The Josh Bersin Company urges companies on the need of creating fresh, non-linear development trajectories for their workforce, even if it requires collaboration with a completely different industry. The advice comes at a difficult time for the U.S. labour market, when entire industries acknowledge that there are critical worker shortages that are developing quickly and appear hard to fill.

Companies run the danger of losing this individual to an entirely different industry—if they are unable to recognise this crucial inflexion moment. Education, medical, hospitality, and transportation are just a few of the industries where such losses are currently occurring often. According to data, 45% of people who switched occupations during the pandemic did so in a different sector, pointed out the study.

Employers have always struggled to reverse these patterns. According to the survey, they need to get ahead of the curve by finding and educating individuals now to fill such jobs in the future in order to replenish their pipelines. The Josh Bersin Company asserts that this necessitates fresh ingenuity in aligning dissatisfied workers with an alternative career path internally. And that route might not be evident to the employee right away, not to HR, nor to the pertinent line managers or function leaders.

"To join the dots, smart employers are starting to restructure their HR organisation, and build Talent Intelligence resourcing which they can interrogate with the aid of AI to detect emerging skills patterns and intervene pre-emptively with optimal suggestions," according to the study.

One of the most well-known instances of the trend is Walmart, which supports front-line retail workers' transition into cyber-security responsibilities through its Live Better U programme, as well as through company-sponsored training, rotation, and educational assistance.

The report outlines 5 strategic stages for creating new career paths, encompassing crucial ideas like talent intelligence, talent mobility processes, and upskilling programmes. 

"The message we're sharing is not what many employers might expect. Companies have this idea of building a career pathway, but we don't see that as linear anymore; now the onus is on creating new crossways trajectories," said Josh Bersin.

HR's mission now must be about "spotting and creating opportunities" for individuals to develop a different part of themselves in a completely different role, or to apply the skills and knowledge they've gained in a new context, added Bersin.

According to Bersin, the benefits could be off the scale—both for the employee who can't see a future in what they currently do, and for the employer who is concerned about filling talent gaps or succession planning in a whole other part of the organisation where growth in demand is outstripping the current capacity to deliver.

"We know that if your employees don't find opportunities inside your business, they will look for them outside. Among U.S. workers who left their current employment in 2021, 63% left because there were no opportunities for advancement. HR needs to craft real career pathways in terms of a series of career steps designed to harness adjacent skills that reassure an individual how to move to a more valued, in-demand, career with you," said Nehal Nangia, Director, of Research L&D, and Lead Analyst in the Career Pathways guidance at The Josh Bersin Company.