Workforce 2020, a global study performed by Oxford Economics, provides information on better human resources practices and advances towards the creation of talent development strategies for the future of the world’s economy.

The Workforce 2020 report, performed by Oxford Economics and SAP, has identified the main changes the Colombian labour market is facing.

In Colombia, as in most of the countries surveyed by the study, most employers agree on the fact that there is a great difficulty recruiting workers with based-level skills. Other aspects that deeply impact Colombian workforce are globalization of labour supply (60%), the growing number of temporary workers (59%) and consultants (55%) and changes in working modes, such as flex time, telecommuting, etc. (55%).

Around 92% of Colombian companies say they are hiring more temporary workers and/or consultants. However, only 38% of them is aware of the fact that this situation demands changes in HR policies.

Currently, over half of Colombian enterprises use metrics and benchmarking to check their employees’ performance. A positive thing is that almost 61% of these companies know how to extract useful insights from that data, way above the 42% global total.

According to the Workforce 2020, most companies do not know what their employees really want. Colombian workers think that the most important incentives are: competitive compensations (79%), retirement plans (70%) and flexible workplace (65%). However, 50% of employers offer competitive salaries and only 29% of them provide flexible workplace.

The report shows that Colombian employers do not really understand what young people think. For example, 78% of executives believe that Millennials are frustrated with their managers, but the truth is that only 23% of these youngsters feel like that.

The results of the study show that only 24% of Colombian workers are satisfied with their current job.

As regards the demand of technological skills, Colombia is in a better position when compared to other Latin American countries, as 65% of workers expect to professionally manage these skills over the next few years.

In addition, 70% of Colombian workers say their company provides them with the adequate tools to grow and enhance their labour performance, a high percentage when compared to the 45% of the global total.

Nevertheless, there are aspects that must be improved, as less than half of Colombian executives say their company offers training programs to develop new skills.

Another issue analysed by Workforce 2020 is leadership. Half of Colombian executives say that their company plans for growth were hampered due to a lack of adequate leaders. But 54% of employers and employees agree on the fact that their company has the right leadership to reach success.

Most senior positions are covered with the company’s employees (74%) and a large number of these companies have succession plans for key roles.