddering and badges to encourage learning. These are all tools that are familiar to millennials — and key to attracting them. None of this takes a major overhaul of existing learning content. Often it’s just an extension of the tools already available to employees in the organization.
The important thing to remember is that when it comes to technology and learning, millennials are in a hurry. They already lead just-in-time and on-demand lives at home and have a reasonable expectation that work will be no different. While your company is waiting to see which way the wind is blowing, others have already hoisted their sails, and that can make all the difference for companies looking to attract and retain top talent.
In the face of unprecedented and disruptive change where workers are looking for a safe harbor, creating a learning workforce is one way that companies can help them weather the storm — and help themselves come out ahead, too.
