TALiNT International July 2022

Build solid foundations for growth

TIARA Award Finalists

How TS and staffing firms are defying the downturn

TA & Recruitment Awards finalists announced

The Best of the Best

Non-compliance is costly

TIARA Talent Tech Star Award winners

Pay attention to your supply chain

RE-EMERGING TALENT ENGAGING THE AGEING WORKFORCE

TALiNT International July 2022

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TALiNT International July 2022

LEADER

From the Editor It’s been a rollercoaster six months with the pandemic ending, Ukraine war beginning, cost of living rising along with the mercury into ridiculously high temperatures, PM resigning from the “greatest job in the world” and bidding his farewell with “hasta la vista, baby” (Oh, Boris) in his last address to his not-so-loyal colleagues. But we’re screaming round the last loop-de-loop of the ride and into the long-awaited summer holidays and I for one am ready for a solid break “from it all”!

During all the chaos, the TALiNT Partners’ TIARA Awards season kicked off with the TIARA Talent Tech Star Awards at the beautiful RIBA where we celebrated winners in style. The contribution made to the HR tech industry by all the finalists made choosing winners very difficult, and we saw a number of “Highly Commended” during the judging process! Congratulations to all the winners. Read their winner profiles from page 28.

Awards announcements continue and we are delighted to announce the finalists for

this year’s TIARA Talent Acquisition Awards Europe on page 61 as well as the finalists for the TIARA Talent Recruitment Awards on page 53.

As usual, this issue of TALiNT International is packed with insights from over 50 leaders from across the total talent ecosystem. At a number of in-person lunches and dinners, Talent Acquisition and Talent Solutions leaders have discussed the trends and challenges their teams are currently experiencing and we’ve carefully curated their shared solutions and insights into a number of featured articles throughout the magazine.

TALiNT International is also taking a short, summer break and the next issue will be published on 22 September. In this issue, we will be featuring the Top 100 Staffing Companies with featured comments from the sector’s top leaders.

Until then, have a wonderful summer, and I do secretly hope we have a few more heatwaves…

Published by Talent Intelligence Partners Ltd Casa Court Great George Street Godalming GU71DX www.talintpartners.com

About TALiNT Partners TALiNT Partners brings together a global network of leading employers and solution providers to make better talent and technology decisions by providing intelligence, insight and peer-to-peer networking that drives quality, innovation and improves inclusion across the talent ecosystem.

Editorial, news and features: debbie@talintpartners.com Advertising and sponsorship: andy@talintpartners.com Design: annabelle@talintpartners.com Layout and Design: New Media Design Agency www.newmediadesign.co.za TALiNT International July 2022

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Re-Emerging Talent

Contents 06 10

TALiNT Scene

14 18 25

Re-Emerging Talent

28

TIARA Talent Tech Star Awards

52

Pay attention to your supply chain

56

The best of the best

64

Strategic visionaries

67

Plotting the course

4

TALiNT Partners out-out with industry leaders

News analysis

UK in top 5 worst European countries for employee wellbeing

Focus on the ageing workforce

TALiNT Partners’ Emerging Talent Summit

Mitra Janes

James Gordanifar

Jackie Grisdal

Sharron Marsh

Jenna Follett

Neil Purcell

Adam Hawkins

Amy Golding

Chris Kendrick

Stephanie O’Connor

HSBC

SMRS

WTW

The Doyle Collection

Investing in young futures

What really matters

Debate from the OmniRMS and TALiNT Partners’ talent solutions dinner

London Stock Exchange

Talent Works

Entry profiles of the winners

LinkedIn

Opus Talent Solutions

Not doing so could cost you

Finalists for the TIARA Recruitment Awards 2022

Mercury

TIARA Talent Acquisition Awards Europe finalists

PeopleScout and TALiNT Partners’ TS dinner

Downturn defyers

Staffing firms build strong foundations for growth

TALiNT Talk

Ken Brotherston, TALiNT Partners CEO on why lineage shouldn’t matter TALiNT International July 2022

ManpowerGroup

53 The Best of the Best

71 78

Contributors

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TALiNT Scene 28 June

It’s been a busy events season and we’ve once again been privileged to sit round dinner and lunch tables with some of the talent industry’s top thought leaders.

Wellbeing in the workplace

On 28 June TALiNT Partners and Indeed hosted a live workshop for Senior HR and TA Leaders on mental health and employee wellbeing at work, at the Andaz Hotel in the glorious city of London. Danny Stacy, Head of Employer Insights at Indeed and special guest speaker Ollie Ollerton, former UK Special Forces Social and a directing staff from “Who Dares Wins” on Channel 4, hosted this thought-provoking interactive workshop.

At the event, Indeed unveiled their key findings from their brand new 2022 report on mental health and wellness in the UK workplace, built in partnership with 6

TALiNT International July 2022

YouGov. Whilst mental health and employee wellbeing has been front of mind for business leaders for some time now with Indeed’s Working on wellbeing: Mental health and wellness in the UK workplace report revealing that more than half of surveyed audiences are either experiencing or have experienced mental health issues.

Despite huge leaps forward, data from Indeed’s report showed that mental health conversations still aren’t happening at work, which is disconcerting and something Ollie Ollerton addressed in his keynote speech. Unfortunately, there is still a stigma attached to mental health and fear, but it

was most refreshing to see most hands up in the air when Ollie asked if anyone in the room is suffering, or has suffered with mental illness in their lives – especially the men. “Admitting that you are struggling with a mental illness for men is hard because you’re meant to be strong… but actually admitting that you need help, is what makes you strong,” said Ollie.

With 44% of respondents stating that they are “somewhat” or “very uncomfortable” telling their manager about their mental health challenges, it’s clear that work still needs to be done to create a safe space for employees to open up about their experiences. The opposite was true for senior managers and HR decisionmakers (44% and 48% respectively) who said

they’d be happy to share their mental health challenges with their managers.

Another alarming statistic to come out of the report was that nearly half of the workforce is worn out and that it’s making things worse at home. But is this really surprising? The pandemic has certainly resulted in lines being blurred between home and work and the external stressors that the pandemic broufgt with it, it’s no surprise that the workforce is struggling to cope. It’s more important now than ever that managers and HR managers keep open lines of communication with their staff and that an open-door policy exists in all organisations in order to support their employees.

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TALiNT Scene Omni at The Ivy

On 30 June, TALiNT Partners and OmniRMS hosted a roundtable dinner at The Ivy in Birmingham to discuss hiring needs, the office value proposition and what really matters to candidates, regardless of what the surveys tell us…

And, it must be said, we’ll be back at The Ivy soon – it was fantastic!

30 June

Lunching & Learning at The Haymarket Hotel

On 7 July, TALiNT Partners brought together 40 staffing, talent solutions, tech leaders and industry advisers together to share insights on how new recruitment models, finance options and data solutions have enabled providers to grow more profitably in the boom – and build stronger foundations for the downturn.

Guests included industry leaders from Talent Works, LinkedIn, Opus Talent Solutions and Propel, to name a few!

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TALiNT International July 2022

7 July

7 July

The Emerging Talent Summit

On 7 July TALiNT Partners hosted the annual Emerging Talent Summit at The Kings Fund in London where we asked the question: How are the best employers growing and retaining the right mix of new talent? The Summit offered range of insights on how employers are creating a nurturing platform for emerging talent as well as how understanding the talent needs of tomorrow’s organisation and how to build an employer brand which resonates with a diverse mix of early talent helps to attract much-needed young talent in organisations.

It was a great opportunity to connect and learn with peers, discover new solutions from the best providers, and debate new challenges on the horizon that you can better prepare for.

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NEWS ANALYSIS

UK in top 5 worst European countries for employee wellbeing According to the research, UK workers work the lowest amount of average hours per week, while ranking the worst for flexible working opportunities, with just 4.7% of employees usually working remotely.

On 28 June TALiNT Partners and Indeed hosted a live workshop for Senior HR and TA Leaders on mental health and employee wellbeing and the results showed that there has definitely been a positive shift towards better managing employees’ wellbeing, so it’s disconcerting to see that while gains have been made, a lot more needs to be done since research across 16 European countries by UK-based occupational health company Latus Health revealed that the UK is ranked 5th in worst country in Europe for employee wellbeing.

The UK lagged further behind when it came to financial security and was ranked extremely poorly for gross household saving rate, poorly for disposable income, and moderately for average salary. The gross household saving rate was just 7% in comparison with European neighbours France (14%) and Germany (18%) but fared better than Spain (6%). In terms of physical and mental health, the UK ranked extremely poorly for political stability and the environment, poorly for average alcohol/tobacco spend, but good for stress levels in comparison with some European counterparts, however, 46% of people reported experiencing burnout relating to work.

The research considered factors relating directly to work such as average hours worked, flexible working opportunities, and sickness absence rate, as well as external factors relating to financial security and physical and mental health.

Poland ranked the worst, Czechia the second worst, Spain the third worst, and Portugal the fourth worst.

European countries ranked from worst to best for employee wellbeing: 1. Poland 2. Czechia 3. Spain 4. Portugal

5. UK 10

6. Italy 7. Germany 8. Belgium 9. Austria 10. France 11. Norway

TALiNT International July 2022

12. Iceland 13. Sweden 14. Switzerland 15. Netherlands 16. Denmark

Three out of four companies struggling to hire The British Chambers of Commerce Quarterly Recruitment Outlook has revealed that three out of four companies are struggling to hire staff.

According to the report, 61% of firms were recruiting in the second quarter. This number is slightly higher than the 60% recruiting in the first quarter. However, of these companies, 76% reported difficulties in finding staff.

The report canvassed 5,700 businesses and found that the construction sector struggled the most (83%). The production (79%), manufacturing (79%), and hospitality (78%) industries followed.

With rising business costs, only 28% of firms have increased their investment in the last three months, with smaller firms being even less likely to report an increase, at just 19%.

The skills shortage crisis is showing no signs of abating and with living costs on the rise and tenuous market challenges ahead, candidates are either jumping ship for higher salaries or sitting tight until things settle down. Either way, it remains a candidate driven market and employers are having to reinvent the way they attract and retain their talent.

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NEWS ANALYSIS

Permanent recruitment growth drops to a 16-month low in June

Staff availability declined severely in June, with the deterioration going up to the sharpest for three months with both permanent and temporary labour supply dropping quickly.

The latest KPMG and REC, UK Report on Jobs survey has found that permanent staff appointments and temp billings have grown at the lowest rate in 16 months in June. While recruitment activity continues to expand across the UK, temporary billings have risen more than permanent placements.

Imbalances between the supply and demand for workers also resulted in steep increases in starting pay rates during June.

However, as sharp and well above the series average as the starting salary rates are, the rates were the softest since August 2021. Furthermore, temp wage growth dropped to a 12-month low.

According to the report compiled by S&P Global, recruiters shared that candidate shortages were limiting hiring activity. In addition, with ever-increasing economic uncertainty, low growth was attributed to slower client decision-making. The report also found that overall demand for workers had increased at the slowest rate since March 2021.

Regionally, softer rises in permanent placements were noted in all four monitored English regions. However, North of England saw the weakest increase overall.

Further findings include that the rate of decline for staff availability has been the quickest for three months. Efforts to attract and secure candidates have resulted in marked increases in starting pay; however, salary and wage inflation rates have lessened since May. Recruitment consultancies attributed lower candidate numbers to: • a generally low unemployment rate; • fewer foreign workers; • robust demand for staff; and • hesitancy to switch roles in the increasingly uncertain economic climate.

While overall vacancies continue to increase dramatically, the latest upturn was also the lowest in 15 months. The results also showed lower demand for both permanent and temporary workers at the end of Q2; however, the quicker expansion rate was in demand for permanent workers.

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TALiNT International July 2022

London saw the sharpest increase in temp billings at the end of Q2, whereas the softest expansion was noted in the Midlands.

In terms of vacancies, the strongest increase was for permanent workers in the private sector, followed by permanent staff in the public sector. However, the former saw a notable drop in growth in June compared to May. The softest rise, although still marked, was in vacancies for temporary workers in the public sector.

