2023 Global Talent Trends Study | Mercer

As organizations continue to translate workplace priorities into impactful talent practices, this 88-page report by Mercer includes various insights. Although this 2023 version of the report contains points raised in their 2022 study, many of the insights are highly relevant. For example, with regard to workforce planning, one way organizations are addressing skills shortages is by “bending” the talent supply and demand curve; they are decreasing talent demand by deconstructing jobs into tasks, automating parts of jobs, redesigning jobs, and redesigning work models to make it easier to find people to do the tasks needed. They are increasing talent supply by accessing non-traditional talent pools, reskilling/upskilling and redeploying existing talent, rebalancing the employee value proposition to attract new talent, and considering co-opetition and talent sharing. (p.21). Concerning compensation and inflation, 77% of surveyed organizations are adjusting their rewards approach to respond to the inflationary environment. A few tactics they are using are a) implementing a bonus/pay adjustment across the entire workforce, b) providing a cost-of-living adjustment or other wage increases in most impacted markets, and c) using bonuses instead of base salary to increase total comp without long-term commitments (see p. 37). As organizations rethink their compensation practices in general, page 38 includes a few non-conventional suggestions, such as letting employees decide their compensation mix (e.g., percentage of at-risk versus guaranteed pay, ability to pay for additional days off.).