International Developments In Skills Migration: Talent Shortage In Australian Workforce

Talent shortage in Australian Workforce

Discuss about the International Developments in Skills Migration.

According to the research done by Manpower Group Solution, the age of a candidate is considered to be the biggest barrier in the growth of the career. In order to conduct this research, the surveys of 4,500 candidates, who are seeking job in the global multinational companies, are done. The result of the survey showed that the people of Australia have a strong believe that age is the biggest barrier of the career development. On the other hand, lesser number of people in the American and UK region has the similar feeling. 37% of the participants of the survey are Australian, 34% from UK and 26% from US. However, for the growth of company employees of all age category needs to be recruited within the workplace, which is one of the best ways to deal with the issue of skill shortage. The older employees can provide their working experience, which is needed for the career development of the young workers.

Hence, it is essential to encourage generational diversity in the workplace of Australia to overcome the issue related to talent shortage. The research also focuses on the changes, which are necessary to employ the older people in the workplace. The current study focuses on the issue of talent shortage in the workplace of Australia and its consequence. The relevant theories and models with the topic are also mentioned along with the recommendations to deal with the issues.

Talent shortage usually occurs during the time, when the employers do not get the candidates with exact skill needed a particular job profile. The managers of the human resource department needs face a tough challenge in the modern days. In spite of the fact there is no shortage of job aspirant candidates, finding the one with perfect capability does pose a challenge to all major employers of Australia. Weller (2015), believes that the high level of expectation of the employers from the chosen candidates is one the prime cause of lower level of talents among the employees. Moreover, in the present days with rapid growth in global business, it is essential for all reputed organization to hire the highly skilled workers to gain the competitive advantage in the tough market.Since the last 10 years; Australia has encountered significant improvement in the economic sector. However, the lack of skilled workers is one of the potential barriers for the improvement of the economy in the future. Hence, the human resource managers have to face a challenge to deal with the issues and gather proper workforce.     

The change in the nature of the workforce along with the change in the nature of the employment relationship has brought new challenges to all major organizations. The nature of the work, and the skills, which is needed also, encountered huge modification. The new set of workers in the new generations mainly focuses more on the employability compared to that of employment. This trend among the new job aspirants is responsible for the change of relationship between the employers and employee. This has caused a major shift in the balance of employment power within the organization. The trends in the employment and retirement policies are also responsible for this change of this employment status. It is essential for all the employers to manage the workforce using effective HR policies, which will help to retain the older workforce. The latest trends within the young age are that they do not like to stay attached with the same organization for longer period. Kell et al. (2014), have added in the modern days, the young employees have the tendency to frequently change the workplace in hope of getting better prospect and also have the chance of getting better salary. Hence, they are not able to settle in a particular domain and thereby not able to gain the talent. They are also not able to take the advantage of the experience, which is gained from the workplace in longer duration.   

Relevant theory related to Talent Shortage and age diversity

According to the report of Connell and Burgess (2016), 38% of the Australian employers have faced issues due to lack of skills and proper talent among the job seeking candidates. In the talent shortage survey of nearly 1500 employers in Australia 23% has less number of applicants and 21% face the issues due to lack of proper talented employees. 20% of the employees also lack the quality of having hard skills. These are the top three human resource challenges faced by the Australian organizations ("Talent shortage in Australia is lowest ‘since pre-GFC’", 2017)

Talent management is one of the essential parts of the human resource department of an organization. This helps the organization to recruit the talented employee and also retain them for longer time period. It is also essential to maintain diversity in the workplace, which will help to ensure that all types of talents are available within the workplace of the organization. With the help of talent management it is also possible to improve the reputation of an organization.

Jepsen, Knox-Haly and Townsend (2015), have suggested about the importance of Radical Individualism theory, which is one of popular model used by all the major recruiters. By the implication of this theory, the recruiters are able to respect the needs of the workers and also provide them with proper salary needed for maintain workforce diversity. On the other hand, Farndale et al. (2014), have argued that this theory cannot be applied in the context of the present days as it do not help in the purpose of retaining of the employees. In order to attract the talented and skilled candidates, it is important for the organizers to use the Kool-aid theory, which helps the employers to offer the benefits needed for retain and thereby help to deal with the problems related to talent shortage.