When looking at the results by industry, the data signalled steep increases in permanent staff demand across all ten monitored employment categories. Hotel & Catering showed the sharpest upturn in vacancies overall, with IT & Computing and Nursing/Medical/Care following.

Higher temp vacancies were seen in nine of the ten monitored job categories at the end of the Q2, with Hotel & Catering at the top of the rankings. Retail was the only sector to show a drop in demand, even though the rate of contraction was modest.

Upcoming events 2022 Sep Event Name

Date

Audience

Location

How can recruiters harness the hidden workforce?

01.09.22

Staffing and talent solutions leaders

The Studio, Manchester

Who & what is disrupting recruitment, and how?

15.09.22

Staffing and talent solutions leaders

The Beaumont Hotel, London

Engaging with Early Talent roundtable

15.09.22

APAC In-house talent leaders

Virtual

TIARA Talent Solutions Awards Europe 2022

23.09.22

Talent solutions leaders

The Sheraton Ground, London

Redefining your talent for tomorrow’s needs

28.09.22

In-house talent leaders

Soho Hotel, London

Oct Date Event Name

Location

Audience

How can recruiters improve profitability & increase margins?

04.10.22

Staffing and talent solutions leaders

London

TIARA Talent Acquisition Awards Europe 2022

06.10.22

In-house talent leaders

The Montcalm, London

2023 – Is your Talent function ready?

12.10.22

In-house talent leaders

The Ivy, Birmingham

World Leaders in Recruitment Summit 2022

13.10.22

Staffing and talent solutions leaders

Natwest Conference Centre, London

Debate and discussion roundtable

18.10.22

Talent solutions leaders

London

TIARA Recruitment Awards 2022

19.10.22

Staffing and talent solutions leaders

The Brewery, London

Optimising your TA function for 2023

20.10.22

In-house talent leaders

London

TA challenges workshop

26.10.22

EMEA In-house talent leaders

Frankfurt

Roundtable discussion: challenges in the recruitment industry

27.10.22

ANZ Staffing and talent solutions leaders

Virtual

VISIT TALINTPARTNERS.COM/EVENTS TO REGISTER TALiNT International July 2022

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RE-EMERGING TALENT: FOCUS ON THE AGEING WORKFORCE

Re-Emerging Talent: Focus on the Ageing Workforce If you explore the subject of the ageing workforce, you will quickly see an unmistakable tension between an increasing desire to leave the workforce and the commercial benefit to employers of ensuring they don’t.

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hether exacerbated by multiple COVID-19 lockdowns or not, there is dramatic increase in the population between 50 and 65 who are opting out of traditional working arrangements, at the very time that many of their skills are scarce in the market.

RISING POPULATION

In the UK and the USA, 19% of the population are aged between 50 and 64; in China this rises to 22%, in Germany it is 23% of the population (data from Populationpyramid.net). Looking at this population over a ten-year period we see that the figure for the US is consistent over that time, in fact, shrinking 0.9 percentage points between 2017 and 2022. The UK has seen a steady growth of 0.5 percentage points every five years. By contrast, in Germany this population size has grown by 14

TALiNT International July 2022

2.2 percentage points in 10 years to 2022 and China by 4.6 percentage points.

Whilst results vary, for the regions most affected, this pre-retirement population represents an increasing percentage of the workforce. This raises important questions on the effort made by employers to keep the skills of these more tenured workers up to date and relevant to the roles which are emerging through digitisation. The younger end of this cohort still have over 10 years in the workplace across any given market before reaching statutory retirement and that is a long time in most businesses.

RETIREMENT IS BEING PUSHED BACK

Governments have long been aware of the ticking timebomb of an ageing population on two fronts. First, the need to maintain

Debra Sparshott Director of Research & Insights TALiNT Partners

available skills in the employment market and secondly the increased cost burden on the state pension pot. The UK has raised retirement age to 67 for those under 40, France has raised the retirement age from 60 to 62. Brazil has proposed moving away from retirement, based years of pension contribution to a statutory retirement age of 62 for women and 65 for men; and South Korea already has a retirement age of 70 for some professions.

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n the UK, despite a current retirement age of 66, employment rates of those between 50 and 64 have fallen to the lowest levels since 2016. According to the Centre for Ageing Better’s report, “Work: The State of Ageing 2022” the “number who have exited the workforce entirely between 50 and 64 has risen by 228,000 in England since the start of the

pandemic and the employment rate has fallen by 1.8 percentage points. The ONS report for June 2022 supports this, stating “higher economic activity is particularly due to more older people leaving the labour force” with a peak in economic inactivity for those aged 50-64 at the beginning of 2022.

In Germany the official retirement of 65 is rising to 67 in the period to 2029, although “The Local” reported in May 2022 that in Germany workers “retired a little earlier” in 2021. In China the retirement age is 60 to 65 for men and 50 to 55 for women depending on their type of work, younger than most countries, but under ongoing review as life expectancy increases and the cost burden rises.

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RE-EMERGING TALENT: FOCUS ON THE AGEING WORKFORCE

OPTING OUT OF THE TRADITIONAL WORKPLACE

“Hidden in this massive COVID-inspired turmoil is the unexpected and highly unusual early retirement of millions of ageing workers” writes Paul Rupert, CEO of Rupert Organisational Design in this June edition of the US magazine, “The Hill”. The reality may be more complex than simple retirement.

Whilst there is a move away from “finish Friday, back as a contractor on Monday” transition, mainly due to less attractive changes in contractor legislation in many regions, the pandemic with its enforced downtime has shaped career changes for many of all ages, including the pre-retirement population. In some cases, this was to move away from a sector or job which feels less than secure in providing for financial requirements, in others it was from a realisation that they were not where they wanted to be, enter “The Great Redistribution” perhaps rather than “The Great Resignation”. In “The Metro”, Helen Dewdney writes (July 2022) about “How the pandemic made us turn our hobbies into main jobs”. Rather than exiting the workforce, many are engaging with it in a new way.

EASY TARGET FOR REDUNDANCY

With their accumulated skills and experience in workplace transformation, the 50 to 64-year-old workforce, at roughly one fifth of the population, have shown their ability to roll with the changes going from manual, paper-based operations to sophisticated AI processing, from machine setting to robotic programming, from service with a smile to real-time activity

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monitoring; they have seen the most significant shifts in how we work since industrial revolution worked it’s way across the world, and most have coped with the increasing speed of that change.

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espite this in 2022, they are more likely to be made redundant and, once redundant are less likely to be re-employed than younger workers. In the UK the employment rate gap is now wider than two years ago, despite political ambition to extend the working life. (Centre for Ageing Better).

Our ageing workforce report being subject to biases, which may be simply “habit” as Paul Rupert describes it, but which limit access to new jobs, training, and re-skilling opportunities, inflates expectations of cost to employ, and frustratingly puts a brick wall around opportunities to diversify their career. It raises the question, when is it too late to train someone?

UNRETIREMENT

Things change quickly in the world of talent and as fast as we saw an exodus during and post-pandemic, we are now seeing signs that the global economy is once again shaping personal career decisions for those between 50 and 64, and older.

In the UK, research from Lottie has identified a rise in older workers returning to the workplace after retirement. The article cites a 200% increase in Google searches relating to “returning to work after retirement”. Simultaneously in the USA, “The Hill” reports on a growing trend of phased retirement; effectively creating a staged plan of working time reduction from full-time to retirement, via part-time or ad hoc working arrangements, to extend the overall tenure of employment.

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here may be more to this than financial necessity; as health into old age continues to improve, when taking the long-term view, extending the sense of purpose and connection created by meaningful employment becomes more appealing.

It is likely too that the loneliness and isolation experienced by so many during the pandemic, particularly by the over 50s, may have a part to play in wanting to re-engage with employment.

In the UK the ONS data again supports this view with economic inactivity rates for this group falling steadily each month since it peaked in February 2022.

CONCLUSIONS

If the predictions of “The 100-Year Life” (Lynda Gratton and Andrew Scott, 2015, Bloomberg Publishing Plc) come to realisation, we and future generations

will all be living longer and working later into older age to fund an extended period of retirement.

It makes good sense then to take a more open attitude towards the working lifetime and recognise that ability to learn and change are more about mindset than age.

The lines between home and work have become blurred during the pandemic creating an opportunity to redefine the workplace across the globe, perhaps the same is true for age difference? With the current global skills crisis there is everything to gain by seeing potential and growth as something which doesn’t expire with time but remains available and ready for opportunity when it is presented. When added to acquired skills, a longer perspective and continuous exposure to change, this talent has high value in every sector, and is a vital component of passing on knowledge when they are finally ready for retirement. It is all about choice.

Resources: Agingworkforcenews.com; Office for National Statistics; The Hill (US); 401KSpecialist; Centre for Ageing better; Vietnam News; Eurostat; The Metro; Population pyramid.net; The Local Lottie; Quartz (qz.com); “The 100-Year Life, Living and Working in an Age of Longevity”, Lynda Gratton & Andrew Scott, 2016, Bloomsberg Publications Plc.

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EMERGING TALENT SUMMIT

Investing in their future

Debra Sparshott Director of Research & Insights TALiNT Partners

On 7 July TALiNT Partners hosted their annual Emerging Talent Summit, a day for Talent and Early Talent Leaders entirely focused on Youth Employment in partnership with SMRS, JobTeaser and Sova Assessment, each bringing expertise from their respective experience in the recruitment, selection and retention of early career talent.

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he event opened with an overview of what is on the horizon for Early Talent strategists, based on current UK market intelligence on the student population due to enter the workplace in 2022. Given the continued challenges with, and cost of pipeline loss and candidates receiving multiple offers, there was particular focus on the priorities of young candidates and their expectations of employers, including the balance between higher salaries and the importance of

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continued support for further studies, development and a sense of purpose.

Despite recruitment obstacles, it was interesting to report that virtual application journeys look set to remain in the Emerging Talent space.

Widening the lens, we considered the impact of current trends such as flexible working models, mental health and wellbeing for those entering the workplace for the first time, with increasingly blurred

boundaries between work and private lives, and tension between feeling always on, yet potentially neither visible, nor connected to informal information and organic discussion, which occurs naturally when staff are co-located.

Delegates took part in a workshop using the TALiNT Partners Benchmark Tool to review capability and delivery of early talent recruitment and evaluating year-onyear changes appearing in the 2022 interim Benchmark results (final results will be published in November at The Benchmark Summit). Key findings included the rising importance of all genres of youth employment, both graduate and apprenticeship hiring, and improvement in employer effectiveness in managing these campaigns. Attraction and sourcing of early talent results showed continuing use of localised events but a significant move away from university careers fairs, with a growing preference for one-to-one

interventions such as mentoring schemes.

Process support for young applicants has doubled year-on-year, but all other forms of more creative support showed a fall in effectiveness against the 2021 results.

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mployers are prioritising retention, particularly in the wake of rising pay expectations, with attrition management improving and support for continued study increasing by 14 percentage points.

In her keynote speech, Mitra Janes, EDI Lead for HSBC centred on social mobility in the UK market, presenting worrying statistics on the correlation between early talent upbringing and career success. Mitra shared that, “A low ability child from a high-income family is 35% more likely to be a high earner than a high ability child from a low-income family” – a shocking insight, the impact of which was not lost on the room.

Breaking the hard-wired bias, across some

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EMERGING TALENT SUMMIT

sectors, in where to source early talent, continued as a theme throughout the day and Mitra explained how HSBC are extending their own early talent “social inclusion” through insight experiences, internships and graduate programmes with, “specific initiatives which integrate our narrative in a more holistic way to ensure we attract as well as retain diverse talent”. From brand awareness, with strategic external partnerships, e.g. Merky/Stormzy Scholarships, through early engagement with schools and technology designed to increase accessibility, HSBC are creating a supported, community-focused candidate experience set to appeal to both professional and CSR aspirations in their Emerging Talent.

