4-2 2025 Global Talent Outlook: Trends & Predictions

Following a significant election year, the focus shifts to the geopolitical landscape, marked by escalating trade tensions and tighter border controls. Beyond these immediate concerns, a more insidious long-term risk for global organizations is the societal impact of changing demographics. UN data, highlighted in a McKinsey report, reveals a growing "youth scarcity" due to declining birth rates and aging populations in advanced economies. 

This demographic shift threatens economic growth and creates a challenge for businesses needing more workers for longer hours to maintain productivity. With birth replacement rates below 2.1 in many developed nations, this problem is exacerbated. Consequently, businesses are moving away from traditional HR structures and building global workforce functions. 

Join Sirva Soundbites host, Emma Dodwell-Groves, Senior Manager, Global Advisory Services and Hannah Richardson, Senior Vice President, Global Strategic Services as they discuss the demographic shifts in global workforce functions and its impact on talent relocation in 2025. 

Hannah Richardson is currently the Senior Vice President of Sirva's Global Strategic Services. Hannah is responsible for a portfolio of multi-national client engagements, strategic partnership, and business alignment to help drive the client agenda. With over 20 years of experience in talent mobility, Hannah has a deep understanding of the macro trends shaping the industry and understands strategic client requirements.

Emma Dodwell-Groves is a Consultant on the Sirva Global Advisory Services team and has over 15 years of experience supporting clients in talent development, global mobility, and cultural training, with a more recent specialization in consulting on diversity, equity & inclusion (DEI) and environmental sustainability.

Sirva Soundbites provides the insights, tools and best practices to help talent mobility and human resources professionals navigate through the evolving global talent mobility landscape more confidently and effectively.

Get in touch with us: soundbites@sirva.com 

Get in touch with us: soundbites@sirva.com

Transcript

Sirva Soundbites S4E2_mixdown

Emma Dodwell-Groves: [00:00:00] You are listening to Sirva Soundbites, the official podcast of Sirva, a leading global relocation management and moving services company. We aim to bring you authentic and insightful discussions on the latest trends and best practices in global talent mobility and the evolving future of work. Are you ready?

Emma Dodwell-Groves: Let's get started. Hello and welcome to Sirva Soundbites, where we aim to connect, inform, educate, and entertain our listeners. I'm Emma Dodwell-Groves, Senior Manager of the Global Advisory Services team at Sirva. We are very honored to have back our esteemed guest, Hannah Richardson, who is SVP of Global Strategic Services.

Emma Dodwell-Groves: Welcome back, Hannah. 

Hannah Richardson: Hi Emma, it's great to be back again. 

Emma Dodwell-Groves: So the last time we spoke, it was the end of 2024, and then we looked back at how the trends identified at the start of the year in 2024 had evolved over the 12 months. So where are we now, if you could give us some context? 

Hannah Richardson: Yes, Emma, I think, you know, with the [00:01:00] super election year behind us, we're now embracing ourselves for the impacts of these election outcomes in 2025.

Hannah Richardson: That said, it is the geopolitical stage, though, that has become rather electrifying right now. 

Emma Dodwell-Groves: Yeah, terrifying, actually, if you ask me. It's a scary time. 

Hannah Richardson: Yeah, and I think, you know, we've all seen in the news headlines in the last few weeks, you know, we've seen the ramp up of tariff wars and threats between major economies and tighter international border controls.

Hannah Richardson: However, I do think that the longer term silent business risks for many global organizations are really in the societal impact and the prevailing risks that this is going to bring. 

Emma Dodwell-Groves: Yeah, those human elements. Right. 

Hannah Richardson: Yeah. And I think, you know, interestingly, you know, the United Nations in a recent McKinsey report.

Hannah Richardson: Um, called dependency and depopulation takes a look at confronting the consequences of a new demographic reality. [00:02:00] The data sadly shows that we are starting the age of youth scarcity. So with these new demographic shifts, advanced economies may well face slower economic growth. And I think, you know, what does this mean?