As the average age of the Australian population is increasing, it is an essential part of the employers of the reputed organizers to get the possible replacement for the workforce. The ageing of the population also pose a major challenge for long term service duty for the organizers. By the year of 2020, the total population of Australia is expected to reach 24 million. Moreover, the total number of people in the age category of 60-65 years will be more compared to that of the age category of 20-30 years. Hence, the average age of the people of is expected to be above 50 years (Crettenden et al., 2014).

It is thus evident that in 2020, most of the working groups are to retire from their workplaces, which will result shortage of the total number of workers in the workforce.

In order to resolve the issues of shortage of talented and experienced workers in the near future time period, it is essential for the employers to use the experience and working capacity of the aged workers. According to the analysis done by Kulik et al. (2014), more than 60% of the individual of the age of more than 60 years, who are planning to retire from the work still have the capability to work to make significant contribution to the organization they have been working.

Recommendations for Talent Shortage and Possible Outcomes

However, there are several organizations have the intention to remove the aged workers as they feel that those workers do not have the capability to deal with fast changing structure of the workplace. Nevertheless, Boenzi et al. (2015), have suggested that it is necessary to maintain to have diversity in the workplace of an organization, which will help to resolve the issue of shortage of talent and the skills in the workforce of Australia. It is however, the duty of the HR managers of an organization to ensure that they are able make attract the aged occurs.

Due to the age, the aged workers should be given less stressful works. They can also help the young and inexperienced workers to inherit the skills needed to deal with the issues faced in the workplace. There should be interacting sessions of the elderly workers with the new workers, where both the groups can exchange the ideas needed to improve the performance of the organization.

According to Henry et al. (2014), one of the best ways to retain the older employs is to offer them some extra benefits like providing free health and life insurance schemes. In order to release the level of stress, they can also be offered per time job. Additionally, they also need to be given the right of choosing the work timing of the own and thereby enjoy more freedom at the workplace. They also need to be given the chance to share their experience with other co-workers during the time of crisis. One of the major issues faced by the aged employees is their inability to deal with the use of the latest digital technology. Thus, it is essential for the employers to provide required training to the aged employers.

Conclusion

In order to deal with the issue of talent and skill shortage in the workforce of Australia, it is necessary for the employers to retain the aged workers. This will help the young and new employees to inherit the required skills. It is however necessary for the organization to provide some extra benefits to aged workers and also ensure that they do not get the extra stress in the workplace. Hence, by maintaining the age diversity in the workplace it is possible to resolve the issues in the workplace.

Reference

Boenzi, F., Mossa, G., Mummolo, G., & Romano, V. A. (2015). Workforce aging in production systems: modeling and performance evaluation. Procedia Engineering, 100, 1108-1115.

Connell, J., & Burgess, J. (2016). The quality of working Australia and its relevance for HRM and organisational effectiveness in the Asia Pacific. Asia Pacific Human Resource Management and Organisational Effectiveness: Impacts on Practice, 171.

Crettenden, I. F., McCarty, M. V., Fenech, B. J., Heywood, T., Taitz, M. C., & Tudman, S. (2014). How evidence-based workforce planning in Australia is informing policy development in the retention and distribution of the health workforce. Human resources for health, 12(1), 7.

Farndale, E., Pai, A., Sparrow, P., & Scullion, H. (2014). Balancing individual and organizational goals in global talent management: A mutual-benefits perspective. Journal of World Business, 49(2), 204-214.

Henry, A. D., Petkauskos, K., Stanislawzyk, J., & Vogt, J. (2014). Employer-recommended strategies to increase opportunities for people with disabilities. Journal of vocational Rehabilitation, 41(3), 237-248.

Jepsen, D., Knox-Haly, M., & Townsend, D. (2015). Recruitment practices in Australia: A review and comparative research agenda. Employment Relations Record, 15(2), 5.

Kell, P., Cameron, R., Joyce, D., & Wallace, M. (2014). International developments in skills migration: a case study of the opportunities, threats and dilemmas for Australia. In Workforce Development (pp. 37-55). Springer Singapore.

Kulik, C. T., Ryan, S., Harper, S., & George, G. (2014). Aging populations and management. Academy of Management Journal, 57(4), 929-935.

Talent shortage in Australia is lowest ‘since pre-GFC’. (2017). HR Online. Retrieved 25 January 2017, from https://www.hcamag.com/hr-news/talent-shortage-in-australia-is-lowest-since-pregfc-225231.aspx

Weller, S. A. (2015). Accounting for Skill Shortages? Migration and the Australian Labour Market. Population, Space and Place.