Talent Wars: The Far Generation

Today, in-flight and exit interviews take place remotely: promotions, bonuses, or benefits programs for employees are discussed via video call, and people also meet in front of the camera for feedback sessions – the working lives of HR managers and HR departments have fundamentally changed. Nothing beats hiring and onboarding remotely. As future-oriented and crisis-resistant companies will continue to rely at least on hybrid models, if not largely or entirely on remote collaboration, the challenges and opportunities related to the search for new talent will be examined here.

Remote work looks good and has proven itself over the past couple of years, but distributed and location-independent work presents a challenge for companies: Where can you find young talent who prefers, wants exclusively, or can exclusively work remotely? Personnel seekers must reorient themselves and look for people who can be located on the company’s site, but also outside the company’s site.

This is new, because moving to the location of the company’s headquarters was a constant prerequisite of the employment contract. Anyone who today understands how to find and hire talent regardless of location has chosen exactly the right strategies for the talent battle. Because this is getting harder and harder, and traditional standards no longer help companies that search so hard.

Indeed, companies have long known that hiring employees in different locations has a positive effect on the company: after all, with each extended radius, the abundance and possibilities of hiring expand. Each talent offers different perspectives, comes from a different background and draws on different experiences. This brings the diversity and diversity of the entire company to a new dimension, making it more open and integrated.

Example: Applicants who live outside urban areas in rural areas have a completely different background of experience and offer new perspectives on a company culture that was previously exclusively urban. This can contribute to a profound change in mindset that keeps you open and curious and ensures that you remain motivated and show a high willingness to learn.

This leads to a completely new understanding of the role of human resource managers: they need more time and authority to embed the principles of diversity, equality and integration in teams, to link them to corporate goals and thus open up many new opportunities for the company. Because if you reflect a new diversity in the market, a more diverse group of employees can also better assess and reflect the diversity of customers and their diverse needs.

But the shift to a talent distribution strategy cannot happen overnight. It requires fundamental changes in the function and operations of the human resources department. To take advantage of the possibility of finding new people with new skills, hiring managers and recruiters need to develop a closer relationship with each other and with the organization as a whole. Recruiters must keep the company’s human resource managers informed of what is happening in the market and where they see challenges and opportunities.

HR leaders need to be empowered to embed the new imperatives of diversity, equality, and inclusion in teams and align this with organizational goals. Once new candidates are found and hired, the next challenge is to retain them. Here, too, it is up to the HR department in particular to create the right environment in the long run, to provide all employees with optimal support and to ensure that the company embeds the right behaviors for the hybrid or remote working model in such a way that new talent is retained and retained. Desire for change is required at all levels.

88.3 percent of all respondents to a study conducted by the Fraunhofer Institute for Industrial Engineering and Organization are fully convinced that the work council and the personnel council should also play a major role in cultural change and measures towards greater confidence in cooperation in the new normal in the future.

Any effective distributed talent strategy needs the right technology. Employees must be equipped with simple, easy-to-use tools so that they can collaborate seamlessly, quickly, and authentically with colleagues around the world. More technology doesn’t always mean better technology. The expanded set of tasks of the HR department also includes, in close cooperation with the company’s management, ensuring that new technologies are not used for their own benefit, but because they really make working life easier.

Fortunately, we’re not as far here as some might fear: In the aforementioned Fraunhofer IAO study, 87.1 percent of all respondents confirmed that they work almost exclusively digitally—that is, no longer based on paper—in a corporate environment.

There is no doubt that the future of talent will be distributed. However, it is up to HR managers and business leaders to make this idea a reality. For me, one thing is absolutely clear: geographical boundaries will become less important to employers, allowing them to tap into a larger pool of talent and expand into new markets. A change of perspective can help greatly: remote work, home office and globally distributed work should not be seen as a reward or well-being for (young) employees, but as a huge opportunity for survival and growth for future-oriented companies themselves.