Following his recent move into the Global Head of Talent – Early Career with WTW, James Gordanifar gave an honest and authentic account of his own experiences of moving into a new leadership role in Emerging Talent. After 18 months of high churn in the TA Leadership market this subject was timely and pertinent for many in the room. James’ messages of remaining constantly curious by “Channelling your inner Darwin” and recognising one’s own vulnerabilities when taking on a new role resonated strongly with those who have faced new challenges, some very recently.

“It is important to discover your ‘True North’” said James, ensuring that, in building internal trust and reviewing operational processes and capability, priorities and decisions remain centred on the core values and principles of the organisation’s early talent goals. Throughout this open peer-to-per session the notetaking and attention in the room spoke volumes as to the need for Early Careers Leaders to connect and share experiences; “It is good to know it’s not just me” was a recurring comment throughout the day.

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n the first of two panel discussions industry experts Jackie Grisdal, Youth Marketing Consultant at SMRS; Pauline Dupont, Internal Sales Manager for JobTeaser and Charlotte Goodman, Senior Client Partner at Sova Assessment were joined by James Gordanifar and Sharron Marsh, Group Head of Talent for The Doyle Collection to consider “Creating inclusivity, removing exclusivity”. We considered changes in early career candidate expectations and how demand for higher salaries is sharing the top slot with purpose and social values.

“Candidates are looking for both” shared Jackie, “Purpose is a key factor in deciding which offer to take, but in a competitive market they are also looking to start in the best financial position to build their lives on”.

Pauline agreed: “Young talent has lots of choice and they know that they are in demand; employers need to compete to secure the talent to deliver their growth plans”. Sharron shared her experience of how established brand perceptions can deter diverse talent from applying, “organisations have to act deliberately to remove barriers and redefine talent both internally and externally”. As an expert in candidate assessment, Charlotte shared how clients are isolating barriers to inclusivity within their own early candidate journey, increasing success in diverse hiring through the content and delivery of their applicant screening, she told delegates, “It’s moving away from skills, and knowing the behaviours and attributes which will lead to success for the candidate and the organisation.”

The second panel discussion expanded on understanding the future needs of an organisation to effectively recruit “for roles that don’t yet exist”. The panel was joined

by Jenna Follett, Director of Emerging Talent for The London Stock Exchange, and

Young talent has lots of choice and they know it

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EMERGING TALENT SUMMIT

Antoine Pingeot, International Sales and Expansion Manager for JobTeaser, who observed how organisations are re-shaping their early talent messaging to focus on support for growth and flexibility. The discussion questioned the need to build retention strategies into early talent programmes if Emerging Talent is increasingly looking to move quickly. Jenna pointed to the rotational nature of early talent in some sectors, where young employers move on relatively quickly, to expand their development, but then come back to build their careers, “it’s essential to work closely with early talent managers so they understand the drivers and aspirations of individuals, and to see the rapid movement of early talent as part of the investment in talent availability across the sector in future years.”

Central to the Emerging Talent Summit is round table discussion, which this year looked at big themes for early talent programmes, opening with how to drive internal cultural change and external messaging to meet early talent need for a purpose-led career. With early careers leaders from wide-ranging sectors, including technology, law, tourism, leisure, e-comms, public sector and retail, the room

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was alive with shared experiences, challenges and innovative ideas. This continued throughout the day with peerto-peer discussion on reducing risk of pipeline drop out and ideas for driving organisation focus on future needs rather than immediate role requirement.

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eedback from attendees highlighted the value of shared learning and expert insight in The Emerging Talent Summit; “A fantastic opportunity to share insights across sectors and learn from one another”, said Una Buckley from the Greater London Authority and another delegate commented the event allowed for “a healthy sense of challenging perceptions, free flowing discussion, as well as the opportunity to mix with like-minded leaders in the Talent Acquisition space”.

In a time of such high activity and ongoing pressure in the early talent calendar TALiNT Partners’ Emerging Talent Summit offered those at the forefront of it a chance to reflect, share and learn, which will ultimately inform and shape confidence in existing programmes and new thinking to evolve future early talent hiring in for a population that never stands still.

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TALiNT International July 2022

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TALiNT International July 2022

BIRMINGHAM TALENT SOLUTIONS DINNER

What really matters TALiNT Partners and OmniRMS hosted a roundtable dinner to discuss hiring needs, the office value proposition and what really matters to candidates, regardless of what the surveys tell us…

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ven before the pandemic, it was always a great experience to get out of London to host one of our regional Talent Leaders dinners and being able to get back to Birmingham for the first time since 2019 was a particular treat. The combination of a cracking group of guests, being supported by a long-standing partner OmniRMS and the surroundings of the private room at The Ivy all made for a thoroughly enjoyable evening.

Birmingham is a particularly interesting city these days. With the growth in remote and flexible working, it is now potentially much more affected by its proximity to London than say, Manchester or Edinburgh.

Our guests, representing some of the largest and most dynamic employers in the regions, reported that they continue to actively hire but are increasingly aware of the wider economic situation. From a talent pipeline perspective,

they felt that whilst there might be a short term hit as more people live locally but work in London, this will likely level out over time and at least for now, they are spending money in their local economies.

T

he discussion turned to the importance of having a clear ‘office value proposition’ (OVP) and Natasha Harris, an HRD at HMRC made the important point that people need to be regularly reminded why being faceto-face really matters.

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BIRMINGHAM TALENT SOLUTIONS DINNER

Everyone agreed that proximity matters

There is also the danger of focussing on the people who are reluctant to come back to the office rather than to focus on those who are making hybrid work.

Everyone agreed that proximity matters.

O

ne guest offered a tantalising glimpse of a future where workforces become more demanding about being part of a diverse team i.e. it becomes driven from the bottom up rather than top down. This would truly represent a tipping point.

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There were some significant observations regarding candidate attraction and retention: whilst compensation is still the number one issue (regardless of what surveys say), things like ESG policies, and your wider employee value proposition – especially around development and training, really matter.

There is also an increasing recognition that better engagement with contingent workers, for example, making more effort to make them feel

part of the team in which they work and even supporting aspects of their career development, can help improve talent supply chains.

A big part of the discussion focussed on talent being re-framed as a business sustainability issue rather than ‘something left to HR or TA’. TA leaders who can respond to this, especially by stressing the role of strategic workforce planning (SWP) and using labour market analytics to drive decision making

rather than outdated metrics like cost per hire, can help their organisations navigate the current market and plan for the future much better. On the ‘cost per hire’ point, there was a pleasantly surprising number of guests who agreed that their CFOs have now realised that the cost of not hiring is a much more relevant metric and are increasingly looking to over hire (or hire in advance) than to be trying to catch up.

Like many of our sessions, we ended our discussion with some predictions: • Employers will continue to increase their focus on internal mobility, re-skilling and redeployment • Talent management and talent acquisition will continue along the path of becoming increasingly interconnected • There will be more focus on SWP • As a ‘subset’ of DE&I, social mobility and candidates with disabilities will become more critical to fill talent gaps • And the final prediction: We will definitely be back at The Ivy for another session before the end of 2022!

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TIARA TALENT TECH STAR AWARD WINNER PROFILES 2022

TIARA Talent Tech Star Awards Each of this year’s TIARA Talent Tech Stars are championing transformation in HR and Recruitment Having launched the TIARA Talent Tech Star Awards virtually back in 2020, it was a pleasure to host 170 guests at the Royal Institute for British Architects in London to crown this year’s winners in person and provide an opportunity for founders, CEOs, and senior leaders to celebrate with peers from across the sector.

The TIARAs shine a spotlight on the HR Tech sector’s highest potential start-ups, fast growing scale-ups and unicorns in the making. The 47 finalists shortlisted in 13 categories this year collectively employed 17,620 people and generated total sales of £1,751,752,677 in 2021 – not just improving productivity in all industries but substantially contributing to economic growth.

“Work Tech businesses launched in the last 5 years are not only achieving scale but even reaching unicorn status – and it was great to see this reflected in the shortlist for the TIARA Talent Tech Star Awards,” said Georgios Markakis, Managing Partner of Venero Capital Advisors, TIARA headline partner and sponsor of the Champion of Champions Award.

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Last year’s winners championed transformation in different parts of the talent ecosystem and showed the impact of technology on everything from candidate experience to onboarding and workforce management to productivity. This year, we saw even more impact and innovation around DE&I, training, skill-mapping, demand-planning and predictive AI. Commenting on this year’s overall winner, Georgios added: “Eightfold is a champion of skills over experience, with a creative solution which achieves this at scale. It has also proved the success of its solution and commitment to provide the right career for everyone as the model for its own business as the Best Talent Tech Company to Work For. “This year’s Champion of Champions addresses a crucially important challenge, in many ways a paradigm shift in the way companies around the world attract and retain talent, and does so with cuttingedge innovation, client service and leadership.”

This year’s campaign to recognise the best in HR and Recruitment technology was also supported by sponsors Optima Corporate Finance; Marriott Harrison; and Pearl Meyer.

We thank all of our partners for their ongoing support.

A TIARA Talent Tech Star Award is the sector’s most prestigious accolade because the judging process is designed around the expectations of buyers and investors as well as candidates, contractors, and employees with an esteemed panel of influential judges.

Congratulations to all of our winners and highly commended finalists. We hope the following insights into why they won and what set them apart will inspire the best in the sector to continue innovating and gain the recognition they deserve.

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TIARA TALENT TECH STAR AWARD WINNER PROFILES 2022

Optima Talent Tech Leader of the Year Janette Martin CEO, Talos360

Judges praised Janette for leading a company rebrand, structural change and impressive growth in a short period of time whilst also demonstrating her commitment to career progression, training and wellbeing.

360 Resourcing was established in 2009 to provide businesses with a better way to attract, recruit, and retain the best talent.

Since then, it has grown into a market leader in SaaS technology, offering some of the UK’s most innovative recruitment and employee engagement platforms.

focused talent solutions and a vision for every organisation to use intelligent talent technology. Her investment in training, wellbeing and career development, with a new head of people, resulted in its highest level of employee retention, team happiness and engagement.

Janette Martin became CEO in June 2021 and led a complete company rebrand to reflect the business’s transition from service-based to a tech-focused company, while taking the founders and all of its people on the change journey. In November 2021, 360 Resourcing became Talos360 to highlight its suite of Talent Operating Systems.

This, combined with strategic senior hires, supported impressive growth – doubling order values and tech ARR as well as increasing tech clients by over 40%. One client praised Talos360 for “Absolutely the best customer service I have received from an HR Tech supplier. Our Account Management team are still providing really valuable insight and advice to make our recruitment experience better.”

Janette used tribe meetings to unify everyone behind a mission to create people-

FINALISTS

Ashutosh Garg

Wendy McDougall

Sean Anderson

Chris Kendrick

CEO & Founder

CEO & Founder

CEO

CEO

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Intelligent Talent Technology Delighted winners of...

Latest workforce insights The competition for top talent remains a priority for employers. So, Talint award winner, Talos360, has commissioned detailed research into what candidates really want…

Did You Know...

Highly Commended

45%

31%

43%

of candidates are unhappy with their current salary

say looking after a pet is their reason to want to work from home

of jobseekers admit to having lied about something on their CV

Find out more

Talos360 offer some of the most innovative recruitment and engagement platforms in the UK including Talos ATS and Talos Engage.

Infographic Download Get your copy of the workforce insights here:

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Talos360.co.uk info@talos360.co.uk

TIARA TALENT TECH STAR AWARD WINNER PROFILES 2022

Talent Tech Scale Up Award

Judges praised Talos for its visionary leader who has not only achieved impressive sales and client growth but also built a senior team to achieve even more ambitious milestones over the next two years.

Beginning as a service-based business, Talos360 successfully pivoted to a techfocused company on the strength of its core products - Talos ATS and Talos Engage.

An unprecedented period of growth at Talos360 has been led by its CEO, Janette Martin. In 2021, sales growth increased by 62%, almost doubling its client base and on track to beat its technology sales targets this year. “Our clients love that they can attract great candidates, onboard them, engage them, and retain them,” said Janette Martin. “And with over 30 integrations with other HR solutions, the first ATS to have a LinkedIn API and NHS

jobs integration, we have plenty of opportunities to increase our client base.”

