Employers surveyed for the Future of Jobs report have identified skills gaps and an inability to attract talent as barriers to progress.
Businesses are finding increasingly creative ways to change workplace culture, as they seek to attract and retain staff.
Here are four ways businesses are looking to create more flexible and equitable environments that attract talent.
Imagine working for a company that allows you to build a career without going into management. Or one that allows you to set your own salary. Or one that lets you work from a beach resort.
Businesses are finding creative ways to change workplace culture to make it more appealing to both new and existing staff.
That’s because organisations have identified skills gaps in the local labour market as the biggest blocker to progress.
In a survey for the Future of Jobs Report 2023, 60% of surveyed companies highlighted the difficulty in finding the right skills locally as the main barrier to transforming their business.
Crafters rather than managers
Remember when e-commerce firm Shopify did away with meetings at work? Or when it launched a system allowing employees to choose how much cash or equity they wanted as remuneration? Now the company is opening up new career pathways, so you don’t have to be a manager to get ahead any more.
“We’re clearing even more obstacles from ‘crafters’ so they can focus on what they do best: building world-class products”, Shopify’s chief human resources officer Tia Silas told Betakit.
Crafters work in a series of functions at Shopify but are not line managers — they may manage projects instead of people, like an engineer or someone in fulfillment, but often felt the need to pivot into management for career development.
”By removing the burden of management from crafters, they can now focus on what they and we value most — shipping products — while at the same time having a path to advance and grow their careers,” said Silas.
Does it work? It is probably too soon to tell, as Shopify only launched the initiative during the first quarter of 2023. But the unconventional business decision to slash the number of meetings saved enough time to equate to a 25% increase in completed projects.
Embracing diversity
Job hunting can often be a stressful experience. And neurodivergent people, often report additional difficulties, which can create an inequitable hiring environment.
Now, a new US job marketplace aims to put applicants with neurodivergent, or atypical, brain functioning in contact with businesses in the US who have neurodiversity hiring programs.
Around 15-20% of people are considered to be neurodiverse, and research indicates that teams which include neurodivergent professionals can be 30% more productive than those without, opening up a huge talent pool for supportive employers.
Sharing the profits
Founded in 1956 by a priest and his students, the Mondragon Corporation is the seventh biggest company in Spain, and the world’s biggest worker co-operative network.
Worker co-operatives are businesses owned and run by the people who work at them.
They are not particularly common, with only around 85,000 such firms globally, employing around 12 million people. But the Mondragon network is garnering interest from abroad, as institutions seek alternatives to the view that profits alone define the success of a business. They are also seen as a key way of increasing equality.
How is the World Economic Forum promoting equality in the workplace?
The Future of Jobs Report 2023 found that 75% of companies surveyed expect to adopt AI, big data and cloud technologies in the next five years.
The Centre for the New Economy and Society provides a platform for leaders to share insights on the adoption and efficacy of new technologies, and the readiness of the workforce to use them. Our work includes developing insights and dialogue on growth, jobs, skills, equity and risks.
Learn more about our impact:
Gender parity: Since 2006, we have annually measured the state and evolution of gender parity in 101 economies, supporting decision-makers to identify the most effective policies to close gender gaps. In Chile, we helped establish gender parity accelerators and benefitted 728,000 women – reducing the gender gap by 37% in the participating companies.
Reskilling Revolution: With our partners, we are helping the global workforce future-proof their careers, working with over 350 organizations to provide 1 billion people with better education, skills and economic opportunities by 2030.
Disability inclusion: Working with the Valuable500, we are collaborating with the largest global network of CEOs committed to closing the disability inclusion gap. Members are making progress by increasing the adoption of digital accessibility best practices and including disability in diversity, equity and inclusion strategies.
Racial justice: We are collaborating with a global coalition of 55 organizations in 13 industries who are committed to building equitable and just workplaces for professionals from under-represented racial and ethnic identities.
Want to know more about our centre’s impact or get involved? Contact us.
“We don’t have a lot of rich people — or not very rich — but on the other hand, we also don’t have poor people,” Mondragon engineer Igor Herrarte told Bloomberg.
Allowing employees to globetrot
Being free to explore the world while holding down a job is a lifestyle that is attracting more and more people. There are around 35 million digital nomads working remotely around the world, and one survey shows that 60% of employees would be looking to become a digital nomad if their company allowed it.
There is plenty of online advice to support people who want to become digital nomads, but the priorities are finding the right location and company.
It’s not all software company start-ups either — a surprising range of businesses are jumping at the chance to employ skilled people who do not want to live in one place.
