It’s no secret that the hiring process and the labor market overall have been drastically altered due to COVID-19. The question is, what changes can we expect to see sticking around post-pandemic?
Fortunately, Harvard Graduate School of Education has been working on an answer to this through their Project on Workforce. Co-director of this project Peter Q. Blair, who is also part of the National Bureau of Economic Research, sheds some light on the potential post-pandemic workforce we could be seeing in the future:
“Because of COVID-19, paying for college imposes a significant financial burden on most families. As more workers opt for alternative forms of training, the future of talent management will crucially rely on identifying talented workers among the more than 50 percent of the U.S. workforce who don’t have a college degree.”
Blair states that in the talent management future, the “best” organizations will be identified as those who hire based on a candidate’s hard and soft skills rather than academic credentials.
That, coupled with many organizations’ growing need to save and reduce spending wherever possible, could lead to some positives. Meaning, those companies that focus on skills rather than credentials on paper are going to notice an increase in job fit and performance among employees, which in turn leads to reduced turnover.
This means that the labor market adjustment we are experiencing could lead to better job fit, better performance overall, and reduced turnover costs. Embracing this change, especially when backed by the proper talent management tools like employee assessments, could have a strong beneficial outcome for many organizations in the near future.