Janette has laid the foundations for further scale by building a new senior leadership team over the past eight months, including a CRO, CMO, CFO and head of people. “This new and experienced leadership will help Talos360 achieve its ambitious three-year plan to double our tech ARR by 2024,” added Janette. “We’ve welcomed 60 new people into the business since the beginning of 2021 across all business areas and our last team happiness and engagement survey scored +71% NPS.”

FINALISTS

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TIARA TALENT TECH STAR AWARD WINNER PROFILES 2022

Talent Tech Innovation Award

Judges praised Mercury for its impressive client retention, solid growth and its innovative ambition to make recruitment more proactive with predictive analytics using a tech platform that everyone is familiar with.

Mercury optimises Microsoft’s strengths in constantly connected applications to improve collaboration, enhance search, increase ROI, reinforce and automate processes, and give critical and insightful business analytics. It is a rapidly rising digital transformation champion with a vision for a new way of working that routinely uses AI and machine learning to identify the right candidates - including those that haven’t signalled they’re looking for a new job.

Mercury’s innovative ambition is to take recruitment from being a responsive profession into a more proactive, peoplecentric environment with solutions including predictive analytics to build a

pipeline of candidates and prospects, using trends and behaviours taken from its wealth of data.

One client commented that “The fact it is built on Microsoft Dynamics and integrates with the Microsoft Cloud platform means it has the potential to develop to meet the changing needs of the business now and much further into the future.”

Clients have cut the time to placement by up to 60%, got better value from their Microsoft licences and saved cost per seat – which has resulted in a 96% client retention rate. In the last 7 years, Mercury has increased its employee base from 4 to 77 and expanded into Australia and USA.

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WINNER For the second year in a row, Pixid has won a TIARA Talent Tech Award!

Talent Tech Award for Customer Service 2022

This time around we came top for Customer Service, following on from last year’s success for Pixid VMS in the Workforce Solution of the Year category.

Pixid’s smart recruitment technology is such great value to the staffing industry, not only due to our great software, with its ongoing innovation and R&D, but also, because of our supportive and effective customer service model.

To find out how our partnership approach and great technology can help you excel and thrive in a challenging staffing market, please visit our website or call us on 0800 083 2171

For more information, contact us today: 36

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www.pixid.uk

WINNER Workforce Solution of the Year 2021

0800 083 2171

TIARA TALENT TECH STAR AWARD WINNER PROFILES 2022

Talent Tech Customer Service

Judges praised Pixid for its impressive client retention and referral rates and also for its qualitative investment in employees which enables great customer service.

Pixid was founded in 2004 by Adecco, Randstad and Manpower, to develop and provide a Vendor Management System (VMS) specifically to support the complex French temporary staffing market. Pixid is now the largest European owned provider of recruitment technology, with its VMS deployed to over 120,000 client locations by 8,500 agency branches, processing and enabling the management of 250,000 worker assignments on a daily basis. It has also expanded into the Americas and Asia-Pacific region.

Clients value its fast-to setup, fast to deploy and easy to use solution, which offers the advantages of VMS in a more affordable,

agile and pay-as-you-go package. This enables recruitment suppliers to offer managed services with a lower risk and higher potential for profitable growth.

Pixid’s sales, project management and client account management teams ensure coordinated support, working alongside clients as their technology partner. This has enabled Pixid to achieve high levels of client loyalty, and high rates of customer referral. It has gained another competitive edge by charging clients on a transactional basis, so Pixid only benefits if they successfully supply and use its VMS software on an ongoing basis with their clients.

FINALISTS

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TIARA TALENT TECH STAR AWARD WINNER PROFILES 2022

Compliance Solution of the Year

Judges praised Worksome for vastly reducing risk exposure for large employers and removing unnecessary stress for freelancers whilst enabling them to begin projects faster.

Established in 2016 in Denmark, Worksome is an integrated platform which automates end-to-end freelancer management, takes care of IR35 employment classification, and facilitates the process of gathering relevant tax forms in the US as well as contracts, NDAs and other compulsory paperwork.

The Worksome platform enables clients to hire without bias, be clear about worker status and give freelancers and hiring managers a sense of confidence and fairness around hiring and managing their workforce.

PAYE and tax at the source through its insurance.

For freelancers, going through the classification process can be frustrating since it can take up to several weeks but with Worksome Classify it takes minutes. It also pays freelancers and bill clients to remove an area of stress and offers insured

By saving clients and contractors time, money, risk and stress, Worksome has experienced rapid growth since 2020 – with a fourfold increase in revenues in 2021 and tripling its employees.

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One employer client commented that, “Until now, we’ve never had a single platform to manage everything. The fluidity of the platform really works in our favour.”

A contractor on its platform also commented, “As a freelancer, you need a lot of confidence to stand toe to toe with a corporation. Having a platform like Worksome at your back helps imbue all of your interactions with strength and clarity.”

Contractor Solution of the Year

Judges praised Sonovate for impressive growth across all meaningful metrics, supporting contractor payments during a very challenging time, and championing support of a growing flexible workforce.

Founded in 2014, Sonovate has become one of the UK’s fastest scaling fintechs amidst a growing demand for freelance and contract work. It provides tech-driven finance and workflow solutions to recruitment agencies, online freelance marketplaces, consultancies and other businesses of all sizes that engage contractors and freelancers. It is specifically built for contingent workers and contingent worker specialists, supported by a highly valued partnership and advisory ecosystem.

It has built a cloud-native, API-first, enterprise-grade, invoice platform to support its growing client base, providing instant funding decisions and credit limits, variable advance and facility management, increased automation and enhanced reporting. It also improves the user

experience with faster onboarding, more flexible withdrawal of funds, more visibility across systems to streamline debt management and reduce the need to reconcile across different platforms.

To date, Sonovate has provided over £2.75 billion of tech-driven invoice finance, plus back-office services to over 3,300 recruitment businesses, consultancies, and labour marketplaces in more than 40 countries, paying over 30,000 freelancers and contractors.

One staffing client said: “The usability of the product is exceptional. It’s a robust platform – gives you fluid cashflow, certainty, and the client and candidate experience is exceptional.”

FINALISTS

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TIARA TALENT TECH STAR AWARD WINNER PROFILES 2022

Recruitment Marketing Solution of the Year

Judges praised Paiger for heavily investing in its own marketing, doubling its revenue, and growing clients in the US, Australia and Europe. It was also highly commended for its role in championing recruitment marketing and educating professionals.

Paiger helps recruiters to build trust and credibility in their networks on a daily basis. It is used by over 4000 recruiters and 450 companies globally every day to share content on LinkedIn and branded jobs driving traffic back to its user’s websites and plugging straight into google analytics.

In 2021, Paiger introduced its own LinkedIn training for all clients at no extra cost to help recruiters have better conversations with candidates and hiring managers, alongside delivering more value online than just posting jobs.

Paiger has also stepped up its role in championing the importance of marketing

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in recruitment, running webinars and LinkedIn lives and sponsoring The Lonely Marketers community - a network that shares the challenges, successes and advice of marketing professionals working in recruitment.

One staffing client said, “Paiger has completely revolutionised the sales team’s approach to content on LinkedIn. We are no longer just a collection of people only posting hiring updates. In turn, we’ve seen a real shift in how teams embrace marketing and ideas. Game changer.”

Onboarding Solution of the Year

Judges praised Eli for clearly demonstrating the value and impact of its onboarding solution but also its investment in its own people as a focussed, values driven company with a highly engaged and innovative team.

Eli empowers HR to deliver engaging onboarding experiences for real business results - balancing compliance with engagement, forms with conversations and checklists with events.

Eli does this by managing three fundamental elements of onboarding – tailored workflows, personalised content and social interaction. Clients can dial each up or down independently to suit their audiences. This makes Eli very versatile, and enables partners to onboard professional hires, contractors, graduates and more, all through the same system, then break these groups down further by

language, location, department, and grade.

One major healthcare client tracked a 24% reduction in global voluntary first year attrition less than two years after launch, delivering a cost avoidance estimated at $8.3m. Another client commented, “We’ve been blown away by the response to our new onboarding platform. Everyone arrives more ready, more keen and less nervous on day one”.

Having built up an impressive customer base of major corporate clients, Eli has grown turnover by 29%, sales by 39% and headcount by 37% over the last year.

FINALISTS

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TIARA TALENT TECH STAR AWARD WINNER PROFILES 2022

Learning Solution of the Year

Judges praised Bright Network for optimising its data to create a fair and equitable training and deployment solution for emerging talent and a more diverse and inclusive solution for employers.

Bright Network Technology Academy was launched in 2021 with a mission to train 100,000 students and recent graduates in technology skills. Over 102+ million data points help Bright Network to identify students with the natural aptitude to thrive in its training bootcamps and be successful in their future roles as technologists.

The bootcamps are accessible to early talent free of charge with no exit fee restraints, which have been known in the industry to amount to over £20,000. This has resulted in better representation and diversity amongst its cohorts by removing the financial barrier to entry. Using an unbiased, tech enabled selection process, Bright Network sources high quality talent from its 600k+ diverse members - 58% female, 40% first gen to attend university,

FINALISTS

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and 15% black heritage. One client said, “Bright Network has allowed us to target the best undergraduates in a way that suits us. Thanks to them we have developed a sustainable pipeline for talent.”

Since launching, the Bright Network Technology Academy has supported over 100 diverse graduates to receive an entirely free, 3-month education in software engineering – with 66 students now employed by one of its partner firms. As part of its wider mission, it has also delivered free software engineering courses to over 5,000 Bright Network members. They have also partnered with organisations to champion DEIB and campaign against unfair contracts and exit fees for talent.

Workforce Solution of the Year

Judges praised Bright Network for a timely solution to upskill new talent and embed DE&I whilst also bringing its values to life, proving purpose beyond profit, and innovating with data.

Bright Network is the UK’s largest careers network that uses proprietary data and technology to connect its members with over 300 employers, including Google, Accenture, Goldman Sachs, PwC and Bain & Company. Its partner firms find the talent they need to grow their business and help students from diverse backgrounds fulfil their potential.

Bright Network optimises its wealth of data to capture the behavioural and psychometric indicators of its members to connect its clients with the best, most suitable and engaged graduates on the market. This data-led approach enables it to personalise communications between members and employer partners, using segmentation tools, analytics, and a dedicated account management team.

Over the past three weeks, Bright Network’s Internship Experience UK has also lead the way in supporting employers and candidates by providing internship like experiences to students across the UK. Over the past three years, the experience has upskilled, boosted employability, and provided support to 150,000+ students, with over 10,000 students directly attributing the experience to gaining a role.

Bright Network’s membership reached 630,000 last year, a third up on the year before, with 50% year on year sales growth. One client commented, “The Bright Network team delivered us a strong, diverse shortlist of candidates and we are delighted to be working with brilliant interns.”

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Congratulations Marriott Harrison congratulates all the nominees and winners at the TIARA Talent Tech Star Awards.

MH are proud sponsors of the Candidate Experience Solution of the Year Award.

The top tier London law firm specialising in technology and the recruitment sector and providing legal solutions across the whole staffing supply chain. www.marriottharrison.co.uk 44 TALiNT International July 2022

TIARA TALENT TECH STAR AWARD WINNER PROFILES 2022

Marriott Harrison Candidate Experience Solution of The Year

Judges praised Sova for its customer and market led assessment solution that optimises data insight and innovation to deliver value to both clients and candidates.

Sova is a digitally delivered assessment platform with foundations in organisational psychology to deliver fair, equitable outcomes. It includes tools for internal hiring and leadership development as well as recruitment, with clients able to design and build the best candidate experience, all in one place, with its complete assessment platform.

Judges commended Sova for the ‘Sova Assessment Community’, a place for HR, Talent, and Recruitment professionals to connect, share and learn together as a free resource to help upskill clients and their teams. The free courses, events, and networking opportunities have been designed to help improve the quality and fairness of people decisions.

