D
Catalyst | Dexterity
Organisations also need to be willing and able to
move people around the business; something that
may not be as straightforward as it sounds. “When
we have our human capital management system
(Workday) in place, we’ll be able to tag people’s skills,
so if there is a skill we need that people have in their
background we could ‘headhunt’ people within our
own organisation before going external,” says Shah at
GE Healthcare. “When I was at Rolls-Royce, we did
that with electrical engineers, and we had a whole
plethora of talent that we could tap into.”
Enhancing workforce diversity
equip them for their immediate role and to move into
different areas of the business.
“Whenever someone enters our organisation
there’s a whole induction process, so they understand
how we operate in terms of our policies, but also our
language,” says Firestine. “If people demonstrate the
right behaviours and are willing to learn, we can offer
training that’s going to help them grow.”
Training should not be restricted to younger
workers. Dryer points out that, at a time when
older people are delaying retirement or even re-
entering the workforce, many from the baby boomer
generation will also need to acquire new skills. “They
have been in the industry for a long time and are very
capable, but you will need to upskill them,” she says.
“People want variety and to know
they’re going to progress”
Larger corporates could learn a thing or two
from smaller firms, and even their own graduate
recruitment schemes, both of which traditionally
hire people based on their competencies and
characteristics rather than any pre-existing
experience. “Small businesses have always done this,”
points out Shah at iPsychTec.
“They want people who are agile and can do a lot
of different things, rather than people who like to do
the same thing day in day out. Graduate recruitment
is interesting too, because even large companies put
people through different modules of the business and,
at the end of it, the people and the organisation decide
what business line they should go into and what they
are best suited to in terms of any specialism. They’re
not hiring for a particular job.”
Aside from the benefits of being able to attract
and retain talented individuals and being better
prepared for the challenges that may arise in
fast-moving environments, adopting greater
workforce dexterity can also help businesses create
a more diverse employee base.
For instance, GE Healthcare’s Shah recalls
working at Rolls-Royce to remove the requirement
for a Master’s degree, after realising it had little
correlation with performance. The firm began
actively seeking applications from people who may
not have considered working for it in the past, such
as candidates from lesser-known universities or
requiring greater flexibility. “The candidates we hired
performed very well and were a lot more loyal,” she
recalls. “Our diversity went up because of that.”
Dryer, meanwhile, believes that hiring for
characteristics and learnability will help early
adopters to gain competitive advantage. “Every
client has this on their radar,” she says. “It’s a case of
who is going to get out of the gate and do it right first.
Companies are still in the early stages of knowing
what skills they need and to identify, and then align to
where the business is going. That’s still in its infancy
but it will be a reality in five to 10 years.”
Issue 4 - 2020
31