Hannah Richardson: Well, fundamentally, it means for businesses, they're going to require more workers to work more hours to ensure that the needed productivity levels, you know, a GDP country level are being met. But the challenge we've got right now is that replacement rates globally are in decline. And this is, again, for many advanced economies like, you know, the US, UK, China, where we are seeing now birth rates falling between, you know, below 2.1 and coupled with aging populations. This is really what's causing the work of productivity challenges. I think, Emma, this is, you know, something that organizations are now needing to really understand and lean into. 

Emma Dodwell-Groves: Right. I [00:03:00] mean, I saw that, that interesting McKinsey article and it says, you know, by 2100, fertility rates are expected to fall by maybe 20 or populations are expected to fall by 20 to 50 percent in some of these major economies from those UN projections and that's just a complete shift in the way we need to do business and the way we need to work and everything. 

Hannah Richardson: You're absolutely right and I think just given these demographic shifts we are now starting to see a shift away from traditional HR practices and structures and instead organizations moving towards building global workforce functions.

Hannah Richardson: Exactly. Yeah. And one of the things that Gartner showed in a recent survey was that 15 percent of global organizations have already started these structural shifts in terms of moving away from traditional HR practices and towards focusing on building a global workforce. 

Emma Dodwell-Groves: Right. I mean, I think that is it's an important time about [00:04:00] how the demographics are shifting that you have to consider.

Emma Dodwell-Groves: Mobility is actually at the heart of this, where your workforce is coming from, how you're developing them, how you're enabling them with technology. All those things are going to be vital. And I think we're going to touch on some of them today as well. 

Hannah Richardson: Yeah, we are. And I think if we start really with what CEOs are focused on, I think that's probably a really helpful place.

Hannah Richardson: So again, Gartner surveyed over 400 CEOs last year really to establish what are CEO top organizational priorities Now, no surprises coming in at number one was growth. I mean, critical every business. Yeah, remain viable, sustainable, um, and have, you know, a good roadmap for growth. However, what was interesting?

Hannah Richardson: Number two continued investment in technology. But the interesting one, Emma, was what came in at number three. And that was the focus on global workforce. And this is risen from seventh place just two years ago [00:05:00] to now becoming a top three priority. That's keeping most CEOs awake at night. So I think really the question for us here today and to explore is, well, what does all of this mean for mobility?

Emma Dodwell-Groves: Right. I mean, I'd initially say it means mobility is a key component in planning for this future. So that's a really useful bit of, um, sort of contextualizing the big picture. So let's think while leaders are looking at those long term issues, let's focus today on what trends we're going to see in 2025 that will continue to shape these needs and requirements of global workforces sort of today with that in mind.

Hannah Richardson: Yeah, I think, I think still we see as a big topic is this area of five generations in the workforce today. You know, the five generations, they all have very different evolving needs and expectations. So as we see this 15 percent of organizations that Gartner have already called out that have shifted away from traditional [00:06:00] HR into creating global workforce functions.

Hannah Richardson: You know, I think the questions are, well, what does that really mean for HR? And what does that mean for global mobility? Well, typically we see HR structures very focused around payroll, compliance, But in order to shift towards enabling a global workforce approach and structure, you know, this is a real conscious people strategy shift that involves analyzing workforce capabilities, forecasting future skills and capabilities, and really developing plans to ensure that the organization is ready and prepared to achieve its growth goals.

Hannah Richardson: So I think the question here, again, mobility is, You know, why is this happening? And what are the opportunities for GM within these new evolving structures that are now starting to present as a new trend? So we know that global HR is experiencing deeper digital transformation efforts, but we also see HR [00:07:00] needing to respond to a much wider set of non traditional HR areas.