Sova has over 120 enterprise-level customers and has assessed over 2.5 million candidates across various sectors in over 20 countries.

Over the last year, it has doubled ARR growth, grown its client base by 76%, and completed over one million assessments. Sova has worked closely with their client, Vodafone, to roll out a global assessment solution that has increased the performance and excellence of the recruitment function globally. Since the solution’s launch in October 2021, over 60,000 candidates have been assessed in a fair and consistent way.

One client commented that Sova’s platform was, “helping hiring managers to make informed decisions,” whilst another mentioned, “a senior candidate said it’s the best pre-interview assessment he’s done because he got the results immediately. The value that candidates are finding is that they get feedback to reflect on that helps them prepare for the interview, which is something you don’t get with other platforms.”

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TIARA TALENT SOLUTIONS TECH PROFILES 2022

Fast. Fair. Flexible.

Hiring technology designed to automate workflows and make scaling hiring easy.

HireVue is honored to receive the Tiara Talent Tech Star Awards DE&I Solution of the Year.

Engage • Screen • Assess • Interview • Hire

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TIARA TALENT TECH STAR AWARD WINNER PROFILES 2022

DE&I Solution of the Year

Judges praised HireVue for proving the impact of its solution on diverse and inclusive hiring at scale, with a multi-pronged approach to reducing bias and ensuring a great experience for both clients and candidates.

HireVue is a Talent Experience Platform that simplifies the hiring process so that talent teams can fill jobs faster. Over 800 diverse organisations trust HireVue to help them create a faster, fairer and friendlier hiring journey – with over 650,000 assessments and 2.1 million interviews completed by candidates every quarter.

In 2019, HireVue expanded its efforts to mitigate bias by partnering with Integrate Autistic Employment Advisors to design a more inclusive platform. HireVue also created the HR tech industry’s first advisory council to guide its continued ethical AI development and advise on issues of diversity and inclusion, algorithmic fairness, data security and privacy.

HireVue’s text-powered conversational AI, video interviewing, assessment, and

automated chatbot tools make it easier to remove geographical barriers and screen a higher volume of candidates from diverse backgrounds by offering video interviews in 30+ languages. HireVue Builder automatically generates job-related proficiencies, interview questions, and evaluation benchmarks based on job title and level, giving candidates a more equitable opportunity to demonstrate their qualifications. CSX improved completion rates to 85%, retention rates and CSat was 90% with HireVue. One client said it valued HireVue for, “Its intelligent, multilingual, and automated conversational capabilities [which] enabled us to rapidly execute the project in less than 4 weeks and helped uncover thousands of new candidates who are ready to explore new job opportunities.”

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TIARA TALENT TECH STAR AWARD WINNER PROFILES 2022

Pearl Meyer Best Talent Tech Company To Work For

Judges praised Eightfold as a champion of skills over roles or experience, with an innovative solution to achieve this at scale, and an authentic commitment to provide the right career for everyone that it applies in its own business.

Eightfold’s AI is powered by the largest global talent dataset – more than a billion publicly available profiles of people. Its deep-learning platform can reveal people’s skills and potential as well as workforce trends across sectors and demographics.

Eightfold developed and used its own AI to help its own employees’ careers, with every employee given their own portal, pre-populated with skills, recommended mentors, and short-term projects to help them upskill for roles they aspire to. This meritocratic platform levels the playing field for everyone, regardless of geographical location, experience, and education with an emphasis on capabilities and potential.

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This brings to life the values and mission of Eightfold’s founder, who has also inspired by rejecting customers that don’t align with its values and only pursuing investment from socially conscious investors. One client said, “The coinnovation with Eightfold has been great.”

Eightfold has also used its own hackathon to improve the way diversity and inclusion is driven through both the organisation as well as its solution for clients. One employee commented, “In an industry where every company seems to claim they ‘have AI’, Ashutosh is literally one of the world’s leaders in AI/machine learning. He sees each one of us as talented, valuable, and a source of ideas, regardless of our title.”

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Selling a Business is Transformational.

So it's worth doing it properly.

Our unwavering focus on HR Tech & Work Tech, deep market insights and unrivalled access to decision makers bring fresh, well thought-out and differentiated perspectives to your M&A process.

VENERO CAPITAL ADVISORS In v estm en t B a n k i n g fo r the F u tu r e o f Wo rk 50

TALiNT International July 2022

Venero Champion of Champions

The overall winner was chosen by the judges who felt best encapsulated the themes of excellence, innovation and impact in talent tech.

Venero was the proud sponsor of this award, which showcased a Talent Tech Star whose solution exemplifies innovation, while also delivering particularly far-reaching value and impact.

This year’s Champion of Champions addressed a crucially important challenge, in many ways a paradigm shift in the way companies around the world attract and retain talent, and does so with cutting-

edge innovation, client service and leadership.

Judges praised Eightfold for a genuinely innovative solution that is championing the move to skills-led recruitment at scale and proving its success as the model for its own business as the Best Talent Tech Company to Work For. Eightfold is a worthy Champion of Champions for 2022.

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GUEST CONTRIBUTOR

Pay attention to your supply chain

Crawford Temple CEO & founder of Professional Passports

The Off-payroll legislation has a lot to answer for. Since its roll-out into the public and private sectors in 2017 and 2021 respectively, the floodgates have opened to non-compliant activity. The new rules have seen many more contractors being required to work through umbrella companies as organisations and firms opted to blanket ban limited company contractors. This, in turn, has led to a proliferation of providers posing as umbrellas when, in reality, they are tax avoidance schemes hoodwinking unwitting contractors into signing up for them, often with the promise of more take-home pay.

NON-COMPLIANCE IS COSTLY

The former US deputy attorney general Paul McNulty once said, “If you think compliance is expensive, try noncompliance.” And, given the current climate and a raft of media exposure around ethics, exploitation and noncompliance in the recruitment and contingent workforce industry, it has never been more important that everyone in the supply chain works together to develop good working practices and stay compliant.

We know that there are cases of bad practice amongst a minority of businesses which have grabbed the headlines but there are also a large number of highly compliant organisations working ethically and correctly to provide a high-level quality service for clients and contractors.

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knowing that your supply chain is operating compliantly is not to be ignored and it is imperative that hiring firms get to know their partners throughout the supply chain and take steps to know that their recruitment partners and the umbrella firms that they work with are operating to the most rigorous compliant standards that will stand up to robust interrogation and investigation.

KEY CHECKS

There are a number of steps to take to check the credibility and compliance of other parties in the supply chain and you can add specific requirements to your contracts with your recruiters so that you secure assurances and reassurances.

You can start by checking out your recruiters. Are they in a good financial position? At the very least you should be

running a credit check, and you should also investigate their accounts – if independently audited then you can feel reassured that the figures given are true.

You should also check for issues such as conflicting business interests, previously failed businesses, financial difficulties and offshore connections.

Y

ou will also want to check their contracts of employment (umbrella), insurances and levels of cover. You are well within your rights to request to see a copy of their insurance certificates, VAT certificate and certificate of incorporation. Don’t forget you are trusting your partners with large sums of money, so you will need to be assured that they are genuine and have appropriate cover in place. And ask your recruiters to confirm the names of the intermediaries they work with and run similar checks on those.

Such an audit would identify a high-risk provider, one more likely to be a disguised remuneration scheme where malpractice and unethical behaviour is occurring, a medium-risk provider, which is one where

there is no evidence of non-compliance but no evidence that their services have been verified for compliance either and a lowrisk umbrella provider, one which holds a recognised compliance accreditation certificate and is unlikely to pose any sort of threat to the supply chain. An increasing number of recruiters work only with approved providers, but it is important that end clients do their own checks and put processes in place to ascertain compliance.

C

ompliant umbrella firms offer a legitimate contractor management solution that gives individuals all the benefits of employment whilst working on a variety of assignments and good umbrella firms are open and transparent in their dealings with workers and provide a clear contract of employment that explains how they will be paid, what deductions there will be and for what, how their expenses are paid and how their holiday pay is worked out. Open transparent communication is key throughout the supply chain and end clients must educate themselves about how umbrellas work so that they can feel assured that they are part of a compliant chain.

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GUEST CONTRIBUTOR

ENFORCEMENT IS CRUCIAL

Disguised remuneration tax avoidance is not a new issue. Since the Managed Service Companies consultation took place in 2006, a game of cat and mouse between HMRC and the promoters of these corrupt schemes has continued. New regulations and legislation have had some success in reducing the volumes of schemes but other changes like the Off-payroll legislation have led to a rise in more schemes popping up.

In recent years HMRC has put measures in place that provide a full suite of information and a high degree of transparency across the marketplace where disguised remuneration arrangements are prevalent. Whilst HMRC has the information it appears that this is not being utilised sufficiently or effectively.

Real-Time Information (RTI) reporting that was introduced in 2013 along with the 2014 Intermediary Reporting provides HMRC with two sets of data that gives a unique insight into the market. Matching that data should set alarm bells ringing and help HMRC to identify a dubious provider and shut it down with immediate effect.

The information HMRC holds and has held for some years means that contractors who have been duped into schemes needn’t have suffered as we have seen happen with the loan charge when lives have been lost because HMRC didn’t act on information quickly enough and clamp down on these schemes and the promoters escaped any consequences. HMRC has the data but does not use it proactively to prevent these arrangements. This allows the arrangements to then exist longer than they should and affect more than they should. Proactive, effective use of data and swift enforcement is fundamental to stamping out these corrupt schemes.

H

irers must have honest conversations with their recruiters and ask key questions and understand the warning signs and what to avoid when looking at the providers in the market.

The importance of implementing effective compliance processes cannot be overstated. Non-compliance does not pay and could be costly in the long run.

Crawford Temple is CEO and founder of Professional Passport, the UK’s leading assessor of payment intermediary compliance.

Established in 2007, today Professional Passport is widely recognised as the benchmark of provider compliance with many in the supply chain now insisting on using Professional Passport accredited providers.

You can find many useful articles and videos on the Professional Passport website in the Hot Topics section.

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8 seconds. That’s all you’ve got.

Can you attract the best?

It’s vital to make every word count when hiring the talent to shape the future of your business.

You have just 8 seconds to sell your story and inspire the most diverse, talented job seekers.

And become the No 1 destination for their job applications.

The future of resourcing. It’s all about agility.

The technology needed to find the best people has changed.

“The Global economy has been significantly impacted over the last year and this has profound effects on how we find and hire the right people to survive and thrive in the future. Larger numbers looking for work, smaller resourcing teams, a turbulent economy and a major shift to virtual collaboration have changed the employment market beyond all recognition.

To be successful requires a new set of tools and a fresh approach to resourcing.”

Andy Randall, CEO of eArcu.

It might seem that, right now, finding people is easy.

• Are they the right people?

PREBOARDING

• Are they invested in your organisation?

GOOGLE & JOB BOARDS

• Will they make a difference?

OFFERS, CONTRACTS & eSIGNATURES

• Or even stick around?

CAREERS SITES & SPECIALIST PORTALS

The winners will be the agile teams who adopt the smartest technology to engage with all kinds of VIDEO & VIRTUAL INTERVIEWS

candidate communities.

eArcu is the market leading Talent

YOUR ONE-STOP SHOP FOR CANDIDATE CARE

Acquisition Suite, powering some of the World’s most admired employers’ recruitment strategies. You get the

SJTs ASSESSMENTS & TESTS CRM, EVENTS & TALENT POOLS

reassurance of a trusted market leader, and the excitement of award winning innovation – all in one organic package.

CHATBOTS & LIVE CHAT

APPLICATION FORMS

JOB ADVERTS

Is it time to upgrade your Resourcing Technology?

Find out about our more-for-less offer, visit www.earcu.com TALiNT International July 2022 55

TIARA RECRUITMENT AWARDS: FINALISTS

Best of the Best

The shortlist for the 2022 TIARA Recruitment Awards represents a fifth of UK staffing sales

With a combined turnover of £9.5 billion, and collectively employing over 42,000 talented people, this year’s shortlist represents the UK’s top recruiters driving transformation and growth.

