many have expressed surprise at the apparent lack of enthusiasm from potential female candidates. Why do so few volunteers put themselves forward?

A study by the University of Michigan has highlighted a paradox: women recognize themselves far less than men in the designation of “leader”. And yet, several studies have underlined the fact that women outperform men in a majority of key leadership competencies: personal development, integrity, initiative-taking, collaboration, team mobilization, change management, etc.

How can this shortage of female applicants be remedied? The authors recommend refraining from using the overly loaded term “leader” in recruitment campaigns, and instead focusing on the attributes of leadership and the behaviors that characterize it. Indeed, their study reveals that women prefer to describe themselves as demonstrating commitment, dynamism, intelligence or sensitivity, rather than leadership. An approach that ultimately results in finding the same qualities among potential candidates, regardless of their gender.

Source: When Qualified Women Resist the Leader Label, Julia Lee Cunningham, Sue Ashford, Laura Sonday, MIT Sloan Management Review, November 2024.

The Bloomberg group has shown that using ChatGPT in a recruitment process replicates certain prejudices at work in society. Fictitious CVs were submitted to the AI, with names selected in such a way as to evoke diverse ethnic backgrounds.

The findings are clear: given the same experience and skills, AI favors certain genders and ethnic backgrounds in selecting candidates. For instance, in the United States, ChatGPT clearly privileges people identified as “Hispanic women” for HR specialist positions, “Asian women” for financial analyst positions, and “white women” for software engineer positions. The disadvantaged groups are respectively those identified as “white men”, “black men” and “black women”. And the more the AI is asked to repeat the exercise, the more this bias is amplified.

To decide on the tasks we want to entrust to them, we should keep in mind how generative AIs work. They provide the most statistically relevant answers to the questions submitted. By construction, they therefore tend toward an average of the considerable volumes of information injected into them. Mechanically, if we inject prejudices, these same prejudices will emerge from their recommendations. It is up to us to spot and counter them.

Source: OpenAI’s GPT Is a Recruiter’s Dream Tool. Tests Show There’s Racial Bias, Leon Yin, Davey Alba, Leonardo Nicoletti, Bloomberg Technology + Equality, March 2024.

An OECD study highlights the growing proportion of older workers within companies. With the aging of the world’s population, this trend will continue to strengthen: for example, France’s share of the workforce over the age of 55 is estimated at 23% in 2031. Yet many companies have no specific approach to preparing for this evolution of the job market. Take a look at your organization:

- What are you doing to retain, or even rehire older employees? Mitsubishi Corporation created a career center dedicated exclusively to employees aged 60 and over, which includes a job marketplace and personalized advice.

- Are your training programs adapted? In 2021, Atos launched a program to fill the skills gaps of its 21,000 employees over the age of 50. The people concerned have set themselves development objectives and have selected the most beneficial training courses and certifications for their progression.

- Do you open the door to forms of work that reflect the specific expectations and skills of older workers? BMW’s Senior Experts program allows retirees to return to the company on a part-time basis in order to share their expertise with younger employees. This helps both the organization to meet the need for flexibility and these senior experts to perform less physically demanding tasks, while at the same time enhancing their skills.

Source: Better with Age: The Rising Importance of Older Workers, James Root, Andrew Schwedel, Mike Haslett Nicole Bitler, Bain & Company, July 2023.

According to the 2023 edition of Microsoft’s Work Trend Index Annual Report, 82% of executives consider that their employees will need new skills to prepare themselves for the generalization of artificial intelligence. Does this mean there should be a scramble for technical training? Nothing is less certain. The report insists first and foremost on the need to prepare employees to collaborate efficiently with an AI. To that end, the aptitudes to be reinforced are essentially cognitive and behavioral ones, with, by order of importance:

- analytical judgment (cited by 30% of executives) to determine in which situations it is beneficial to lean on an AI rather than on human abilities;

- cognitive flexibility (cited by 29% of executives) to refine the AI’s proposals and efficiently integrate them into one’s work;

- emotional intelligence (cited by 27% of executives), a capability that is complementary to AI, and which it can be valuable to mobilize depending on the nature of the task or the context.

Finally, 23% of executives cite intellectual curiosity, to know how to ask the AI the right questions, and 22% cite the detection of biases. A good starting point for adapting your training programs and refining the qualities to be prioritized when recruiting. 

Source: Will AI Fix Work?—2023 Work Trend Index: Annual Report, Microsoft, May 2023.

If you employ software developers, cloud engineers, data scientists or SaaS administrators, you are very probably wondering how to attract them—and especially how to retain them.

Indeed, these key profiles receive multiple solicitations from recruiters every month and do not hesitate to change employers. Their unemployment rate borders on zero. And if they lose a job, they know they will find another in less than three months. In such conditions, which are extremely favorable to them, how can we hold on to them?

McKinsey undertook to decode their expectations in a survey conducted in the United States, but which reflects a global trend. It clearly appears that the main factor determining their loyalty to a position, like their choice of a new job, is career development and the potential for promotion—ahead of remuneration, the meaning of their missions and the working atmosphere.

But careful: by this they do not refer to a career in the traditional sense of hierarchical advancement. What is essential for them is to be able to choose between an “expert” career path and a “manager” one—both of these paths enjoying the same internal recognition—and to be able to move from one to the other without obstacles. Now you just have to provide them with such opportunities.

Source: Cracking the code on digital talent, Todd Horst, Kathryn Kuhn, Stephanie Madner, Charlotte Seiler, Paul Roche, McKinsey Quarterly, April 2023.