The workforce of the future will need to respond with agility and the ability to handle the demands of technology and digital tasking—but this is one talent shortage that employers can't simply hire their way out of.

So says a new report from the Hackett Group that finds that 85 percent of business services executives in fields ranging from finance and HR to information technology, procurement and global business services who were surveyed in its 2019 Key Issues Study say digital transformation strategies are “high” or “critical” priorities this year.

Other concerns among these execs include data and analytics, customer-centricity and innovation—all of which directly affect functional development priorities for business services, starting with talent.

Access to digital talent is a “high risk” to organizations seeking to digitally transform their operations, and is expected to be the fastest-growing risk factor over the next year to two years—and, conversely, that digital transformation is also having a “high” or “very high” impact on the businesses' overall talent and leadership needs.

But there just aren't enough candidates out there who possess the skills needed to drive this digital transformation—and organizations will have to upskill workers who are already in house if they're to have a chance of meeting their own future needs. According to the report, the implementation of “smart automation” technologies will affect “[t]ens of millions of enterprise roles, including millions in business service functions.”

As the adoption of technologies accelerates, the need for staff up to the challenge will as well—and the new talent profile, the report says, will be “dramatically different” in responsibilities and functions. Those new staff will in turn affect how technologies are implemented, and workers will “require advanced skills and competencies such as business acumen, process excellence, relationship management, agility, creativity and innovation.” Workers will need to be able to shift between roles.

But there are already substantial skills gaps, says the report, requiring HR to be able to identify talent needs, develop and acquire talent and drive talent performance—which means they'll also have to be able to hang on to workers who possess the skills necessary to keep the organization moving forward toward its goals.

And that in itself is a challenge, says the report: “To bolster performance as well as recruiting, organizations may need to re-envision their employer value propositions and career development models to engage and motivate digital workers.”

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Employers will need to hire for digital skills talent to survive

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