Ep 831: The Talent Employers Are Throwing Away

Redundancies have become a constant feature of the talent market. AI is taking a lot of the blame, but the drivers behind this are much broader. Jobs and skills are changing faster than most organizations can keep track of and the conventional response is to restructure the workforce and then hire in the new skills that are needed. That approach relies on a ready supply of perfectly qualified candidates, and in a fast-moving skills market those candidates are increasingly hard to find. It also assumes that employers already have a clear view of the skills and potential within their existing workforce, which is rarely the case.

So what does a smarter approach to restructuring look like?

My guest this week is JC Townend, President of The Adecco Group for the UK and Ireland and CEO of LHH, the Adecco Group business that supports individuals through redundancy. In the UK alone, LHH works with more than 20,000 people a year who have been made redundant, which gives JC a rare view of both the decisions employers are making and where the people affected end up next. In our conversation, she explains what is really driving the current wave of restructuring, why the financial case for replacing people rather than redeploying them has changed, and how the best employers are rethinking workforce planning.

In the interview, we discuss:

How the pattern of restructuring has changed over the last eight years

What is really driving the current wave of redundancies

AI, automation and the skills mismatch that goes well beyond them

Why companies understand skills within teams but not across them

The employers letting people go and then rehiring for similar skills

Why the perfectly qualified external candidate is getting harder to find

Changing how internal moves are perceived and helping people sell their transferable skills

Agile workforce planning and a matrix of opportunities rather than a single career ladder