This archive report was first published on 29 September 2021.
Skills to steer your firm into the future ¶
Published on September 29, 2021
The future of jobs is uncertain, with automation and the pandemic redefining work. According to government data, over 700,000 Kenyans lost jobs to the pandemic, jobs that may never return.
Enterprise spoke to BrighterMonday Kenya chief executive Emmanuel Mutuma to understand the future of work. The firm is one of East Africa's top online human resources and recruitment platforms, having leveraged data to help over 40,000 businesses attract and onboard the right people for the past 15 years.
Unemployment has more than doubled in a year, with 60% of the unemployed being young people aged between 18 and 35 years. The job market has become more competitive, with global talent pools expanding and remote work being accepted as an option globally.
Most organizations are adopting workplace flexibility or working remotely, increasing competition since people are not accustomed to the fact that they do not need to be physically present to deliver on roles and responsibilities. A company looking for a developer or digital marketer can now hire abroad, making it even more difficult for local talent pools that aren’t matching skills expectations.
BrighterMonday is 15 years old in the market, and the job market has massively changed in the last decade. The firm has always been an online business, choosing to challenge how recruitment was done, from traditional job applications using post office boxes to shortlisting piles of physical CVs for days or months.
They chose a futuristic approach, believing digitization would be the most effective, efficient, and convenient way to run a recruitment business. They have invested in technology, big data, analytics, and digital marketing, making it easier for them to scale while offering the best solutions to their customers by making customer success their main priority.
Job portals like BrighterMonday help employers make the right decisions faster and hire the right people. For job seekers, it’s easy to use, affordable, and convenient to apply for the right opportunities on their laptop or mobile device.
Employers enjoy an array of services on BrighterMonday, including an application tracking system (ATS) that helps them rapidly filter profiles that are relevant to their needs, supported by their algorithm and Artificial Intelligence (AI) engine. This helps them save time and manage their recruitment cycle with ease.
For employers, it’s always important to measure their hiring decisions by referencing data points rather than gut feel. They are given the ability to rank profiles based on an algorithm and assessment score of candidates, and they are able to present behavioral and psychometric results to support the quality of talent.
For job seekers, they evaluate skill gaps from profiles on their system. A candidate applying for a role can take an assessment and get instant results on their level of performance. The transparency in providing real-time reports helps candidates to either choose to upskill to meet a better score that increases their chances of making it to the selection criteria.
The ideal candidate in today’s job market has skills as the main factor in making some hiring decisions. There has been a global shift of the kind of skills required in the workplace, with employers looking for additional skill sets for the evolving business environment.
Some of the trending soft skills include adaptability and agility, emotional intelligence, openness to learning, creativity, and innovation, and critical thinking. These are softer elements that aren’t theory-driven but character-driven, and they have found soft skills critical in identifying the right talent for the right workplace culture.
For trending on-demand hard skills, they have seen digital and coding skills, data analytics, and technology skills demand increase especially after the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic.
Accelerated digitalization coupled with expanded global talent pools and high levels of unemployment necessitates the need for gig jobs. This means that organizations are also looking into cutting operational costs, which include recurring costs like salaries.
The need for gig jobs serves the purpose of accessing certain skills in a short period. If structured well, professionals can work in more than one company and reduce wastage and increase productivity. They however need to challenge the status quo and accommodate these changes from a labor law perspective.
The legislator has a role to play in this too by passing the right laws to sustainably resolve the unemployment issue in the country by supporting the gig economy policy.
The Level Up campaign by BrighterMonday is targeted at professionals who aspire for more. They would like to walk with them the journey of understanding how to grow their career aspirations and succeed in getting the right opportunities.
