Putting Talent at the Centre An Evolving Imperative for Manufacturing 2025

Building the workforce with proven frontline innovations 2 The Frontline Talent of the Future Initiative aims to identify talent innovations from the world’s highest- performing sites, with a clear focus on the people doing the frontline work. It seeks to provide answers to the toughest questions around talent strategy. This chapter explores how participants in the initiative’s pilot programme have done that, telling the stories of the innovations these leading sites have deployed. A talent initiative modelled after the Global Lighthouse Network In keeping with the Global Lighthouse Network’s tradition of collaborating with frontrunner organizations, the initiative’s pilot programme involved a partnership with nine leading companies known for exceptional people and talent programmes. It aimed to uncover the strategies and investments that have led them to beat the odds and see outsized improvements in productivity and stability. Each site shared its motivations for investing in a talent transformation and the talent innovations that enabled performance gains in key metrics. Sites with inspiring talent transformations were selected for visits, allowing a deeper understanding of their innovations.Frontline innovators across the globe prove talent innovation can have direct impact on productivity and stability. Pilot participants spanned geographies and industries FIGURE 9 CPG Industrials Oil and gasSites participated in pilot from 10 companies 13 Sites visited8 Number of feedback sessions company leaders and academics80 Number of talent innovations identified 61Site locations Source: World Economic Forum. (2024). Putting people first: a new imperative for manufacturing. https://www.weforum.org/stories/2024/12/manufacturing- industrial-sites-talent/. 15 Putting Talent at the Centre: An Evolving Imperative for Manufacturing