Choose Lasting Transformation, Not the Next "Great Whatever"

Skills-based talent management wasn't a "trend" in 2024. It's a strategic imperative, and here to stay.

It's been a rough few years for people who hate trendy catch-phrases, and there's definitely been no escape from them in the HR landscape. Even more confusing (and cringe-worthy), these clickbait-y headlines are often at odds with each other. Is "The Great Resignation" over, or is it returning in 2025? Or are we calling it "The Great Detachment" now—no, wait, it's "The Great Stay." Actually... it's "Revenge Quitting," right? Because "Rage Applying" and "Quiet Quitting" are so last year. (Even though all of these articles were published in the last 6 months.)

Minus the trendy labels, what's at the heart of the problem is that employees are fed up with "mission, vision, values" statements that contradict with actual workplace culture, exhausted by messy organizational planning, and outright done with unclear career paths, dead-end work, and talent management that underutilizes their best skills and limits their growth. Whether employees politely resign, begrudgingly stay, or slam the door behind them, the message is clear: Employers have struggled to realign culture, business strategy, and workforce planning in the 2020s. Here's the really tough pill to swallow. What's disrupted the workplace is only just beginning. 

When Lightcast published The Rising Storm, one of the key findings is that the US will face a worker shortfall of 6 million people by the end of the decade. About a 18 months ago, McKinsey projected that 12 million occupational shifts may need to happen by 2030, up 25% from its 2022 projection. And a year ago, BCG and Lightcast examined over 20,000 job posts and found that 54% of college graduates don't work in their original field of study, while 70 million people can be categorized as "STARs"—workers without bachelor’s degrees who are “skilled through alternative routes.”

These are not simply fads. These are realities that here for the long term. For employers? The clock is ticking to take action. With fewer workers to go around, disappearing traditional and linear career paths, and shifting roles among technology and societal needs, organizations must rethink how they will shape their business for long-term durability. And that means starting with their talent. Because how else will work get done? (Reminder: It's not with AI. AI requires skills, and skills can only come from people.)

If we must reference an HR buzzword, it's only in the sense that one of the drivers of "The Great Detachment" is broken performance management. Organizations must understand what their competitors are doing, how market demands will shift their products, services, and operations, what talent they currently have, and how that maps to the external market. Only then can they make the best decisions about how to upskill or reskill their talent, acquire new talent with future-ready skills (and where to find them), contract (or borrow) talent, and potentially bridge gaps with AI or automation (and what skills that will require).

The labor shortage storm is making landfall. If your workforce is asking, "What are we even doing here?" then be prepared for ... whatever the news calls it next. Or better yet, while there's still time, get the external labor market insights that drive business decisions to strengthen your workforce, improve market position, and prepare you for the future. It's basically 2025. What are you waiting for?