The 65 finalists shortlisted for the staffing sector’s most prestigious awards impressed judges because they have done so much more than ride the recruitment boom. They have proved the impact of investing in tech, training, and talent before, during and post-pandemic to achieve profitable growth with purpose.

Transformation, inclusion, and resilience are the themes underpinning the 2022 TIARA Recruitment Awards campaign, with this year’s finalists demonstrating these in award categories ranging from Best Recruitment Company to Work For to the DE&I Award and Best Use of Technology.

“I saw a lot of organisations review and challenge themselves through the pandemic and right-sizing in terms of headcount, tech and infrastructure,” said Jason Martin, Head of Strategy at Access Recruitment, headline partner of the TIARAs and sponsor of the Best Use of Tech Award. “We have seen a lot of recruiters grow and perform more efficiently with the best balance of tech and touch to make the most of their talent and deliver more value to clients. I look forward to judging an impressive shortlist this year.”

The next round of judging has now begun, with an impressive panel of judges representing the whole talent ecosystem now reviewing and scoring entries to identify the front-runners. All of them will 56

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meet to debate and decide the overall winners at a special jury event in September.

While some of last year’s winners have returned to defend their title – including multiple award winners NES Fircroft and Trinnovo Group – new challengers for top honours this year include Danny Sullivan, ManpowerGroup, Sanderson and Pertemps.

“It’s great to see so many of the industry’s best brands taking part in the 2022 TIARA Recruitment Awards,” said Chair of Judges Katie Folwell-Davies, Investment Partner at Twenty20 Capital. “These market leading firms are an inspiration to the sector, not only proving the success of new models and services but the return on investment in technology and training to adapt to new client and candidate expectations.”

This year’s TIARA campaign has been the best yet, supported by our headline partner Access Recruitment and our award sponsors: Twenty20 Capital, Mishcon de Reya, Grant Thornton, Clearwater International, 6CATS International, Mercury, WorkWell, 3R, Fore:Two Group, Saffery Champness, Odro, Parasol Group, PurePro, Blackwood Capital and Sonovate.

On Wednesday 19th October, the TIARA Recruitment Awards will bring together 500 CEOs and senior leaders at The Brewery in London to celebrate the crowning achievements of the best in the industry.

Congratulations to all those who have proved why recruitment is recognised as a professional service that is now attracting more diverse talent and new skills from other industries.

TIARA RECRUITMENT AWARDS: FINALISTS

Antal International •

The Access Group Best Use of Technology Award

Amoria Bond • •

The 6Cats International Recruitment Company of the Year The Saffery Champness Best Recruitment Company to Work For £50m - £100

Cititec •

The Odro Innovation Award

Claremont Consulting •

The 3R Best Recruitment Company to Work For £5m - £20m

Community Resourcing Limited Blueprint Recruitment Solutions •

The Access Group Best Use of Technology Award

Brightwater • •

•

The Clearwater Growth Company of the Year The Mishcon De Reya Leader of the Year

The Blackwood Capital Best Recruitment Company to Work For £100+

Coyle • •

The Parasol Temporary Recruitment Company of the Year The Saffery Champness Best Recruitment Company to Work For £50m - £100

Butler Rose •

The Fore:Two Group Candidate Service Award

Candour Talent •

The Parasol Temporary Recruitment Company of the Year

CPL Ireland •

The Access Group Best Use of Technology Award

CPL Life Sciences •

The Grant Thornton Specialist Recruitment Company of the Year TALiNT International July 2022

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Daniel Owen •

The Fore:Two Group Candidate Service Award

Eames Group • •

The Twenty20 Capital Best Recruitment Company to Work For £20m - £50m The PurePro Back Office Team of the Year

Danny Sullivan •

The Access Group Best Use of Technology Award

Deltra Group •

Elite Associates

The Sonovate Client Service Award

• •

The 6Cats International Recruitment Company of the Year The Parasol Temporary Recruitment Company of the Year

Digital Gurus • • •

The Twenty20 Capital Best Recruitment Company to Work For £20m - £50m The Mishcon De Reya Leader of the Year The Grant Thornton Specialist Recruitment Company of the Year

Driver Hire Nationwide •

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The Fore:Two Group Candidate Service Award TALiNT International July 2022

Engage Partners • • •

The Fore:Two Group Candidate Service Award The Twenty20 Capital Best Recruitment Company to Work For £20m - £50m The PurePro Back Office Team of the Year

Engtal • •

The Odro Innovation Award The Clearwater Growth Company of the Year

TIARA RECRUITMENT AWARDS: FINALISTS

ERSG • • • •

The Sonovate Client Service Award The 6Cats International Recruitment Company of the Year The Parasol Temporary Recruitment Company of the Year The Fore:Two Group Candidate Service Award

Goodman Masson • •

The PurePro Back Office Team of the Year The Access Group Best Use of Technology Award

Hamilton Barnes •

Frank Recruitment Group • •

•

The 6Cats International Recruitment Company of the Year The Mishcon De Reya Leader of the Year

The Grant Thornton Specialist Recruitment Company of the Year The 3R Best Recruitment Company to Work For £5m - £20m

Harvey Nash • •

Insight Executive •

The 3R Best Recruitment Company to Work For £5m - £20m

Franklin Fitch • •

The 3R Best Recruitment Company to Work For £5m - £20m The Fore:Two Group Candidate Service Award

The WorkWell DE&I Award The Blackwood Capital Best Recruitment Company to Work For £100+

Interex Group •

The Mishcon De Reya Leader of the Year

Investigo •

FRS Recruitment •

The Odro Innovation Award

Gatenby Sanderson •

The 3R Best Recruitment Company to Work For £5m - £20m

•

The PurePro Back Office Team of the Year The Blackwood Capital Best Recruitment Company to Work For £100+

I-pharm Consulting •

The Twenty20 Capital Best Recruitment Company to Work For £20m - £50m TALiNT International July 2022

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La Fosse • • •

The WorkWell DE&I Award The Clearwater Growth Company of the Year The Blackwood Capital Best Recruitment Company to Work For £100+

NHS professionals •

Oliver James •

Manpower Group •

The Blackwood Capital Best Recruitment Company to Work For £100+

The Grant Thornton Specialist Recruitment Company of the Year

• •

The PurePro Back Office Team of the Year The Saffery Champness Best Recruitment Company to Work For £50m - £100 The Clearwater Growth Company of the Year

MCS Group •

The Access Group Best Use of Technology Award

Omni RMS • •

The Sonovate Client Service Award The WorkWell DE&I Award

Meridian Business Support •

The Blackwood Capital Best Recruitment Company to Work For £100+

Morson Group • •

The Odro Innovation Award The Blackwood Capital Best Recruitment Company to Work For £100+

Opus Talent Solutions • • •

The Saffery Champness Best Recruitment Company to Work For £50m - £100 The Odro Innovation Award The Mishcon De Reya Leader of the Year

NES Fircroft • • •

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The Grant Thornton Specialist Recruitment Company of the Year The 6Cats International Recruitment Company of the Year The Blackwood Capital Best Recruitment Company to Work For £100+ TALiNT International July 2022

Oscar recruit • •

The Twenty20 Capital Best Recruitment Company to Work For £20m - £50m The 6Cats International Recruitment Company of the Year

TIARA RECRUITMENT AWARDS: FINALISTS

Outsource • • •

The WorkWell DE&I Award The Sonovate Client Service Award The Saffery Champness Best Recruitment Company to Work For £50m - £100

SF Recruitment • •

The 3R Best Recruitment Company to Work For £5m - £20m The Mishcon De Reya Leader of the Year

Pertemps •

The Parasol Temporary Recruitment Company of the Year

Source Group International • •

The Clearwater Growth Company of the Year The Twenty20 Capital Best Recruitment Company to Work For £20m - £50m

Quanta •

The Saffery Champness Best Recruitment Company to Work For £50m - £100

Sigmar •

The Twenty20 Capital Best Recruitment Company to Work For £20m - £50m

Sanderson • •

The 3R Best Recruitment Company to Work For £5m - £20m The PurePro Back Office Team of the Year

Signify Technology • •

Seven Resourcing • •

The PurePro Back Office Team of the Year The Clearwater Growth Company of the Year

The Grant Thornton Specialist Recruitment Company of the Year The Mishcon De Reya Leader of the Year

Spencer Ogden • •

The WorkWell DE&I Award The 6Cats International Recruitment Company of the Year TALiNT International July 2022

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SRG •

The Grant Thornton Specialist Recruitment Company of the Year

Strativ Group •

The 3R Best Recruitment Company to Work For £5m - £20m

TechNET IT Recruitment •

The Access Group Best Use of Technology Award

The Barton Partnership • •

The Odro Innovation Award The Sonovate Client Service Award

The Recruitment Group •

The Access Group Best Use of Technology Award

Trinnovo Group • • • •

The WorkWell DE&I Award The Clearwater Growth Company of the Year The Twenty20 Capital Best Recruitment Company to Work For £20m - £50m The Mishcon De Reya Leader of the Year

Templeton • • •

The Mishcon De Reya Leader of the Year The WorkWell DE&I Award The 6Cats International Recruitment Company of the Year

Venquis •

The Sonovate Client Service Award

Xcede Group • •

TFS Healthcare • • •

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The Parasol Temporary Recruitment Company of the Year The Saffery Champness Best Recruitment Company to Work For £50m - £100 The Grant Thornton Specialist Recruitment Company of the Year TALiNT International July 2022

The Odro Innovation Award The Clearwater Growth Company of the Year

Xpertise Recruitment • •

The Sonovate Client Service Award The 3R Best Recruitment Company to Work For £5m - £20m

ADVERTORIAL

Six of the best

The biggest benefits of using a talent marketplace platform

Advancing technology has transformed the way we work and live, so much so that it’s become embedded within our day-to-day activities and operations. For many people, daily tasks can’t even be completed without the help of a technological solution. But many companies are still searching for enhanced tech solutions for areas like career mobility and better learning opportunities.

Here are six of the biggest benefits of using a talent marketplace platform: 1. MORE ACCESS TO JOBS FROM COMPANIES YOU DON’T WORK WITH TODAY Finding top-talent hires is challenging; it can often feel like you’re putting the future of the company into the hands of a stranger. However, talent marketplace platforms simplify the process by using technology like AI to personalise jobs for both employers and employees.

A digital talent marketplace reveals who within your organisation wants new opportunities — it’s about identifying talent, their skills, and their openness to taking on new roles.” With a talent marketplace platform, employers can opt for targeted hiring and training methods, while employees can receive extended access to more job openings.

2. GREATER FOCUS ON GROWING RECRUITING TEAMS Talent marketplace platforms allow companies to post open positions and necessary requirements all in one place — cutting down on costs from traditional hiring tactics. Instead of draining money from sales into advertising campaigns, a company can browse through the marketplace platform and hire multiple employees at once. This allows your company to focus this saved time and money on growing your recruiting teams to find top talent.

3. SINGLE CONTRACT GIVES YOU ACCESS TO ALL JOBS AND CANDIDATES Online talent marketplaces also offer employers greater access to all qualified candidates, and employees’ access to all open jobs. Most online marketplace platforms offer access to talent at the top of your industry or within your company, so you can ensure you’re working with the best.

Then, with a single contract, you can quickly place

Cesar Jimenez, CEO, MyBasePay

top-talent employees where they’re needed most.

4. OPPORTUNITIES FOR GENEROUS FINANCIAL SPLITS The main purpose of a talent marketplace is to join employee needs with employer requirements. When these become aligned, the company is able to achieve more potential within its roles. Both the employee and the employer reach greater growth and development.

Talent marketplace platforms drive productivity improvements. This thriving productivity promotes agility, engagement, and innovation, which indirectly opens an opportunity to increase a company’s liquidity.

5. DASHBOARD FEATURES TO KEEP ALL JOBS AND CANDIDATES IN ONE EASY VIEWING SPACE Most, if not all, talent marketplace platforms offer several features to connect employees with career opportunities within your company and include resources for professional growth.

