August 31, 2023 | Blog

Every Day is Labor Day for U.S. Businesses

While Labor Day marks the unofficial end of summer in the U.S., it can serve as a reminder for businesses everywhere not to expect a break from talent management challenges anytime soon. From small companies to industry giants, the lack of workers to meet demand – and how to retain their current workforce – is a major concern.

The majority of high growth CEOs in the U.S. (51%) cited attracting and selecting quality talent to support accelerated growth as one of the internal issues most likely to keep them awake at night in 2023, reveals a Summit Leadership Partners survey conducted by Wakefield Research.

Technology is at the heart of another hurdle businesses must clear to achieve the right team of employees, as determining whether a job candidate is the real deal has become more difficult. A Wakefield Research survey for iCIMS shows that half of U.S. college seniors (50%) have, plan to, or are interested in using AI bots such as ChatGPT for their cover letters, responses to job interview questions, or résumés. Yet many HR professionals would consider that sending the wrong message, as nearly 2 in 5 (39%) report using the AI bots is a dealbreaker.

Once that talent has been hired (without using AI bots), employers are still grappling with in-office mandates: should they, or shouldn’t they? Nearly 3 in 4 knowledge workers (71%) in the U.S. and Australia work remotely at least one day a week, according to a survey from Atlassian by Wakefield Research. And while 82% have an “in-office” mandate, 46% are going in because they have to – not because they want to.

Clearly companies have their work cut out for them in the days ahead.