No, that’s not a typo.
Moore’s Law has been the standard by which technological development was measured for sixty years. It was propounded by Gordon E. Moore, cofounder of Intel, in 1965 and stated that “the number of transistors in an integrated circuit (IC) [or what in current parlance is called a chip] doubles about every two years.”
Since the capabilities of new technology – including AI – are determined by the capacity of those circuits, the law came to be seen as the pace at which each new generation of technology-based products would arrive. Advancements in the capabilities of electronics, for example, and the decline in their price have both been generally governed by that twenty-four month cycle.
Moore’s Law determined the rate at which there would be new and more powerful computers, sensors, personal assistants, HRIS and yes, talent technology. It has been a seemingly endless (and relentless) flow that produced both impressive gains in workers’ productivity and the near simultaneous rise in their anxiety level.
And, now that pace is about to change.
NVIDIA has recently announced that it has compressed its chip development cycle by half or more. In other words, the pace at which technological development can now occur has shrunk from the 24 month cycle that already seemed almost overwhelming to 9-to-12 months. Henceforth, new products will arrive twice as fast enabling workers to do far more with less, but also challenging them as never before.
FOMO is about to be replaced by FOFB – Fear of Falling Behind.
The TAtech Leadership Summit on Recruitment Marketing is designed for HR/TA leaders and senior professionals at enterprise employers and their counterparts among TA solution providers. To be held at the newly renovated Le Méridien Tampa, The Courthouse, the conference opens with a welcome reception on the evening of February 26 and then runs all day February 27. The agenda covers everything from the potential impact of the new Administration and what corporate recruitment marketing leaders have planned in 2025 to the impact of AI and the business case for branding. Seating is limited at the conference venue, so register today to make sure you have a spot.
New technologies and products and even product upgrades will no longer be arriving at their traditionally rapid rate; they will be arriving in what will feel like a nonstop torrent. That means candidates must now have the technical skills for the product or products being used in the workplace at their time of hire AND two additional attributes: the willingness and ability to learn and adaptability or the capacity to flourish in the midst of constant change.
That’s not a new idea, of course, but what is new in this era of warp speed technological development is how critical these traits are, both to individual performance and organizational success. They are not nice-to-have or secondary requirements. In fact, I would argue they must be seen as a precondition for a candidate even being considered for an opening.
Individuals will not be able to do their jobs as they are redefined with more technological capability and organizations will not achieve their expected ROI with the technology they acquire unless workers can keep up, unless they can effectively:
• acquire the necessary skills to put new tools to work on-the-job and do so quickly enough to meet operational demand; and
• adapt to the new practices and procedures those tools will almost certainly impose on the workplace.
I call the combination of those two traits the “versatility index.” The higher a candidate is on that scale, the more valuable they are to the organization. If you have any doubt about that, consider the current impact of a low versatility index. You can see it in workers who push back on and refuse to use a new technology so they can keep doing what they’ve always done. They are also the workers who become so overwhelmed by the introduction of new technology, their work suffers and eventually undermines the performance of the entire unit.
Doing Moore with less means being able to work with new technology in less time and with less angst. It’s fast becoming a critical component of individual and organizational success and it’s only achievable with employees who score high in versatility.
Food for Thought,
Peter
Peter Weddle has authored or edited over two dozen books and been a columnist for The Wall Street Journal. He is the founder and CEO of TAtech: The Association for Talent Acquisition Solutions.