The State of Organizations 2023 Report | McKinsey & Company

Talent Management

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This newly released 92-page report shares insights on 10 organizational shifts businesses face today—all of which have implications for talent, leadership, and culture. The shifts, which are summarized on pages 6-7, impact talent areas such as employee value proposition, talent attraction and retention, hybrid and remote work, and diversity and inclusion, to name a few. As I reviewed the report, three shifts caught my attention regarding workforce planning. (#3) Applied AI in the workplace —organizations report using an average of 3.8 AI capabilities (e.g., natural language generation, computer vision) in 2022, which is double the 1.9 used in 2018. This shift raises the question: Have we identified the impacts of AI on how work is delivered in our organization and by whom? How do these impacts change the skills required of our workforce? (#1) Business shocks, crises, and rapidly changing business situations require quick responses from organizations. This point raises the question: Have we adequately planned for different scenarios we may face as an organization? How will our talent needs shift as a result of those scenarios? (#10) Efficiency is back at the top of the company agenda. This priority raises questions such as: In what ways are our organizational structure and spans of control leading to inefficiencies in the delivery of work? How are unclear roles and responsibilities slowing down decision-making and leading to duplication of work? How does a lack of understanding of the skills of our workforce undermine our ability to quickly redeploy talent? These are just a few questions that might help firms think through the practical implications of these shifts on workforce planning and aspects of talent management. Here is also a summary of the report if you do not want to go through the detailed 92-page report.