Hannah Richardson: So the new areas that HR are shifting towards now are Wellbeing, so employee wellbeing, human centric employee value propositions, hybrid work, worker flexibility, AI, and of course the digital workplace. But what's really interesting here again, that's coming through is that 80 percent of HR leaders say that they face different challenges today than those pre pandemic, given all of this new work.

Emma Dodwell-Groves: Right. I mean, the challenge is bigger than ever. ever before to accommodate these different needs, these different priorities, and even the different concepts of what well being is. Um, I think we both saw an interesting example recently of an organization allowing employees to self identify what their priorities are into a series of categories that they predefined.

Emma Dodwell-Groves: So those who prioritize advancement and compensation, those who prioritize balance and flexibility or development and growth. And these may cross the [00:08:00] generational divides. You may have people in different generations. in different stages of their life. So you may go in and out of these different priority areas, and maybe that's a way for organizations to be agile about that in their career and to prioritize where where people's focus are and what their needs are.

Emma Dodwell-Groves: And in mobility, I think that could be an interesting way to maybe identify mobile talent, design the right size packages to suit those needs and those priorities, something I don't think we've really seen much before. 

Hannah Richardson: I think that's a really nice second to another area that HR and GM teams are grappling with, which is, you know, the real critical area of challenge for many organizations today is really responding to how do you shift towards a skills based economy, or how do you solution for mismatched skills in terms of, you know, The technical and the soft behavioral hard skills, you know, businesses are required to deliver specific work projects that all load into the growth strategy.

Hannah Richardson: But knowing where your [00:09:00] skills are and where these skills are available across the workforce is a really, really big challenge for most organizations. They just don't know what skills they have, where those skills can be found and accessed in order to leverage, you know, the important areas that they're focused on.

Hannah Richardson: in delivering against. So I think really the question is, you know, where are your skills and capabilities? And the intention 

Emma Dodwell-Groves: is, 

Hannah Richardson: you know, shifting towards a global workforce structure is really at the heart of what this is about in terms of having that global view around where skills, skills and capabilities can be found.

Hannah Richardson: So I think one critical area of challenge for global organizations today is really responding to a shift towards a skills economy or solutioning for mismatch skills in terms of, you know, the technical and soft behavioral skills. You know, businesses are required to deliver specific work and projects [00:10:00] for growth, but they don't always know where their skills are, you know, in terms of the availability or what skills are present across their global workforce.

Hannah Richardson: And I think, you know, this is a major challenge that most organizations are really struggling with right now is knowing where these skills and capabilities that your global talent possess. 

Emma Dodwell-Groves: Yep, that's right. I think 23 percent of jobs are expected to change in the next five years due to continued industry transformation and AI.

Emma Dodwell-Groves: So, Given we're driving towards a skills based economy, we can see that both international and domestic assignments afford opportunities for talent to learn hard and soft skills. I mean, there's a myriad of opportunity for mobility to support the talent group, to use mobility solutions for talent acquisition, talent retention, and talent development as well.

Hannah Richardson: Yeah, and I think, you know, interestingly, you know, another report by McLean Company's site in their recent global HR trends, is that learning and development must become a more [00:11:00] formalized and embedded strategy within organizations as it relates to, you know, developing leaders, recruitment, retaining employees.

Hannah Richardson: So we do sort of see this significant importance and rise of strategic L& D services, which could be another area or function that global mobility could look to align with, you know, in terms of supporting a skills based economy approach, yet how can global mobility demonstrate the learning and development opportunities that an employee can benefit from by going on either a global assignment or a domestic transfer.

Hannah Richardson: Another interesting piece, Emma, was that 6 out of 10 employees today have said that they're just not getting the on the job coaching, that they need to support their core job skills. So organizations really need more expertise than ever in order to develop leadership resilience. But in the face of everything else that's happening, In the micro [00:12:00] environments, I 

Emma Dodwell-Groves: mean, can I just take a moment there to plug intercultural?

