How to win the war for talent 

By 2029, more people will be retiring than ever before, and the next generation will not come close to filling the gap. We are already feeling the effects of this in the form of a skilled labor shortage, and the situation is only going to get worse. As a result, companies are looking for new ways to ensure that productivity does not suffer from a lack of skilled workers. Speakers German Ramirez, digital pioneer, and Benjamin Schlup, Managing Partner at itopia, provided insight into this topic at the Rochester-Bern Alumni/ae Event. 

The war on talent: It´s not what you think it is

“We are experiencing an important change in the labor market,” says Ramirez. He explains that automation, outsourcing and downsizing have destroyed loyalty between employers and employees. People were suddenly fired for economic reasons, even if they had done a good job. Employees soon responded by acting as well on their own merits, following the motto “as you do to me, I do to you”. In addition, there is a generational change and the new generation has much higher expectations and demands. 

Combined with the demographic shifts that are currently taking place, the result is that entrepreneurs have to fight for talent. And according to Ramirez, we are doing it wrong: “We are losing the war for talent,” he says. There are several reasons for this: For one thing, many companies still leave the search for good employees to HR, even though it is also the responsibility of C-level executives and the board of directors. In addition, many people have not yet understood that the old incentives no longer work.  Often the reaction is still, “Give them a raise, offer them a bonus, or let them work from home one day a week – but that’s not what people want, and we would know if we were listening,” says Ramirez. 

But what does today’s talent want? And how do you attract and retain them? According to Ramirez, there are two elements that are important today: “People want good values: humanity, transparency, equality and so on. In other words: The culture can be a magnet or a repellent for young talent,” he says. The second element is purpose. “People want to be able to talk about their work and be proud of what they do,” says Ramirez. It is incredibly important, especially for young people, that they can identify with a company’s purpose. 

Specifically, this means that companies may want to rethink the way they recruit. Away from box thinking and toward an overarching approach that focuses on culture and purpose. “Companies say their people are their most important asset, but they don’t act on it,” says Ramirez. It’s high time we do start listening to our current and potential employees. 

How will AI affect the need for human talent?

“Labor productivity is key to prosperity,” says Schlup. Yet automation with the help of conventional IT is showing diminishing benefits in terms of increasing work efficiency. Could artificial intelligence boost the productivity of scarce human talent and also replace missing resources? 

To answer this question, a deeper understanding of intelligence is helpful. Human intelligence is not a mere recombination of memorized data based on probabilities. It is a well-coordinated blend of perception, reflection, decision-making, and action. With respect to all these individual skills, humans and machines have their specific strengths and shortcomings. While machines, for example, can skim over masses of data more quickly, humans still have an unsurpassed capacity for abstraction. “The combination of human capabilities with artificially intelligent technology is therefore a promising approach,” explains Schlup. 

The integration of machines as team members, on the other hand, is more complex. “While artificially intelligent systems can act humanely, they do not yet understand the world the way we do,” says Schlup.  Nevertheless, real teamwork between humans and autonomous machines is already being successfully demonstrated in selected real-life scenarios, such as “robot waiters”. 

It is also a fallacy to believe that machines should always be better or even more moral than humans.  But risks must be assessed in specific context, for example, when it comes to being biased: “Humans are biased, but the impact is usually local and mitigated by their peers. Artificial intelligence scales much faster. If it incorporates bias and is deployed without restrictions, negative effects can multiply,” says Schlup. To summarize: Yes, artificial intelligence can do certain jobs, but collaboration between humans and machines is not always easy and needs to be well thought out. 

What does this mean for the future?

At the end of the event, the two speakers took a look into the future. “The last two skills that AI cannot replace are creativity and empathy. True creativity, which is not just a combination of previous ideas, and true empathy, which is not just saying what you want to hear, are the elements that continue to define humans and will become increasingly important in the workplace,” predicts Ramirez. 

Schlup sees the future in the Spatial Web. After Web 1.0 and 2.0, the Spatial Web, sometimes referred to as Web 3.0, is the next evolutionary stage of the Internet. It merges the physical world and its objects with digital content, allowing humans and machines to interact in three-dimensional space. “Imagine driving around China for the first time, in an autonomous car from Europe. The Spatial Web enables local knowledge to be shared instantly with you and your autonomous vehicles, providing answers to questions such as ‘Is the police officer who stops me trustworthy?’ or ‘Should I expect unexpected movements from this unfamiliar vehicle?’”, explains Schlup. 

Whatever the future holds, it remains exciting, as the 2024 Rochester-Bern Alumni/ae Seminar proved once again.