The labor market is evolving to adapt to the world we live in. Both candidates and companies have to keep up with these trends in order to not miss out on new opportunities.
The world is changing faster and faster, and along with it, the labor market as well. This niche is forced to transform and adapt to the new needs of society. Thus, it is critical for organizations to be up-to-date and anticipate these changes.
As has been the case in recent decades, the global workforce will continue to evolve towards a comprehensive digitalization that will streamline its processes. Learning to cope fluently in a technological environment, as well as learning to create programs and applications, will be key skills of the worker of the future.
Detecting these abilities correctly will be an arduous task for companies’ Human Resources departments.
At the same time, training will be more vital than ever, as access to higher education in developed countries has increased, meaning that higher education is becoming more common as a requirement for any minimally skilled job. Needless to say, in-company training will also be important and proper training programs should be offered to employees.
However, it is crucial to keep workers motivated. A fundamental way to do so is to go beyond traditional courses and bet on gamification and other resources, as well as the measurement of results and the generation of reports.
Training management software gives access to a multitude of resources - interactive videos, PDF documents, articles, images -, which informs companies of the difficulties, strengths and needs of the workforce. It makes it possible to monitor progress and even the effectiveness of the training itself.
Flexibility will be the attribute par excellence in work environments and the labor market. Teleworking, free schedules and other advantages mean that the relationship between the employee and the company can be shaped according to their own preferences.
This increases the employee’s quality of life, improving their work-life balance without affecting the productivity of the company.
In this new labor market, if we look at major cities, there is a boom of business centers in Madrid and Barcelona, such as Lexington, where companies are increasingly betting on flexible work formulas, as well as on the rental of hybrid offices where teams can combine teleworking and face-to-face work through a rotation system.
This type of flexible space, also known as coworking, is becoming the preferred solution for companies of all sizes.
Another quality that aims to become the most valued by recruiters is the ability to work as a team. Business trends are pointing to collaboration and coexistence as the best ways to create a good working environment.
In fact, even small companies or freelancers will be influenced by this wave of cooperation between professionals due to the growing trend of coworking spaces, which will only multiply in the future.
Finally, what will ultimately set the course for the coming decades in the labor market is genuine awareness of environmental responsibility.
Leaving aside greenwashing and starting to improve environmental conditions will be the top priority for companies and, therefore, they will be looking for professionals who are as committed as the company.
Companies will follow the evolution they’ve started years ago towards a strong and open corporate culture where employees feel they are part of the whole and where effort is rewarded.
Productivity becomes the most important variable for measuring employee performance. Thus, the most productive employees will be rewarded with promotions that will allow them to boost their careers to a new level.
This will involve a trend towards the implementation of tools that allow the results of each employee to be monitored objectively and, at the same time, help to detect their training needs.
At this point, performance evaluation software will become essential. It is a way of obtaining unbiased data that can generate short- and long-term reports, improve decision-making, among others.
Salary, although still important, is losing weight to emotional pay, as the new generations are willing to give up higher compensation in exchange for a better work-life balance.
Other benefits such as additional training or the opportunity to participate in activities in other departments of the company will also be increasingly attractive to candidates with greater interest.
Another big trend will be temporary jobs. Words such as mini-jobs or project-based contracts will dominate job offers.
Thus, long-term ties with the worker will be reduced and there will be a tendency towards specialization. Less important tasks will be outsourced to other companies to reduce workflow and focus on the most important processes.
The idea of temporariness, in turn, will lead to higher turnover and, therefore, new recruitment and selection needs. Processes will become even more massive and will require new multi-posting tools.
Platforms such as Bizneo and BullHorn HR's ATS -which allow the publication and centralized management of candidates in more than 80 different recruitment sources-will be essential in this process.
Freelance workers will multiply and with them, specialization will increase. Thus, technical and transversal skills will gain weight compared to traditional higher education.
Given the speed at which society is evolving, the worker of the future must always be in training to be able to adapt to the new techniques and technologies that arrive in the sector.
Otherwise, they will be stuck in a rut and will gradually miss out on new opportunities to advance and move up the career ladder.