The transformation of the labor market that we are experiencing presents magnitudes of change that are difficult to assimilate. If we take the estimates of the World Economic Forum in its latest edition of The Future of Jobs report, we can extract some data that puts this disruption at 23% of jobs by 2027. This percentage represents the total number of jobs that will evolve, either because new jobs are created (mainly linked to the energy transition, technological evolution and artificial intelligence) or because current jobs that are in decline are destroyed (mainly those with more administrative and transactional content susceptible to automation).

In addition to the transformation of jobs, the World Economic Forum analyzes the impact of labor market disruption in terms of the skills required. In this case, it is estimated that 44% of the skills required to perform a job will change by 2027, with cognitive skills such as complex problem solving, creative or analytical thinking and technological literacy, among others, becoming more relevant. In addition, the number of skills required for a job is growing year after year, at a rate of 5% per year.

Technological evolution is changing faster than the pace at which people learn, and this fact is impacting the supply and demand of talent, resulting in unprecedented mismatches.

In fact, talent shortage has become the number one risk to business growth in 2024 and 2025, according to a Gartner study (2024 Gartner Board of Directors Survey on Driving Business Success in an Uncertain World) and is already high on the strategic agenda of most companies.

The tensions in the current labor market, which are expected to grow in the near future, invite reflection on how to attract, develop and retain talent to ensure business sustainability in an environment of permanent change.

This context requires a new talent management approach based on agility and a focus on skills.

Talent Agility, agility in talent management, pursues continuous alignment and permanent adaptation between the skills the company needs and how the organization has those skills available when and where they are needed. It is a dynamic management of talent supply and demand that ensures that the company has the right skills in the right place, in the right form and in the right quantity. It involves making decisions about which skills should be brought in from outside, which should be developed internally, as well as establishing collaboration strategies with third parties that can provide certain specialized skills for certain periods of time. It involves adopting a talent management perspective that focuses more on skills (people’s abilities, knowledge and skills) than on positions (understood as groupings of functions and tasks). This approach involves defining what skills are needed, what skills the organization has, where the gaps are, and developing strategies to fill the identified gaps. This also requires a change in the way people are managed, much more transversal and collaborative.

Organizations that achieve agile talent management will be better able to adapt their workforce quickly, efficiently and cost-effectively to meet new situations and challenges, having the talent they need at all times.

To evolve towards a more agile, dynamic and skills-oriented talent management strategy, some best practices that organizations are implementing are:

1) Strategic workforce planning: identifying the skills the company needs in the short and medium term. According to Gartner, 86% of HR departments have not managed to implement a solid strategic talent planning function in their area, despite it being a strategic priority for most companies. While predicting what skills will be needed in the future is a complex exercise and an emerging capability in people management, the most advanced companies are developing their skills sensing capabilities as a key part of this initiative.

2) Talent attraction: proactively attracting talent by activating employer branding and customer marketing (CRM) strategies aimed at key groups on a continuous basis over time will provide agility to the incorporation of talent in the company. This allows to have a pool of latent talent that can be activated with agility in the face of unplanned talent incorporation needs.

3) Agile learning: develop the necessary skills through a learning approach “in the flow of work”. It is about promoting the learning of the skills that are needed at each moment, in an agile and continuous way, shaping a dynamic, adaptable and personalized skills development strategy, achieving learning results at the speed and with the necessary scale.

4) Talent marketplace: deploy talent in the organization through talent marketplaces that give visibility to the supply and demand of skills and promote the mobility of professionals through their dynamic assignment to projects. Having an internal talent marketplace promotes the mobility of people with the skills needed at any given moment, under a project-based management approach to face new challenges. In addition, this type of initiative fosters employee motivation and commitment by offering new opportunities for professional development and growth.

5) Talent growth: grow talent through career progression and non-traditional career development oriented to the most in-demand skills. Professional growth efforts should be oriented towards filling skills gaps, thus helping the company to have the necessary talent available while people grow and develop.

Only those companies that are able to evolve their talent management model with this focus will be the ones that best adapt their workforce to the continuous changes brought about by digitalization.

Cristina Hebrero, People & Change Partner at KPMG