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| | Brought to you by Alex Panas, global leader of industries, & Axel Karlsson, global leader of functional practices and growth platforms
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| | | | Employees are an organization’s biggest investment and source of value. For leaders, this means it is critical to establish effective strategies for putting the right talent in the right roles and to give workers the support and opportunities they need to prosper. But how can companies make long-term workforce decisions while rapid changes in technology are reshaping the skills and roles that will be essential to their future success? This week, we look at how organizations can approach strategic workforce planning (SWP) in the age of gen AI.
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| | | Many top-performing companies treat talent planning with the same rigor as managing their financial capital. As gen AI transforms the nature of work, the use of SWP can be particularly effective in helping companies analyze their future talent needs and investments—and as a result, operate more fluidly and efficiently. That’s according to McKinsey’s Neel Gandhi, Sandra Durth, Vincent Bérubé, and their coauthors, who identify five practices to help companies prepare for disruptions caused by AI and other technological advances. These practices include planning for multiple business scenarios, taking an innovative approach to filling talent gaps, and embedding SWP into business as usual. “SWP enables a more rapid redeployment of resources, ensuring that talent is allocated where it is most needed in real time,” the authors say. “This agility helps organizations move away from traditional ‘hire–fire’ cycles toward more sustainable through-cycle capacity management.” To hear more from McKinsey experts, register now for a webinar on SWP on Thursday, April 10. | | |
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| Companies should approach gen AI adoption with speed, resolve, and an acceptance that they will likely encounter bumps along the way, says Silicon Valley pioneer Reid Hoffman. Leaders also must have a compassionate mindset about the transition, Hoffman—a partner at venture capital firm Greylock Partners and cofounder of LinkedIn and Inflection AI—says in an episode of McKinsey’s At the Edge podcast. Leaders have to consider how their employees will learn new ways of working and how customers will adjust to engaging differently with their company. “That doesn’t mean being soft and not driving hard into the future and breaking some eggs,” Hoffman says. “Being compassionate means caring about the human experience, the human transitions, and the human costs involved in all this. It also means having human well-being as your ultimate goal, both in the now, in the transitionary, and in the future.”
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| Travel and logistics companies are on their own journey to an AI-powered future—one that goes far beyond using a bot to book a dream trip. Airlines, hotels, logistics services providers, and other companies in these sectors can create significant value by using gen AI and other new solutions in their workforce planning, according to McKinsey Senior Partners Jorge Amar and Sal Arora and their coauthors. These companies are facing labor shortages, due to factors such as high attrition rates and an expected wave of baby boomer retirements. To meet these and other workforce management challenges, the authors note that AI-powered approaches can help fill a range of roles, from drivers, pilots, and flight crews to call center employees, dispatchers, and reservation takers. The use of AI can help these companies “get the most out of the workforces they have—while taking steps toward creating the workforces they want,” the authors say. | | | Lead by planning for gen AI’s talent impact. | | | | | — Edited by Eric Quiñones, senior editor, New York
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