Oxford Economics and SAP have recently published the results of the Workforce 2020, a report that analyses the main challenges that companies from all over the world face when it comes to the workforce of the future.

To sum up, the study states that every company that wants to succeed must consider the following items:

• Prepare for increasing diversity, changing employee demographics, and evolving definitions of work.
• Gain a better understanding of incoming millennial employees.
• Enhance employee engagement by providing the incentives and benefits that people actually want.
• Improve executive leadership skills and cultivation.
• Foster a culture of continuous learning that develops talent and empowers workers while capturing and retaining vital knowledge.

The results of the Workforce 2020 show that Latin America might be particularly unprepared to face the challenges of the future workforce. 402 executives and 421 employees were surveyed in the region and the main conclusion is that companies are struggling to understand the impact of the most relevant changes that workforce is enduring.

The report states that there are five top labour market shifts in Latin America, which have an impact on workforce strategy, affecting high-performing and underperforming organizations alike. The most relevant change is the increasing difficulty in recruiting employees with base level skills, followed by the globalization of labor supply. In addition, there is a growing number of consultant employees and of intermittent/seasonal employees. The final shift is that the expectations of employees are changing.

But, what are the key issues in which executives are having difficulties to understand the shifts that are coming? A great example is that fact that, even though 87% of Latin American companies state they are increasingly using contingent, intermittent, seasonal, or consultant employees, only 40% say that this requires changing HR policy. Furthermore, only 37% of employees have access to the latest technology and less than half are trained on workplace technology.

These situations have a rather negative impact on Latin American workforce. While the need for technology skills will keep on growing, only 36% of employees expect proficiency in the cloud in three years and just a little more than half expect to be proficient in analytics by then. In addition, only 43% of executives in Latin America say their company offers training programs to develop new skills. As a result, both companies and workers are unprepared for the growing need for technology skills.

Executives also lack understanding on two other key issues: what millennials think and what employees want. For instance, 64% of executives believe that Millennials are frustrated with manager quality, but only 25% of millennials state they are. Furthermore, around 50% of executives believe millennials are thinking of changing jobs to gain more knowledge, but only 28% of millennials say they are.

As regards employees’ satisfaction, a rather small percentage (24%) of employees are satisfied or very satisfied with their jobs. Most employees believe the most relevant incentives are competitive compensations (74%), followed by good retirement plans (66%). Another benefit they mention is access to social media.

An issue in which both employees and executives agree is that leadership is missing and companies are not working on developing new leaders. As a matter of fact only 47% of executives in Latin America claim their company has plans for succession and continuity in key roles. Lack of access to proper leaders is also hampering plans for growth, according to a large number of leaders in the region.

As it can be seen, the survey provides very interesting information for Latin American companies to reflect on the key points they need to work on in order to properly develop their workforce and enhance growth.

To read the full report click here.