Q3 Trend Report: Meeting the Demands of the Modern Workforce
As we close out the third quarter of 2024, the ModelExpand team is proud to reflect on the strides we've made in delivering impactful workplace solutions that resonate with our clients' needs across hiring transformation, leadership development, and diversity, equity and inclusion. We have introduced scalable structured hiring processes, delivered impactful and innovative leadership development to meet the most pressing needs of leaders today, and upskilled workforces in pressing DEI issues like ageism.
Top trends we’re seeing in Q3:
Hiring Transformation | Integrating Structured Hiring to Improve Quality of Hires
Trend: A move from transactional to strategic recruiting to improve hiring at scale.
Q3 Client Engagement: A growing telecommunications company was facing challenges in its hiring processes as it transitioned to a centralized recruiting model. Their decentralized approach led to inconsistencies, inefficiencies, and potential risks of bias in the hiring process, which hindered their ability to provide an efficient candidate experience. ModelExpand partnered with this company to streamline their recruitment operations and embed standardized hiring practices.
Our team’s multi-pronged approach included the successful development of templates to easily operationalize a standardized process throughout the candidate conversion lifecycle, as well as operationalization sessions to review and revise the templates. As one senior HR manager noted: “I am very excited about the alignment of our mission and core values with the competencies and questions to assist in finding candidates."
Leadership Development | Upskilling Feedback Skills to Improve Team Performance
Trend: It’s become increasingly important for leaders to give effective feedback to improve employee performance.
Q3 Client Engagement: A growing consulting firm had recently adopted a new service delivery model, which created an urgent need to upskill its workforce, particularly its younger professionals. The firm partnered with ModelExpand to enhance leaders’ skills in delivering high-quality, day-to-day feedback that drives employee engagement, retention, and performance.
We begin our partnerships by analyzing internal engagement data and conducting thorough focus groups to identify leaders’ emerging pain points and illuminate key learning objectives.
After delivery of the half-day Inclusive Feedback for Leaders workshop, 91% of attendees reported improved skills and nearly 90% noted increased confidence in providing performance-enhancing feedback. Leaders praised the relevance of the content, and nearly 90% recommended the training for future sessions, with one noting that the workshop provided “very relevant scenarios and activities.” For more information on this engagement, please read the case study on our website.
Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion | Managing Multigenerational Teams
Trend: With five generations of employees in the workforce, understanding cross-generational communication and working tendencies is key to promoting healthy and productive organizations.
Q3 Client Engagement: A rapidly expanding energy company came to ModelExpand to partner on an All Company training to respond to an increasingly urgent cultural issue– that of inclusion among multigenerational team members. With the rising number of Gen Z employees entering talent pools and more age diversity in the workplace than ever before, we designed an Intergenerational Inclusion training that focused on ways to use unique generational traits as strengths rather than hindrances in fostering effective collaboration, effectively addressing ageism.
The workshop emphasized the importance of understanding and mitigating bias along with the different ways in which each generation may work or communicate. Employees shared that the material was learner-centered and engaging, with one participant noting that the “session was captivating and I felt intrigued and wanting to know more.” Upon its completion, 90% of participants indicated that they improved their skills in fostering intergenerational inclusion.
Our Next Steps
Our Q3 insights reveal a powerful momentum toward creating and refining scalable people processes and development pathways that not only drive high performance but are also deeply attuned to the cultural priorities of an increasingly diverse workforce. The shift toward structured, data-driven hiring and contextualized feedback frameworks underscores the importance of process with purpose, making it a critical asset for organizations adapting to today’s dynamic talent landscape.
About ModelExpand
ModelExpand is a strategic workplace advisory firm that helps companies put their ideals into action. We partner with organizations to implement, operationalize, and scale their Culture and People initiatives in a way that improves performance across the organization. The ModelExpand team is composed of people from all walks of life. The diversity of the team’s lived experiences, robust industry knowledge, and research acumen fuel ModelExpand’s innovative and tailored solutions. ModelExpand’s work has been featured in Harvard Business Review, Forbes and CultureAmp.
