Leadership Evolution — The Workforce Crisis

As Friedrich Nietzsche says “The snake which cannot cast its skin has to die. As well the minds which are prevented from changing their opinions; they cease to be mind”, I believe that businesses that cannot adapt to the Millennials Mindset Evolution are doomed.

All companies that cannot evolve will face a serious crisis in the near future. Rainer Strack, a global leader at the Boston Consulting Group on the topic of HR is talking about a Workforce crisis of 2030.

He says that year 2030 is when the highest employee population will be retiring, resulting in a significant decline in labour supply. By that time, Germany alone will be at an 8-million talent deficit and most of the largest economies in the world will also find themselves in a similar situation.

Technology can be a solution to this problem. However, looking at what’s happening today, we can definitely see that as it evolves, it also creates more higher skilled jobs.

And what’s the result?

Even higher skills mismatch in the workforce.

Business is like war, it is hard and merciless. When organizations compete, the battle is energetic, wild, and maybe a little bit violent. As leaders and managers, we find ourselves in a position to get and keep more customers, hire employees from abroad, acquire new technology or develop more solutions to sell. Unfortunately most of the time we simply forget to look internally, at our own people, and eventually, in the end they leave us.

Albert Einstein says “The world as we have created it is a process of our thinking. It cannot be changed without changing our thinking.” So we need to change our approach to the new generation, before it is too late.

But how do we do that?

First of, let’s take a look at what motivates the new generation.

  1. Appreciation for your work
  2. Good relationship with colleagues
  3. Good work-life balance
  4. Great relationship with superior

I believe that every organization need to have a People strategy, managers and leaders need to develop and execute. This strategy is different from organization to organization, from team to team, but essentially it has to contain the following.

  1. Fast and consistent feedback
  2. Short term goals
  3. Social rewards for achieving short term goals
  4. Celebrate failure (and this is a tricky one)
  5. Long term goals
  6. Experimentatio
  7. Creativity
  8. Conflict management
  9. Mentoring and leadership
  10. Multilateral development

In the next article we are going to dive deeper into these 10 points and see how we can adapt them to our own organization, team or company.

If you want to get involved let’s connect. You can find me on Medium, Linkedin, Facebook, Instagram or SoundCloud.

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