Quote of the week
“The time to act is now.”
— Accenture
Editor’s Corner
Accenture has come out with a report that looks at U.S. work force demographics and the dangers of what it calls “disconnected government” with its multiple, overlapping programs aimed, in this case, at solving the problems of the American labour system.
The need for action seems clear. Accenture reports that in the U.S. almost three quarters of citizens are “very skeptical” about governments’ ability to move fast enough to solve employment and skills challenges. Employers don’t think government can help them find the talent they need and only 11 percent of job seekers actually use public employment tools to find jobs.
The report says that the next battle in the U.S. will be the one between states for talent; and to be successful in this competitive market, they will need to leverage knowledge about talent supply and demand effectively.
That’s where the intelligent use of analytics based on real time information helps. Up-to-date data can both set direction and help governments focus scarce funds on the right programs. One example is the State of Oklahoma’s OKJobMatch.com website that lets jobs seekers match their talents with a real time database of job openings.
What lessons might one draw from all this? First of all, using real time analytics and big data to achieve results is not just an academic discussion within government walls anymore: it’s happening, and we can all learn from examples and best practices.
Second, it’s kind of frightening when all the interested players think government is irrelevant to their daily lives: in this case, the majority of job seekers, employers and just plain folks agreed that they didn’t think governments had the ability to solve this one problem – that of managing future labour skills and demand.
That apparent lack of relevance and credibility is perhaps the biggest challenge of all for public sector managers and leaders.
