Capturing the zeitgeist

Marissa Geist is only the second CEO to take the helm at talent acquisition management company Cielo, but is arguably doing so through one of the most challenging times for its clients – employers in the healthcare, life sciences, manufacturing, energy, consumer brands and higher education industries.

Geist is navigating Cielo through a new era where candidates are looking for flexibility and remote working opportunities, prompted by the COVID-19 pandemic, which are changing the environment employers need to create.

Navigating the changing dynamics of the workforce is also a challenge; by 2034, 80 percent of the workforce in advanced economies will comprise Millennials, Gen Z and the first Gen Alphas to become adults, according to the World Economic Forum. That’s all against the backdrop of AI. The company will have to work with clients to understand and leverage the impact of AI while protecting itself against security and IP issues.

Taking over from Cielo’s Founder, Sue Marks, was a big transition for both the company and Geist, especially coming out of the Great Resignation when record numbers of people left their jobs after the pandemic ended. She recalls it as a “paradoxical” period where job mobility was at an all-time high, but employee loyalty was in a trough.

“We had people resigning in an environment where one mover created two or three openings as people reshuffled. People were really demanding more from their employers in terms of social responsibility, flexibility in the workplace and an investment in them,” Geist says.

Changing course

Employers, in turn, were demanding more from recruitment partners like Cielo, prompting Geist to steer her own transformation that enhanced the company’s proprietary digital capabilities and created strategic relationships with partner platforms like HireEz.

“It was definitely a moment to say, ‘What do we want to be when we grow up as a company? Where could we do something that nobody else could do well?’” she says.

“Thinking about our largest and most important customers, we had to see where we could provide value because the role and the value we provided in the market was going to change pretty rapidly in the next few years.

“And that was really about becoming a talent acquisition partner and taking us out of our old paradigm where we had this very big core service. We needed to diversify our services and to globalize our company in terms of how we plugged into clients.”

In practice, this entailed new skills-based talent strategies, expanding Cielo’s consulting capabilities and embedding its teams within fast-growing geographies to support client growth.

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Working more closely together means being better equipped to help companies design for the workforce of the future, based on the intersection of people-related trends and the impact of AI on what roles will be available, plus the required skills.

“Certainly there are industries that will shed workforce as things are automated. But as with any huge revolution, new skills will be needed and there will be new opportunities. And I see this as an area for us to participate in a little economic reshuffling,” Geist says.

“How do we help companies bridge their talent from today to tomorrow in a way that they can support it? We can partner with companies to get them into the future, helping them intentionally design and think about the talent supply for jobs that could exist.

“We can look at their workforce and say, ‘Who has the next closest skills?’ or ‘Who has the aptitude and ability to be trained into that model?’ And help them engage in and embrace their talent and have them be excited about what’s coming, instead of being scared of it.”

Economic reshuffling

That economic reshuffling also involves reconsidering geography and where future talent is likely to come from. The United States and Europe, Geist says, are in a population crisis, both recording aging populations, while countries like India are self-sustaining with nearly half the population being under 25.

“United States-based companies like Cielo might not move their headquarters from Milwaukee to Mumbai, but it makes sense to see which systems, leadership and people practices could be shifted to help create a healthy, happy and thriving thought leadership practice in India,” Geist says.

As younger demographics grow in the workplace, it will be crucial to work with clients to understand their motivations and to find common ground. A new style of leadership will be required that is about being “followed rather than ruling”.

“A lot of our kids have seen us change jobs and seen employers not take care of people, so they’re just not going to engage with employment and employers the same way that we did, and they have different expectations,” Geist says.

“I have a 22-year-old son and he thinks that a career in corporate America does not sound like a great path for him.

“Younger generations are thinking, ‘Do I see myself in these jobs that are available?’ We could face a crisis where people are saying, ‘I don’t have to go to work the way I used to.’

“So one challenge is how do we create a world where everyone still wants to produce and still wants to engage?”