Thinking big Talent and growth in the Middle East and India

Kate Bravery

Global Advisory Solutions & Insights Leader, Mercer
Lisa Lyons

Partner, Workforce Transformation, Mercer

The New Shape of Work interview series addresses the challenges and uncertainty in the current business environment with a focus on how to transition to a more agile workforce for the future.

The Middle East and India have tremendous growth ambition and are making great strides toward their goals. But fast growth also comes with talent management implications. In this episode, Lisa Lyons, Mercer’s Regional Transformation Centre for Excellence Lead for Middle East, India and Africa talks about workforce trends, challenges and opportunities in the market. Through the conversation they discuss the impact of GenAI on work, the focus on developing skills for the future, and the role of HR in helping employees prepare for work and workforce changes.

Interesting moments:

Workforce planning

In the Middle East, there are big growth ambitions, but that puts pressure on your labour force. Employers are looking at a more rigorous segmented view of workforce planning to address the skills needed.
Skills powering growth

India is no longer the back-office of the world. It's a thriving economy fuelled by innovation. Many organisations are focusing on the skills required in the future, and how to fill skills gaps with their own workforce.
Enhanced productivity

Executives are looking for potentially a 10 to 30% productivity uplift from GenAI. But that productivity boost will not happen overnight. It will happen through a series of different maturity stages.
Talent assessment

I'm seeing the role of leadership assessments taking a prominent role as organisations in the region looks to go global. There's such a complexity with the risk factors that you're managing within a global business and assessments help to understand who is ready for the challenge.