An industrial products and construction perspective: Human Capital Trends

Overview

The 2018 Global Human Capital Trends report delivers insights from more than 11,000 business and human resource leaders across 124 countries—our largest survey to date.

For industrial products and construction organizations, the top three trends are:

• The longevity dividend: Work in an era of 100-year lives
• New rewards: Personalized, agile, and holistic
• Careers to experience: New pathways

For more information on the trends facing industrial products and construction organizations, download the full report.

The longevity dividend: Work in an era of 100-year lives

Industrial products and construction organizations are preparing for the anticipated retirements of many highly skilled, long-term employees. Forward-looking organizations see this as an opportunity to address a looming societal issue and leverage a diverse set of workers. Managing this shift requires innovative practices and policies to support extended careers, as well as collaboration between business leaders and workers, to ensure critical knowledge transfer to the next generation.

New rewards: Personalized, agile, and holistic

Attracting and retaining the next generation of industry workers will not be easy. Opportunities for career growth in industries that they perceive to have more rewards are leading candidates to look elsewhere. Only five percent of oil and gas survey respondents described their organization’s rewards as innovative and flexible as to type and frequency, personalized to employee preferences, and aligned to incent specific behaviors. Companies will need to look beyond the norm and create rewards packages that can showcase the industry’s stability and career opportunities. Especially if they want to meet the needs of next-generation employees.

Careers to experience: New pathways

Within the hierarchical and rigorous chain of command structure of many industry companies, career planning, and progression typically are focused on a subset of the employee population. This may provide limited opportunities for other employees to explore different roles and promotion pathways. Industrial products and construction companies could benefit considerably from identifying ways to extend employee career flexibility across the organization.