The inaugural Thriving Leaders Forum brought together four industry experts to discuss ‘Geo-politics and supply chain implications for organisations and workforce planning’. Our moderator Glenn van Zutphen guided the lively discussion on how demand for labour has outstripped supply, the contributing factors that got us here and how companies can respond. This is a top-of-mind issue for many HR leaders, so in this edition of 'Thrive in 5', we're bringing you the key highlights:

On the constant shifts in HR:

“We don’t wait - we’re always looking at attrition. [...] In times of scarcity, we are even more focused on human capital. Growing our people is our most important asset...”  - Diego Utge, Executive Vice President and Group President of Asia Pacific at Ingram Micro
 

On coping with talent pool disruptions:

“If we wait for an annual survey to decide what to do about salary benchmarking - well, there’s no point. We need to be ‘creatively responding’ to what is. [...] The data that we’ve relied on has to be released, and that’s been challenging because we need to have conversations with business leaders... and we can’t provide data.” - Aditi Madhock-Naarden, Vice President Human Resources, Global Growth Markets and Chief Equity, Diversity and Inclusion Officer at Tate & Lyle

On the effects of global forces on supply chains:

“The dust has not settled. We are in transition - we are moving to a new model [...] eventually, we’re going to figure out what’s going to work for this new period, and I suspect it will take five, six, seven years before we settle on a model.” - Edward Buckingham, Professor of Management at Monash Business School

 On companies’ reliance on their supply chains:

“ … we're in a paradigm shift, from three decades of hyperglobalization - and it’s lifted a lot of people out of poverty, it’s been profitable and it’s great for consumers - but we’re shifting away from laissez-faire economics and we’re now approaching a managed trade situation where states are much more activist. And that’s a tricky balance.” - Alex Capri, Senior Lecturer at Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy and Business School (NUS)