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Digital | Catalyst
work. This has led to more fluidity in
the workforce, says Devenish. “There
may be a piece of work they can do in
addition to their day job if they have
the bandwidth, so we’re getting more
productivity. Plus, employees are
engaged because they’re able to do
something different.”
Alternatively, teams working
at capacity can push work out to
the talent pool, match a project to
available skills and back-fill if need be
on less urgent projects. Meanwhile,
those employees who are ‘ready with
development’ can access an online
learning platform to add to their
skills and because this data is tracked,
managers can see when they have
reached an appropriate skills level
and they can then be pushed onto the
talent-mobility platform.
The approach is still in its infancy,
and Devenish recognises that it may
prove a culture shock for many. “We
don’t underestimate the challenge
this puts on our organisation’s
culture,” she says. “We know there
will need to be a mindset change.”
However, if Atos recruiters do need
to go out to the external market, they
can do so in a highly targeted way.
“Having a talent-mobility approach
means we can enrich what we do
externally,” she says.
Regional differences
Globally, the digital talent challenge
is subtly different across geographies.
Jones reports that stronger growth
in Asia-Pacific economies compared
to the likes of Europe, the US and the
UK has made external recruitment
extremely difficult for employers.
In China, for example, the working
population has been shrinking for
seven years straight, so organisations
are fishing from a smaller pool.
Australia will have a shortage of 2.2
million highly skilled workers by
2030, while Japan’s workforce has
shrunk by 4.5 million in the past six
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“Employees are engaged
because they’re able to do
something different”
years. In the more mature North
American market, more than a
third (37%) of organisations have
added digital responsibilities to
existing job descriptions or created
separate digital jobs in existing
functions, according to Willis
Towers Watson.
Nine in 10 companies in North
America are experiencing difficulty
securing digital talent, with many
turning to more flexible and non-
traditional work sources such as
freelance talent exchanges. Others
look into automating certain tasks to
reduce the recruitment burden.
In the UK, many employers are
taking a longer-term strategy of
investment in digital apprenticeships,
since the introduction of the
Apprenticeship Levy in 2017 (a
tax designed to fund training)
has enabled them to ringfence funds.
“In the past, apprenticeships would
be a bolt-on, a campaign,” says Annette
Allmark, head of apprenticeships at
BCS, the Chartered Institute for IT in
the UK. “Now there’s a very different
approach, around retention too. If
an employer approaches this in an