“Assumicide” Prevention for Training/HR Professionals Amid Talent Shifts

Complex changes in talent needs and availability are causing Training and HR professionals to deal with an “assumicide” crisis that requires the right skills and approaches to help those who make strategic decisions understand the causes of these changes and reframe their thinking about workforce acquisition, development, and performance solutions.

Leaders who expect us to meet company needs can commit “assumicide” by making decisions or directing actions based on unexamined assumptions about talent and the workforce. Rather than being informed by the correct data and information, their outdated understanding of how talent is acquired and grown can lead to poor outcomes or even dire business circumstances.

We may be hearing managers and leaders state their assumptions that the current talent crisis will take care of itself through layoffs of other employers. That assumption is based on what has been understood about talent supply rather than the current reality. Likewise, assumptions that the pandemic caused the crisis are only partly accurate.

How Did We Get Here?

Demographic data analysis has predicted talent shortages for more than 30 years, rooted in the shift of the Baby Boomers from the workplace and shrinking birth rates. Forbes recently pointed to the shift of Millennials past entry-level roles and smaller pools of managerial and entry-level talent, and other conditions expected to continue to at least 2030 and beyond (Why Talent Shortages Persist: Moving Beyond The Great Resignation And Quiet Quitting; forbes.com). Combine these trends with the overall shrinkage in the group of key employment-age workers—generally considered to be 24 through 54—and the impacts of those who have dropped from the workforce due to childcare needs, other employment barriers, or preferences, such as gig work. Simply put: There are not enough interested workers available with needed skills, expertise, or attributes. Past solutions are not enough.

I attended a recent workforce development symposium for industry, K-12 and post-secondary education, and other workforce and economic development stakeholders. Some shared promising approaches to working in partnership. Another pounded the panel’s table demanding, “Just send us bodies.” Other attendees shared innovative approaches to industry and education collaboration approaches for internships, apprenticeships, and manager development. Many responsible for recruiting, hiring, and developing talent joined in a chorus of frustrated lamentations that senior management either would not or could not “get” the talent crisis.

It Is Not Surprising

I ran a corporate university and organizational performance improvement efforts, and then shifted to the education sector to develop education leaders and specialists in performance improvement. Over the years, I consistently have observed managers’, executives’, and K-12 and post-secondary professionals’ lack of understanding of how adults learn and of human performance improvement.

While executives understand operations, IT, marketing, sales, service, and other divisions’ data and processes, they tend not to be as well versed in workforce acquisition and development.   Changes in automation, supply chains, and financial markets are under close observation and analysis, with executives leading strategic responses and proactive approaches to challenges and opportunities. Changes in supply and demand for talent are likely to be met with outdated assumptions, a lack of informed strategy, and failure to engage in collaborative efforts needed to solve the challenges.

What Is a Savvy HR or Training Professional to Do?

We can embrace our roles as guides for collaborative, informed improvement of the performance of people and organizations. The first five Certified Performance Improvement Facilitator standards, grounded in the discipline of Human Performance Improvement, guide us to use proven practices to help our organizations. They show us how to connect and genuinely engage in analysis and exploration with secondary and post-secondary education; economic development entities; community, industry, professional organizations; and other stakeholders. Using these standards, we can support our organizations to gain a systemic view of the challenges and the best and emerging practices for building talent pipelines:

1. Research: Apply critical judgment by inquiring, analyzing, and drawing conclusions from data and researching best practices at local, regional, state, national, and international levels. We can use this inquiry to first “wrap our minds around” the current state and the needed state of talent and performance, as well as the systemic factors in the marketplace, workplace, work, and workers’ will, skill, and readiness that are causing the gaps. We can explore accessible external assets and potential collaborative arrangements.
2. Facilitate engagement: Engage our organizations’ talent managers and potential external partners in this analysis through neutral facilitation that supports new “meaning making.” Our goal is achieving informed action. We can present solutions to them, let them run those recommendations through their existing mental models, and get more of the same from them. However, if we help them engage in analysis, explore, and learn with and from each other, they can form strategic relationships to meet their respective needs.
3. Leverage collaboration: Guide collaborative inquiry to focus on performance factors and causes before choosing solutions. Successful professionals are action oriented. Pressures and expectations demand doing something. The pain of the historic talent issues of today likely tempt quickly jumping to solutions that are either 1) A “shiny ball” that is the popular focus of the moment, or 2) A “pet rock” that is someone’s favorite low-effort idea, such as stealing from other employers. By leveraging facilitation of collaborative inquiry and solutions selection, we can avoid these pitfalls. People and organizations can stop talking at or past each other and learn and work together to develop the best solutions for complex talent challenges.
4. Develop organizational design: Guide collaborative development of action plans. We can support those inside our organizations who are vested in better approaches and results. We can guide them to develop a plan together, determine who will do what by when, how progress and results will be checked and reported, key performance metrics, and indicators of adoptions of chosen approaches. We can support braiding employer, education, and community action plans into a master collaborative plan.
5. Support people and processes: Support organization and management of collaborative resources and efforts. Ensure communication, monitoring and reporting processes, and oversight are planned and implemented collaboratively.

The other five Certified Performance Improvement Facilitator standards (see: Performance Improvement Facilitator Development and Certification – The Institute for Performance Improvement; tifpiedu.org) are rooted in how these types of collaborative solutions are nurtured, implemented, and sustained. They show us how we, as HR and Training professionals, working with external partners, can build organizational capacity and gain the relational capital, trust, credibility, and respect required to guide others to new understandings and action, and prevent assumicide.

We can apply these standards to guide us and others through the complex conditions impacting organizations and the workforce today. Through guiding inquiry, collaboration, and a focus on improving the performance of people and processes, we can claim our rightful roles as Performance Improvement Facilitators.