Emma Dodwell-Groves: I know I don't ever miss an opportunity to do so, but especially where I'm customized intercultural services are combined with skills assessment services where you can actually target specific soft skills. There is nothing as we know, like going on an overseas or to a different location experience and.

Emma Dodwell-Groves: to self reflect and develop that learning mindset, um, to be able to see things and those soft skills that are more important than now in this technological evolutionary era. 

Hannah Richardson: Yeah, I agree with you completely, Emma, and I think, you know, we'll probably touch on that as, as, as we go through the rest of our conversation today.

Hannah Richardson: You know, the, the piece around employee well being is really, really growing in importance here. You know, you know, employee well being isn't just limited to mental health. You know, there is now a much bigger focus on wider, um, elements of well being, which, you know, includes financial health, interpersonal [00:13:00] support, physical health, purpose and belonging.

Hannah Richardson: So I think the question again that you raise around intercultural support on the ground is, Well, what do all these elements of well being support mean for global mobility programs and the provisioning? Um, of support benefits within policies overall, you know, what additional support on the ground should mobility be giving to employees and what sort of level of support is really needed for talent across all of the different demographic groups.

Emma Dodwell-Groves: Right. We've definitely seen a bigger focus on including those mental health and well being support services within policy documents. We have seen sort of an awareness, at least from consultants and mobility contacts, of just being cognizant of being able to recognize the challenges that might might be occurring for an employee when they're relocating, because it's a stressful time.

Emma Dodwell-Groves: Um, and as we know, Gen Z are the largest consumers of well, being services globally alongside the baby [00:14:00] boomers, you know, who, of course, are, are aging. a little further ahead of the Gen Z, but they're all using these well being services. It's a huge industry and there's a material demand for these services.

Emma Dodwell-Groves: Um, I know there's also been a Harvard Business Review report recently on the rise of loneliness and it's now considered a business risk rather than just a well being impact. It's real, it's creating challenges for organizations to solve and you have to imagine in a mobility context how much scarier and bigger those loneliness elements can be when you're disconnected from your family or social network in a new way.

Emma Dodwell-Groves: Um, I know aside from Gen Z, particularly struggling with remote working and not enjoying that as a prospect, um, preferring to maybe be in an office overall across any mobile population, the risk of loneliness is high, so it's especially with the rise of remote working as well, so you may not even be engaging with people in the same way in that new place, um, digital calls rather than meeting in the office.

Emma Dodwell-Groves: Those things all make a difference, especially in a new location. So, um, I know, aside from Gen Z, particularly struggling with remote working and not enjoying that as a prospect, um, preferring to maybe be in an office overall across any mobile population, the risk of loneliness is high. [00:15:00] 

Hannah Richardson: Yeah, that's just another element, isn't it?

Hannah Richardson: But global mobility teams are now needing to grapple with. The other interesting piece here is that, you know, call ferry have called out that, you know, by 2030, there are going to be 85 million jobs going unfilled. So, you know, organizations are now needing to look for alternative pools of talent by leveraging skilled migrants, you know, the US, Australia, UK, Singapore are all advanced economies. I'm going to need to become quite reliant on migrant workers, just given the fact that we've got an aging population and declining fertility rates. And I think here, you know, we see a reliance on migrant workers feeling rather paradoxical just given the anti migration sentiments being executed by, you know, Trump's executive orders and other government responses to, you know, just the broader migration 

Emma Dodwell-Groves: [00:16:00] question.

Hannah Richardson: I 

Emma Dodwell-Groves: mean, that's an opportunity for a little plug there. We have an interesting podcast episode with Newland Chase that really does look at some of those issues in more detail. So, if that's something, you know, our audience is interested in the fact that the need for migrating talent is more than it ever has been with the skills shortage and yet a lot of these political discourse areas mean that there's an anti-migration sentiment and there's a real shutdown or limitation of opportunities for migrant workers.

Emma Dodwell-Groves: So, plugging that there, listen to that podcast as well. 

