Global Mobility in 2014: Looking Ahead to the New Year

The beginning of the year is usually when we start making New Year’s resolutions, look back on the events, achievements and experiences of the past year, and take a hopeful look forward to the year ahead. Somewhat following this trend I decided to start this year with a post about predictions for 2014 in the world of global mobility.

Looking through recent media publications, one of the main topics I came across was the notion of the continuing scarcity of talent and the need to search globally for it. Specifically, according to Josh Bersin in Forbes 2014 will be all about retention, attraction and engagement of employees. Summarizing the results from the report Predictions for 2014, Bersin argues that global economic growth will further increase the competition for people, making employees in charge of their own situation. Contrary to the previous years of cost reductions when employees were made to work harder for less money, this year the skilled and sought-after talent is likely to take over control. Therefore, it will be the turn of employers to compete, adjust and adapt in order to have the people they most need. Bersin suggests that instead of waiting for talent to come to you, organizations should start sourcing people they need on a global level and go after them through locating work where the best talent is based.

The Forbes article also highlights the role of employee generations, namely the Millenials, in shaping the reality of 2014. Hence, the second main notion for 2014 is that Millenials are establishing themselves as the main body of the workforce. Echoing this notion, one of the articles featured in the Big Ideas 2014 series in LinkedIn argues that it is crucial for organizations to acknowledge the differences of Millenials compared to previous workforce generations and to re-engage with them. As the author puts it, the new employee generation is foremost looking for purposeful and meaningful jobs that create valuable experiences. Therefore, organizations are encouraged to provide such experiences through corporate citizenship, giving possibilities and freedom to grow and innovate, and substituting traditional hierarchies with partnership approaches. Looking into this topic in one of my older blog posts I also suggested that Millenials are more likely to have a global mindset, so they expect opportunities for international experience to be available in their workplace. As such, one of the practical suggestions very much relates to global mobility, as providing Millenials with opportunities for international assignments can create the developing and meaningful experiences they so crave for.

Without much clarity on whether globalization will accelerate even further, or rather slow down (which is subject to discussion), it seems quite certain to predict that global mobility will remain critical in 2014. Indeed, a large (and increasing) share of businesses will still operate beyond the boundaries of their domestic markets, the global talent pool will still be the right place to fish for scarce and valuable talent, and globally minded Millenial employees will still try to satisfy their needs through international experiences.