Supply chain challenges and the resulting scenario planning requirements for people and talent

Recent business disruptions have put severe pressure on the need for organisations to improve the understanding of their workforce. This is key to a more agile and resilient future in which organisations can pivot quickly to allow for alternative working arrangements while ensuring employee wellbeing and safety.

Results from a recent 2021 Deloitte Global Human Capital Trends survey show that COVID-19 has prompted many organisations to shift their approach towards preparing from planning for likely and incremental events to anticipating unlikely, high impact events and considering multiple possible scenarios.

Previously the whole supply chain was about efficiency and cost, cost, cost. But any jolt makes an efficient system unable to absorb it; it can’t quickly pivot. Nearly every organisation would benefit from being better at scenario planning – imagining what the supply chain would need to function well under a variety of circumstances – so they can tailor their processes accordingly. Transforming and optimising the supply chain also requires the right talent.

Supply chain leaders must be strategic thinkers, planners and collaborators with a variety of strengths, including vision, results orientation and a mix of soft skills. They also need cross-functional experience in product innovation, business acumen, knowledge of current automation, systems technologies and more. This is a varied skill set that’s hard to identify – and even harder to find.

Supply chain shock drives deglobalisation

Ongoing supply chain disruptions, changing legislation and technology changes are pushing businesses to consider moving operations closer to source or even deglobalisation.

Recent trends favour moving production closer to consumers, so developing countries with geographic proximity to large consumer markets may benefit. By moving operations from global to local, HR will have several challenges to overcome.

Also, value chains are becoming more knowledge intensive, which a requires highly skilled workforce. In addition to finding talent, recruitment and onboarding, the new hires will require extensive training.

In the short-term, this will cause temporary skills gaps. To help fill this gap, organisations will likely look inwards, and according to Business Chief, over half of business leaders anticipate developing internal talent as the primary means of filling the skills gaps over the next few years.

But more than just recruiting and training new people for new roles, it will fall on organisations to understand not only the jobs that were previously elsewhere, but how they were carried out and the undefined practices – the unwritten rules within the workplace that build the working culture.

For further information, including details on the latest HR trends, download our workforce trends whitepaper