Hannah Richardson: So the, um, another area that is quite new actually is an area called unretirement. And we've shared before, you know, with the audience, there are more than 10, 000 American baby boomers retiring a day in the US. But we are starting to see a new phenomenon called unretirement.

Hannah Richardson: And what this is telling us is that, you know, those aged between 64 and 85 are [00:17:00] actually now starting to seek reemployment. You know, just given that people are living longer with now many starting to experience a shortfall in their pension income. Um, and the need to go back to work, um, and actually top up their, you know, top up their pensions with employment income.

Hannah Richardson: So again, you know we start to see that shift. 

Emma Dodwell-Groves: And, and you've mentioned already, you know, that the fact that we have an ageing population and as each of these individuals who are older drops out of the workforce, You know, that's more of an issue for global economies and for, for business. So the fact that they maybe want to stay in, in work for one reason or another, whether they are choosing to voluntarily or maybe have to, it's still an opportunity to retain that talent.

Emma Dodwell-Groves: And it's more important than ever to upskill and make sure that they're, you know, technologically aligned and that you're using this opportunity to cross those generational divides, those cross generational mentorship opportunities so that. They're learning from one another and not being in silos or being isolated, but it is a huge [00:18:00] opportunity and something we need to consider as, as also benefit to society, because the longer you take to retire, the more likely you are to remain mentally agile and physically healthy.

Emma Dodwell-Groves: So, it actually will increase the sort of duration of your aging health as well. But I think there's a really other interesting area that we've already sort of touched on, which is those dropping fertility and replacement rates. And. What we know is that in places where women get more rights, have higher levels of education, have more equality in the workforce, that's where they have less children.

Emma Dodwell-Groves: So there's an interesting paradox there from an equality standpoint to say, oh, we need more children. We have an aging working population, but that means that, what, do women have to drop out of the workforce? Do women need to be less educated? And I think not, is my personal opinion. I think there's a great opportunity within mobility.

Emma Dodwell-Groves: If you're talking about developing talent, keeping that over 50 percent of women in the workforce and being productive and sort of I'd say even [00:19:00] padding out the talent crisis that we're looking at with the aging population, because loads of women aren't in the workforce currently already because of their caring responsibilities, and they'll be meeting more of them with the aging population.

Emma Dodwell-Groves: So there's an opportunity and mobility if you want to develop your female talent or help them to be mobile, there's discussion around how you can support with bringing additional family members or providing additional health insurance, or perhaps not relocating fully but having more flexible arrangements like commuter arrangements or even back to virtual assignments.

Emma Dodwell-Groves: So it's an interesting time and space, space with regards to sort of women's position in this depopulation. 

Hannah Richardson: Yeah, and I think what we see is that, you know, this is all compounding in, like you say, into the broader labour shortage challenge that now needs to be a contingent part of successful workforce.

Hannah Richardson: planning and management. Um, you know, if you think about it in another 20 years from now, there's [00:20:00] going to be potentially a lot less people in the workplace should the birth rate continue to decline as it is. Meaning kind of this whole area of global workforce just is going to continue to be the CEO top priority.

Emma Dodwell-Groves: So this is a segue now for us into the critical importance of a CEO's second priority, which is technology. 

Hannah Richardson: Yes, and I think, you know, we see organizations continue to transform, um, their organizations digitally and technologically through, you know, the impact of AI. And I think what's interesting, Emma, are just some of the new headlines that are being written about where we see employees embracing bots over bosses in the pursuit of fairness.

Hannah Richardson: You know, this was quite a fun headline, an article that was written in HBR a couple of weeks ago. Um, and recent data from Gartner shares the repercussions on DEI you know, in the DEIB [00:21:00] space where more people believe what the bot is saying over what their human manager or leader is saying, and that they actually prefer feedback from a bot rather than a human.

Hannah Richardson: I mean, it's just kind of blows your mind and that they trust more the bot in terms of their analysis of productivity and output versus the subjectivity of a manager's view and perception. 