Fortunately, a talent marketplace platform creates greater agility by keeping all jobs and candidates in one easy viewing space. From job postings to resume screenings, an online marketplace platform saves time by letting you easily and quickly browse through a curated list of candidates to find the right hire.

6. INVITE TEAMMATES FROM YOUR FIRM TO HELP GROW YOUR BUSINESS Employees and managers alike need to know how the talent marketplace works. As the champions of career mobility, your managers should be aware of the long-term benefits of using talent marketplace platforms. Likewise, educate your employees about the talent marketplace, and how it will help grow the business.

Today, HR is a more methodical role, and the traditional, outdated approach for hiring new talent simply won’t work in today’s market. Technology has enabled talent marketplace platforms to revolutionise the way organisations operate and transform the process of hiring.

Now, companies can promote growth — for both the company as a whole and its employee’s career development.

TALiNT International July 2022

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THE TIARA TALENT ACQUISITION AWARDS EUROPE

Strategic visionaries

As we firmly become entrenched in the post pandemic talent world, the challenges continue to come in thick and fast: Demand planning, a return to in-person work and the management of a remote workforce, talent shortages, driving DE&I agendas for hybrid and remote working structures, integrating internal mobility with external talent pools, identifying new skills for a new economy, to name a few. After almost two years of turmoil, it has been amazing to see the examples of innovation, resilience, business partnership and agility delivered by our finalists, and we are delighted to be able to recognise that work through the TIARA Talent Acquisition Awards.

“The last year has seen an ever-growing range of challenges for talent acquisition and resourcing teams, so it is a pleasure to be able to recognise and celebrate the amazing work being done by all of our finalists,” said Ken Brotherston, Chief Executive of TALiNT Partners.

“The TIARAs are distinguished by the rigour of its judging process and the quality of its judging panel” he added.

Entries will be assessed across key areas including DE&I, innovation and organisational impact,” he added.

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TALiNT Partners’ TIARA awards campaigns are already the largest in the world which recognise the achievements of staffing companies, recruitment outsourcing providers and talent tech firms, as well as in-house resourcing teams. The TIARAs are recognised for the rigour of the process and the quality of the judging panel and are seen as a genuine and meaningful accolade for winners.

The awards themselves are a great night out and a fantastic chance to celebrate and network with peers and friends across the industry. The awards are also a great way for employers to showcase their own brands to their internal audiences as well as the wider candidate world so, ultimately, are another way to help them find and keep the people they need.

Judges will convene in September to decide who will triumph in each category, as well as to crown the overall winner – the TA Team of the Year. All winners will be announced at the Awards Ceremony taking place on 6 October at Montcalm, London Marble Arch.

THE TIARA TALENT ACQUISITION AWARDS EUROPE

50:50 The Equality Project - BBC •

Assurant •

The Sova Moving the Dial in Diversity, Equity & Inclusion Award

The Sova Moving the Dial in Diversity, Equity & Inclusion Award

FrieslandCampina • •

CarTrawler •

The Lorien Creativity in TA Award

Ingeus

Abcam •

The Kelly Services Best Innovation in Internal Recruitment Award

•

Direct Line Group •

The Lorien Creativity in TA Award The eArcu TA Operational Achievement Award

•

Aegon •

The eArcu TA Operational Achievement Award

•

•

The eArcu TA Operational Achievement Award The Early Careers Pioneer Award

•

The Sova Moving the Dial in Diversity, Equity & Inclusion Award

Lidl GB •

•

•

The Early Careers Pioneer Award

Alcumus

The eArcu TA Operational Achievement Award The Reed Talent Solutions Employer Brand Award

The Excellence in Onboarding Award

Bacardi-Martini Ltd •

The Best Use of Technology Award

Essex County Council

Frank Recruitment

•

•

The Lorien Creativity in TA Award The eArcu TA Operational Achievement Award

Kraft Heinz

•

Airbus (with Guidant Global)

The Lorien Creativity in TA Award The Reed Talent Solutions Employer Brand Award

The Lorien Creativity in TA Award

GSK (with Resource Solutions) •

The Sova Moving the Dial in Diversity, Equity & Inclusion Award

NatWest Group • •

The Best Use of Technology Award The Kelly Services Best Innovation in Internal Recruitment Award TALiNT International July 2022

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Nexteer Automotive • •

The Kelly Services Best Innovation in Internal Recruitment Award The Adway Attraction Campaign of the Year

SupportYourApp •

The Excellence in Onboarding Award

VMware •

The Early Careers Pioneer Award

Oliver Agency • •

The Early Careers Pioneer Award The Kelly Services Best Innovation in Internal Recruitment Award

PepsiCo •

The Gym Group • • •

The Early Careers Pioneer Award

The Early Careers Pioneer Award The Reed Talent Solutions Employer Brand Award The Sova Moving the Dial in Diversity, Equity & Inclusion Award

Specsavers • •

The Reed Talent Solutions Employer Brand Award The Adway Attraction Campaign of the Year

Stena Line • •

The Reed Talent Solutions Employer Brand Award The Adway Attraction Campaign of the Year

Western Union •

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The Lorien Creativity in TA Award TALiNT International July 2022

The Royal Navy (with Shine Interview) •

The Best Use of Technology Award

TransUnion • •

The Reed Talent Solutions Employer Brand Award The Sova Moving the Dial in Diversity, Equity & Inclusion Award

Vodafone (with Sova) •

The Best Use of Technology Award

Wren Kitchens • • •

The eArcu TA Operational Achievement Award The Kelly Services Best Innovation in Internal Recruitment Award The Excellence in Onboarding Award

TALENT ACQUISITION DINNER: PEOPLESCOUT

Strategic vision, strategic choices Global TA leaders don’t just need to understand what’s lies ahead, they need to plot the course.

T

he role of TA teams has changed dramatically over the last two years. Whilst TA Leaders have broad shoulders, they are faced with an ever-growing number of challenges that directly affect the performance of a business and although they have had to become more agile and more creative with the resources at their disposal, ultimately there is a limit...

On 16 of June, we headed back to The Beaumont in Mayfair for what was to become one of the liveliest talent solutions dinners we’ve had for a while. In partnership with PeopleScout, TALiNT Partners brought together some of the most experienced TA leaders in the UK for a discussion focused on how to solve some of the most pressing challenges they face.

These had been identified from a previous discussion and covered five key areas: • Strategic workforce planning • Ensuring board-level and C-suite buy-in • Building TA team capability • Refreshing Employer Brand for a post-covid workplace • Creating a successful Office Value Proposition.

The conversation was started by a Group HR Director from an aerospace, defence and security company with comment on demand planning by saying that they continually re-assess their workforce demand mix (including perm, contingent, gig, graduates, apprentices), for example, given the shortfall of engineers in the industry, they have increased their focus on apprenticeship programmes in order to upskill the workforce.

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A Head of TA from a business management software company that has recently been valued at £9 billion spoke to the fact that their TA teams are also focussing on how they create their own talent and upskill people internally to fill roles.

This clearly speaks to the trend of internal mobility becoming more and more important along with more attention being paid to succession planning even at relatively junior levels.

The business software Head of TA believes that a cultural fit is important and that it’s not just about the money.

However, while money gets candidates to accept the role, culture and a sense of belonging makes them stay.

A Global Head of Resourcing & Mobility at London-based law firm said that, in general, lawyers talk to billable hours and historically pay large salaries.

A counterpoint was offered by the Head of In-House Search in the public sector that was based on the challenge of attracting candidates into an organisation which is downsizing and given the reported pressures on the Civil Service to reduce headcount, is a very real challenge. And one which is likely to apply to more and more employers in the months ahead.

“Lawyers are saying, well, I work 2,500 hours a year regardless, so why not work those hours in a different location?”

alk quickly turned towards another key TA challenge: The shift in working situations since the end of the pandemic with employers having to re-evaluate their work-from-home strategies. There continues to be a wide range of approaches to this with no one-size-fits-all solutions, indeed, no established orthodoxy at all although it does seem clear that employers are increasingly promoting a return to the office for in-person work with very varied results. This proving difficult for TA teams to manage.

A Resourcing Director from a global financial services firm agreed. “Team charters work really well. Creating team charters that connect employers and get them to collectively agree to achieve in the business fosters a sense of purpose and belonging.”

T

Because, regardless of what surveys say, money (and especially base salary) is what principally gets people to accept roles, although dinner guests felt that paying inflated salaries doesn’t necessarily buy loyalty in the long run.

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Connecting people to purpose is what makes employees stay, said the Talent Director at a renewable energy company.

He said: “Employers need clarity and connectivity in their roles.”

Candidates certainly have the upper hand in the current market and employers are having to adapt accordingly in order to find that scarce talent.

But the Head of Talent & Resourcing at a leading savings and investment company believes that people must work where they do their best work and the question we should be asking is “Do our managers know how to manage people in different locations and in different ways?”

TALENT ACQUISITION DINNER: PEOPLESCOUT

OPTIMISATION OF TALENT ACQUISITION

The role of TA teams has changed dramatically over the last two years, and they’ve taken on a far greater role within the business. TA teams now have a louder voice in their organisations and are considered essential to business growth and success.

However, given that talent acquisition and resourcing is a relatively new corporate function, it is no surprise that it has a higher of variability in its capability than other functions and recent demands have meant there is often limited scope to focus on training and development of less experienced team members.

The Head of Talent Advisory Delivery at a talent solutions firm observed that TA teams seem to be looking for some kind of normality or, at least, less unpredictability in their roles considering the turmoil of the last year.

The most common areas for development and most important for supporting the organisation was to increase expertise in sourcing expertise and relationship management.

But how do we train TA teams to meet those needs?

G

uests felt that key focus should be on relationship management and sourcing of candidates. Hiring processes need to be quicker because if you’re talking to a candidate, you can be assured that another employer is talking to them too.

A Resourcing Director from a global financial services firm says that appointing a recruitment associate who effectively overseas and chaperones the hiring process frees up recruiters to build relationships.

What does relationship management mean to recruiters?

It’s no longer about just posting the role online.

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One guest feels that the role has changed.

“It’s no longer about just posting the role online. We need to use talent insights to determine the best way to actually post the role.”

Talent Acquisition not as an HR issue but as a business sustainability issue.

The Head of Talent Advisory agrees and believe that the role has to be bespoke to the person you’re talking to.

Post-pandemic, your EVP is almost certainly out of date and needs to incorporate a clear OVP as part of it. This is likely to include a higher degree of proximity to your places of work than some current thinking suggests.

So, in conclusion, whilst our debate was varied and lively, there were a number of points on which we all agreed:

The key areas for optimising your TA team almost certainly involves training on sourcing and relationship management.

Regardless of whether your hiring rises, falls or stays the same, identifying the key skills and roles your organisation needs and having a strategic workforce plan is essential.

In order to get the necessary C-suite support and buy-in, you need to position

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I

t seems a tailor-made hiring process to suit the kind of talent you’re wanting to attract is the way forward coupled with creating an Office Value Proposition that suits those you’re hiring, TA teams are having to be agile in the way they work and if the pandemic has taught us anything, if anyone can do that, TA teams can.

GROWTH LUNCH & LEARN

Alex Evans MD, TALiNT Partners

Downturn defyers

How are the best staffing and talent solutions providers building the strongest foundations for resilience and growth?

O

n 7 July, TALiNT Partners brought together 40 staffing, talent solutions, tech leaders and industry advisers to the Haymarket Hotel in London to share insights on how new recruitment models, finance options and data solutions have enabled providers to grow more profitably in the boom – and build stronger foundations for the downturn.

Integration, orchestration and personalisation were highlighted as the three key drivers for maximising talent, tech and data in recruitment; but only if they can be scaled effectively.

Marketing, employer brand and personal brand were debated as the big differentiators for talent solutions and staffing providers; but only with the right balance of authenticity and automation.

Learning culture, supplier training and advisory skills have all helped recruiters to

increase margins and revenue per head; but, again, how do you optimise tech and the human touch to scale?

