Making people successful in a changing world - Annual Report 2012

The Global Opportunity:the global labour marketThere are few, if any, other industries in theworld which offer comparable strategicgrowth potential to that which Adecco leads:The global world of work!Every day, billions of people ‘work’.Literally, billions of people ‘produce’.Literally, billions of people are ‘employed’.And, today, more and more people want towork on their own terms and on a ‘flexible’basis.Already the global Human ResourcesSolutions industry encompassingassessment, search and placement –including temporary staffing – generates inexcess of an estimated $400 billion revenuesper annum. Yet such revenues are soonlikely to be dwarfed.There are several key dynamics observabletoday indicating that the ‘world of work’ isfundamentally and irreversibly changing:Lifestyle trends. Corporate harmonisation.Deregulation.At Adecco, we see the effects of suchdynamics leading to a fundamental‘Redefinition of Work’.As the global market-leader, one of Adecco’skey goals is to play a major role inaccelerating that redefinition, positivelyand constructively, and helping to reshapethe global labour market productively forboth people and companies.Lifestyle trendsOur mission at Adecco centres on deliveringproductivity improvements to our Clientsby partnering with individual TemporaryAssociates to help them be truly successfulin today’s changing world of work.But today, more than in any other era ofhuman evolution, millions of talentedpeople, young and old, are themselves‘Redefining Work’ in very personal wayson a daily basis.For increasing numbers of skilled people,‘industrial-age’ models of the relationshipbetween employer and employee are nowoutdated, outmoded and simply ‘out ofstep’ with their own work, career andlifestyle aspirations.People are becoming true ‘entrepreneurs’in terms of their working practices andlifestyle preferences.Across the globe, millions of people wantflexible work. Thousands of corporationswant flexible human resources. The result?A growth opportunity worth billions.8