Emma Dodwell-Groves: Yeah, I heard that about sort of doctors as well, that where they had a bad news to give. Actually, they had simulated bots giving the bad news versus a real doctor.

Emma Dodwell-Groves: And apparently the bot scored so much higher than the real doctors in their delivery of bad news from a medical standpoint. Like, you know, that, that's incredible, almost a bit scary, but, but quite amazing and does show how these things can be used to augment challenging areas for everyone. 

Hannah Richardson: I think also what's quite interesting is, you know, The steer that Gartner is now writing about, you know, in terms of DEIB [00:22:00] specifically, really is just to ensure that DEIB is open and accessible to everyone, and that it's not just potentially, you know, the polarization of certain groups of people within global organizations, you know, there was a tone almost that it's, you know, it feels that, you know, being woke, you know, now does have a bit of a negative connotation.

Emma Dodwell-Groves: Right. So I think if we're, um, just to expand that slightly, if we're looking forward to 2025, we've already seen it very quickly, immediately when Trump came to power in the US, you know, he's, he's cut DEI roles in government and, um, and to sort of encouraging corporates to follow suit. And we know that The US. Does lead in a lot of those ways. And we also know that the election year moved everything a little bit right. And that some of these topics were the center of that political rhetoric. So there's a challenge there where leaders know that you have a huge amount of benefits from DEIB. That you need the inclusion of different [00:23:00] voices, and it continues to be essential to business.

Emma Dodwell-Groves: But there's a lot of pushback. There's a lot of political rhetoric. As we said, it's been blamed for everything from the LA wildfires to plane crashes and everything else you can think of. Blame DEI apparently. So the language may need to evolve because there is that backlash. There is that, you know, knee jerk reaction to hearing certain terminology.

Emma Dodwell-Groves: So. In mobility, we've seen a lot of DEI considerations within policies. I think they're still really important. You know, the fact that you are allowing different, like a range of different talent to take up mobile opportunities and to engage with other cultures. And, of course, the core element in mobility is that you are engaging with diversity by engaging with different people in different places, but I think we may see less DEI language front and center and policies and less sort of, you know, transparency around, around that approach while leaders and talent groups will still be pursuing strategies to, to reap those manifold corporate benefits of diversity. But I suppose I'm going down a rabbit hole and I think it's [00:24:00] probably close enough time for us to, to wrap up.

Emma Dodwell-Groves: So we've covered a lot already. We know it's a really changeable time heading forward into 2025. And while we're talking about one year, what we're really looking at is this huge long term picture like you've really framed well in this episode as to that sort of long term talent and skills and human well being focus that really needs to be the overarching driver behind a lot of the things organizations and particularly mobility teams need to look at in this year.

Emma Dodwell-Groves: So before we wrap up, you know the drill, Hannah, we always get our subject matter expert to share a single top tip. So what is yours for 2025, Hannah? 

Hannah Richardson: Oh, I think, um, I've got a nice one today, Emma. So, um, as Alan Watts, the British born American writer and philosopher said, the only way to make sense out of change is to plunge into it, move with it and join the dance.

Hannah Richardson: I like this quote as our future is [00:25:00] exciting and there's a lot to embrace. So let's just sit back and watch it unfold and be ready. 

Emma Dodwell-Groves: Being ready. Agile for it. Join the dance. I like that. It's inspirational. And that's exactly what we wanted from your top tip. So that is perfect. Thank you again for joining us, Hannah.

Emma Dodwell-Groves: And I cannot wait to see what 2025 has in store. 

Hannah Richardson: Thank you, Emma. And here's to next time. 

Emma Dodwell-Groves: And thank you to our audience for listening to Sirva Soundbites. If you enjoy our show, please click subscribe and share and be sure to come back next time. Until then, this is Emma and Hannah, and don't forget Sirva provides everything needed to move talent and deliver experience.

Emma Dodwell-Groves: See you next time.