Speaking on the first panel about how to grow profitably, Neil Purcell, CEO of Talent Works explained that his blended model of RPO, staffing and tech solutions has enabled him to maximise growth opportunities and differentiate from competitors. “Employer brand, marketing and content services have been the most popular, premium services for Talent Works as our clients are looking for support with their EVP and to bring their diversity and inclusion story to life,” he explained.

So it’s not only technology that recruiters should be looking to buy, build or partner on but marketing and data services as well?

“Employers need help to personalise their candidate communications at scale and talent solutions providers should be TALiNT International July 2022

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delivering this as part of the service or advising on the best tools and how to use them,” he added.

This bears out a key finding from TALiNT Partners latest Talent Solutions Power List 2021 Report, which found that 79.4% of employers value RPO providers most for the assessment & deployment of tech to enhance candidate experience, improve screening and support internal mobility & skills mapping.

But how can providers unlock profit from their own talent, tech & data? With nearly 66,000 staffing professionals leaving one recruiter to work for another last year, and nearly 7 times more vacancies for consultants, what can the sector do to find and keep the talent they need?

Do we have a shortage of talent or is it just in the wrong place?

“An important question for employers and recruiters is: do we have a shortage of talent or is it just in the wrong place?

Recruiters need to build learning paths for a more cross-generational workforce to upskill for new, more advisory services

where they can become the sector and subject matter experts that employers need,” said Adam Hawkins, Head of Search & Staffing EMEA & LATAM at LinkedIn.

O

pus Talent Solutions has seen great success with its ‘Nology’ training initiative, a fully remote, immersive coding academy which upskills people with in-demand tech skills and places them with clients as consultants for 12 months before offering further employment support.

“We designed this uniquely ethical, costeffective, commercially-beneficial solution to create a diverse, sustainable tech talent pool that will continue to address the diversity and skills gap in tech,” explained its CEO, Amy Golding, TIARA nominee for Recruitment Leader of the Year. “So far, Opus has trained over 600 consultants but the key to its success is training and retraining across the business.”

Staffing and talent solution providers must celebrate their whole team, including back office and not just sales, urged Melina Jacovou, CEO of tech scale up recruiter Propel. “We branded as Propel Together because we wanted to bring our values of collaboration and partnership to life.

We recognise everyone’s achievements, not just top billers, and celebrate success with strategic partners who have helped us to achieve it.”

Commenting on the balance of tech and touch, and having the right metrics for success, Melina added: “The analytics tell a story and help our people understand why they should be using data in the right way for the best results.”

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GROWTH LUNCH & LEARN

Stephanie O’Connor, Centre of Recruitment Excellence Director at ManpowerGroup, echoed this point as she shared insights from major digital transformation projects at this $20 billion global recruitment company.

“You have to mandate use of new data and tech tools and recognise those achieving the best results from it to get the real buy-in and efficiency you need,” she said.

“In order to achieve orchestration, you need integration of systems and data. To scale personalisation, you need AI and automation to enhance the human touch, not replace it.”

Chris Kendrick, founder and CEO of Mercury, has partnered on several events and surveys with TALiNT Partners to gather insight on the next frontier for AI and automation in recruitment from CEOs, COOs and CTOs in the sector’s top 200 staffing firms.

“There has been a general aspiration towards efficiency with AI and automation, but it needs to make recruiters more effective,” he explained. “Because so much data is siloed, recruiters are only using 10% of their database. If data and systems are joined up, recruitment can become more predictive and make consultants more pro-active.”

Victoria Fernandez, RPO Engagement at iCIMS, observed that, “this is where

clients like Talent Works are winning with tech and data, whether it’s supporting them with technology that amplifies their employer brand, EVP and DE&I, or drives employee engagement and internal mobility, but it’s critical that it does so in an authentic voice that resonates with both candidate and employees.”

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nvited to offer some predictions based on current trends in staffing and talent solutions, My Digital Accounts founder and CEO John Whelan said the shift toward a more flexible workforce will continue as people look to make the most of their time and experience. “This will require consensus on a global taxation system to protect the tax base for individual countries, workers, employers and recruiters, with more integrated payroll and workforce management solutions,” he added.

The last word went to LinkedIn’s Adam Hawkins, who said: “In a downturn people inevitably look for more security and stability, and permanent staff have been able to negotiate more flexible terms over the last year.”

As we have also seen over the last year, the recruiters and RPOs investing in the wellbeing, learning and prompt payment of contractors have built the greatest loyalty and engagement – and whoever controls the candidates, controls the market.

Recruiters are only using 10% of their database.

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GUEST CONTRIBUTOR

Trends in the Talent Tech ecosystem

Rob Brouwer CEO, Jobrapido

Talent acquisition challenges are perennial. And now the pressure is on – in 2022 the candidate has taken back the crown of king or queen.

Post pandemic and the trend of Great Resignation, employees are on the move – seeking the right opportunity and the right company for their career path. They know there are plenty of job opportunities for them to choose from. It is a critical time for employers to ensure they are providing the best candidate experience.

Trend 1: Personalisation is now a critical part of the talent acquisition strategy

The reality is candidates don’t want to receive generic ‘round robin’ pieces of communication. They need to feel that a recruiter/a potential employer ‘knows and understands them’ – not just their skills and ticking their ‘experience box’ but their preferences for the culture of a company too. Whilst some recruiters and HRs have been embracing digital marketing strategies for a while, there are others who have been dipping their toe in and will need to ensure they are fully adopting technology if they are to keep up with the candidate’s requirements and expectations.

Trend 2: AI is driving the personalisation experience and paving the way for Pay per Qualified Applications

Huge advancements in technology – enabled by AI – mean recruiters and HRs are now able to gain many more valuable data insights on candidates. Intent Data can tell recruiters who is looking, what exact role they want, how active they are in their job search. It can build up detailed candidate personas and behavioural profiling – like Amazon and other consumer brands. It can provide far more accurate matches than ever before and has a direct influence on the quality of the response.

With a very targeted audience, this approach fast tracks and delivers on the promise of qualified candidates.

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Trend 3: Fast-track trajectory for programmatic marketing and integrated recruitment campaigns

The Old School approach of ‘Post and Pray’ relied on job posting, pay per job and pay per click, keyword matching but these communication campaigns simply scatter gunned to a broad audience. This has resulted in recruiters having to invest significantly to ensure advertisements appeared on different sites and even then “hope” that the candidate was actively looking. Of course, there are no guarantees for the ‘match’. In the post pandemic era, many businesses’ recruitment advertising budgets have significantly shrunk and so the hit- and- miss approach for job-matches is no longer tenable. Particularly as the approach relies on static data – involving candidates uploading their CV so recruiters only have a few insights such as age and regional demographics. There has already been a strong shift to programmatic recruitment which involve integrated campaigns and now this is on a fast trajectory. The campaigns deliver automated matching in real time and with 76

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content that is relevant to a specific customer. Instead of “Pay per clicks” it’s about Pay per performance/Pay per applicant. Instead of Keyword Matching it’s about taxonomy and semantic matching.

Instead of broad audiences and mass marketing – the communication is personalised: so, again, relevance is the key. This is what is driving meaningful and valuable talent acquisition campaigns. And it works! One global restaurant chain had a big and continuative need for retail personnel due to the growth of the company: as a result of the programmatic recruitment approach, more than 10,000 on target candidates were delivered per year and always at the right level.

Trend 4: Virtual interviews are here to stay

Technology brands such as Zoom, Google Meet, Skype, Teams have all made the virtual interview scheduling process more far more manageable and straightforward.

What started as a necessity during the pandemic is now accepted as the norm – many businesses plan to continue with virtual interviews as part of the hiring

GUEST CONTRIBUTOR

process. Others plan to have a combination of virtual and on-site interviews. It’s not only about the time and cost savings, but also allows businesses to tap into a much wider talent pool and increased diversity.

Technological advancements significantly facilitate recruiters in high volumes recruiting and on initial headhunting stages: Artificial intelligence and top talent acquisition solutions are great at preselecting the most suitable targeted candidates. That saves a lot of HR’s time which they could dedicate to more sophisticated recruiting – where the “human touch” is indispensable and can make the difference in finding the perfect fit for a role; in evaluating soft skills and the cultural fit during the interviews.

Trend 5: A new urge for flexibility and wellbeing

Post pandemic, many more candidates are seeking a better work life balance. Many companies are much clearer that the old approach is not possible anymore and now seek different valuable ways to attract and retain their talent, while guaranteeing the best working conditions for their employees. One example of this search from companies are the different flexibility models the companies are looking for their workforce – remote working, flexible working hours, hybrid model are all trying to engage and empower the employees and make them feel their employers care for their mental health and well-being first.

Another example is the pilot currently running about the 4-day week model. From June this year, 70 UK companies and over 3300 workers began a working four-day week with no loss of pay – this is the biggest ever four-day week pilot to take place anywhere in the world so far.

While there seems to be no doubt at the moment that most of the gains in terms of flexibility and wellbeing/work-life balance are here to stay, whether the 4-day week will become mainstream in the workplace culture, is still uncertain. Regardless of the results from the study – this is about changing mindsets across the whole labour market and ultimately getting the bigger buy-in from other employers, customers and clients – which could take time.

Trend 6: Candidates are looking for more than the healthy pay cheque – employers will need to take corporate social responsibility to the next level

By 2025, millennials will make up 75% of the global workforce. Whilst previous generations may have been lured by the currency of a large salary, much of the research we read on this millennial demographic highlights that they expect more from their employers. For sure, in economies such as the UK with rising inflation and a higher cost of living, companies will also have to be competitive on the salary front.

Yet today’s younger generation of candidates expect the places they work at are responsible businesses – conducting ethical business practices, walking the talk on environmental policies in the workplace, ensuring diversity and income equality is a reality and not rhetoric on the company’s website. According to earlier research from the Cone Communications Millennial Employee Study, 64% of millennials said that they won’t work for a company who doesn’t have a strong corporate social responsibility (CSR) programme.

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TALINT TALK

We’ve come so far but still have so far to go…

Channel 4 shows us why Ken Brotherston, TALiNT Partners CEO discusses why your familial lineage shouldn’t matter during the interview process.

Ken Brotherston CEO, TALiNT Partners

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or anyone actively interested in who will be our next Prime Minister, the first debate on Channel 4 gave us the opportunity to see the candidiates in effectively a group selection exercise. This is a process that will be familiar to many employers.

This article makes no comment on the relative merits of each candidate. No, what was genuinely shocking – not a phrase I use frequently – was the show’s host, Krishnan Guru-Murphy’s introduction of each candidate describing what their parents did.

We had a couple of professors and GPs, a pharmacist, a nurse, a teacher, a soldier and, laughably, Tom Tugendhat’s mother 78

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was simply described as ‘French’. I never knew that was a job, but there you are.

But one thing I know with utter certainty is that whatever their parents did, it gives absolutely no clue as to whether each of the candidates would be an effective Prime Minister. And in passing, it was especially surprising hearing these parental descriptions from the normally oh-soprogressive Channel 4.

I think the key point I would draw on is this: Whilst most of us would have assumed asking candidates what their parents did for a living fell out of fashion sometime around the turn of the century, the fact that people

who should know better are still referencing it shows there is still more to do.

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nderstanding candidates’ backgrounds can be useful in building better pipelines of diverse and socially disadvantaged groups. It has no place when selecting five universityeducated MPs in their 40s applying for the most important job in the land.

Contrast this with other, more progressive organisations where line managers are provided with nothing more than the name of the candidate. The talent acquisition team has already determined each candidate has the capability to do

the job, leaving the line manager to focus on their relevant experience and skills during the interview.

This approach may not work for every role, and for positions where you really do need the best of the best, there are a multitude of ways in which candidiates can be tested and probed on the key attributes required for a role, without it turning into a SAS selection exercise.

But in none of them does it matter that your father was a High Court judge, or your mother is French.

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Connecting the talent ecosystem: We bring together a global network of leading employers and solution providers to make better talent and technology decisions.

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