On Monday, December 3rd, the Human Capital Club hosted its second “Think and Drink” event, one of a series of discussions centered around the 2018 Deloitte Human Capital Trends. The goal of the chat was to provide the attendees with a deeper understanding of the latest human capital trends and a variety of talking points to use in future networking conversations and interviews.
The Deloitte Human Capital Trends covered were:
- Trend #4 Careers to Experiences: New Pathways
- Trend #5 Longevity Dividend: Work in an Era of 100 Year Lives
- Trend #6 Citizenship & Social Impact: Society Holds the Mirror
The conversation began with trend #6 and a discussion about society’s and employees’ changing expectations for employers. People are now looking to the private sector instead of the public sector to address larger societal issues, and employers must be strategic about taking stances on controversial subjects to satisfy its employees while simultaneously continuing to deliver value to their stockholders. The group discussed how it can be difficult to discern whether a company is doing something solely for an altruistic reason or acting in its own self-interest. The participants suspected that there could be instances where companies may appear to be behaving in a socially responsible manner when in reality they are executing calculated publicity stunts that they know will improve their brand reputation and drive sales. Participants talked through specific examples like Patagonia’s decision to donate of its $10 million tax cut to environmental groups as well as Nike’s decision to feature Colin Kaepernick in one of its ad campaigns.
The group then reviewed trend #4, “Careers and Experiences: New Pathways” which describes how today’s employees do not want to follow traditional linear career paths but are instead seeking varied experiences and continuous education throughout their careers. Companies must be able to rapidly re-skill their workers and design roles that offer cross-functional and collaborative learning opportunities in order to attract and retain employees and remain competitive in the ever-changing business environment. Trend #5, “Longevity Dividend”, explains how careers are now being extended due to longer lifespans. Employers need to find creative ways to keep their older employees engaged and help them coexist with the younger generations in the workplace. The discussion group recognized how the two trends were related, since the re-skilling described in trend #4 is one of the key ways in which to address the challenge in #5 of extending the careers of aging workers. One of the participants, who was a second-year MBA, talked about her summer internship in which she had to create a learning and development plan for her organization’s workers that outlined how they would be re-skilled to address current skill gaps and future business needs. She explained the potential challenges of convincing highly accomplished senior employees who had deep experience in a certain function to learn a completely new set of skills late in their careers. Another student shared how her previous employer’s most skilled tradesmen were nearing retirement age and described the difficulty the firm was having transferring these older workers’ knowledge of complex hands-on crafts to a shrinking group of younger and much less experienced employees. The discussion ended with a student recounting the story of how one of her co-workers “engineered himself out of a job”. He had become bored with the repetitive nature of his job duties and expressed an interest in changing roles. He then designed a program that automated his daily tasks, so he could be transferred to another department. His employer essentially allowed him to architect his own career path, a perfect illustration of “the new career pathways” described in trend #4.
The Human Capital Club is currently planning its third and final Think and Drink event which will take place in Winter A.