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July/August 2021

Augmented Reality Is digital transformation changing more than employers & recruiters bargained for?

Plus... TIARA US Talent Solutions Awards Market spotlight: Ireland Using brand to boost referrals

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01 Leader

Look beyond automation The concepts of digital transformation and automation are sometimes used interchangeably, but they need to be considered separately – the latter is just one element of the former We’ve also seen some shining examples of firms getting it right. On page 46 Baker Hughes’ Beatrice Rodrigues explains how the firm is using data analytics to ensure the smooth connection of new hires to other members of the team in the remote working world, with plans to use it for more collaboration scheduling in future.

Many industries have struggled with digital transformation, with copious examples out there of companies taking it to simply mean automation and getting the balance between this and the human element completely wrong. And if one broadly defines recruitment and HR as the ‘people’ industry, it seems obvious why this particular sector faces more risks than others on that front. It’s perhaps for this reason that while the industry may be ahead of the curve in some areas, on the digitisation front it’s lacking – distressingly so, according to a study covered in news on page 11. But one silver lining of the pandemic was that it led to a realisation that just because something has always been done a certain way doesn’t mean it always has to be – a look at how quickly businesses pivoted to remote working is clear evidence of that.

Joanne Christie Editor

Elsewhere in this edition (p15-29), we announce the winners of our inaugural US TIARA Talent Solutions Awards, with those featured providing inspiring examples of the RPO and MSP sector going above and beyond to help their clients navigate the shifting world of work.

“One silver lining of the pandemic was that it led to a realisation that just because something has always been done a certain way doesn’t mean it always has to be.”

Similarly, while recruiters may have historically relied heavily on face-to-face interaction, for some the use of video has actually allowed for more networking and other interaction with clients and candidates than pre-pandemic, as is discussed in our feature on referrals on page 39. However, the rapid recent digitalisation has led to much soul-searching among TA leaders on how to capitalise on the plethora of HR tech to make sure it really delivers, as is debated in our feature focusing on Ireland’s leading agencies on page 31. Here, experts point out that automation has long been floated as a way of reducing recruiters’ administrative burdens, but that mostly it is yet to really live up to this promise. CPL’s James Louttit posits that this is because companies are investing in the wrong type of HR tech – they are using robotic process automation to replace human involvement in tasks instead of to streamline processes – so that the human element required is less about manual tasks and more about fostering valuable relationships.

About TALiNT Partners TALiNT Partners provides insight, content, connections and strategic support to the world’s recruitment & talent acquisition leaders. We work hard to connect, collaborate and concentrate our efforts to ensure our events, experiences, consultancy and media solutions offer the best support for the talent industry. Published by Talent Intelligence Partners Ltd Upper Ground Floor 18 Farnham Road Guildford Surrey GU1 4XA www.talintpartners.com Editorial: alex@talintpartners.com News & features: joanne@talintpartners.com Advertising & Sponsorship: andy@talintpartners.com

02 Contents

Contributors

08 News analysis

08 News in numbers 10 Skills gap widens as economy picks up 11 HR lacking in digitisation 12 UK plc oblivious to toxic culture 13 WFH showdown looming

14 TIARA USA Talent Solutions Awards

Geraldine King, National Recruitment Federation, Ireland P31

James Louttit, Cpl Ireland P31

Ryan McCabe, Odro P40

Joanna Hackett, Reed Talent Solutions P34

Louise Campbell, Robert Walters Ireland P34

Rohan Maheswaran, Futureheads P39

Natasha Crump, Amoria Bond P39

Alistair Haigh, Rullion P39

Guy Hayward, Goodman Masson P42

Beatriz Rodriguez, Baker Hughes P46

15 Judging insights and profiles of our inaugural winners for 2021

31 Transforming tech ROI 31 Highlights from PointSix Ireland & insights on how to invest in automation to drive ROI

34 Workforce revolution 34 Future of work predictions from futurist Andrew Spence & a PointSix panel of top recruitment & RPO leaders

39 Reaping the rewards

39 How can agencies use video, brand & content to boost referrals and repeat business?

42 Good man’s mission

42 PointSix member Guy Hayward on his inspiration for a D&I campaign for recruiters

46 Digital talent

46 Baker Hughes' HR leader shares lessons & successes from her digital approach

48 TALiNT Talk

48 Why you need to fix attrition before you focus on attraction Picture credits: Unsplash, Canva, NeONBRAND/Unsplash (10), Robin Higgins/Pixabay (12) Cover: Canva Disclaimer: This publication has been prepared for the exclusive use and benefit of the readers of TALiNT International and other contacts of TALiNT Partners and is for information purposes only. Unless we provide express prior written consent, no part of this publication should be reproduced, distributed, or communicated to any third party. You must not rely on the information in this publication as an alternative to advice from an appropriately qualified professional. In no event shall TALiNT Partners or any of those contributing to this publication be liable for any special, direct, indirect, consequential, or incidental damages or any damages whatsoever, whether in an action of contract, negligence, or other tort, arising out of or in connection with the contents of this publication. © Talent Intelligence Partners

TALiNT International July / Aug 2021

Advertorial - HIVE360

Lessons learned: recruitment and retention in the education sector David McCormack explains why a robust employee or candidate engagement strategy has the power to supercharge agency retention and attraction rates Recruiters working in the education sector know all too well that matching the supply of available, quality teachers to demand is an ongoing challenge. Good planning is the bedrock of schools and their education professionals. This forward-thinking approach extends to recruitment, with anticipating ‘normal’ annual recruitment cycles, the likely support required for maternity leave, long-term sickness and supply cover based on historical evidence.

Measures need to be put in place to protect and support the wellbeing of the education sector’s workforce in the post-pandemic recovery phase. Mental health and wellbeing must be made an urgent priority for staff retention to continue – and prevent burnout. David McCormack CEO, HIVE360

Some recruiters report a drop in full-time vacancy advertising this summer, and that perhaps this is a result of the Covid-19 pandemic, with teachers deciding to stay put rather than explore pastures new, while the education sector and teaching settles down after the disruption of the last 18-plus months. Some believe that turnover is lower and retention higher thanks to the associated job security and lack of employment opportunities elsewhere. In addition, according to data from UCAS, the pandemic has resulted in a boost in teacher training applications, so perhaps at last there is hope that the teacher recruitment gap – which has persisted since 2012 – could begin to close. As the next few months unfold, and despite meticulous teacher and resource planning, recruiters know the importance of a solid and available strong talent database when a supply teacher is needed for a last-minute absence. Making the difference Research shows that the onset of the pandemic led to an increase in subjective distress, a rise in anxiety and lower levels of happiness and life satisfaction amongst teachers in comparison with pre-pandemic levels. This, coupled with the stress of starting a new school year and the rapid implementation of Covid-19 measures in the classroom, has had a profound and long-lasting impact on teaching staff, leaving many facing burnout and mental health issues.

HIVE360 is championing a new model of employment administration and redefining employment and pension administration processing. Visit: www.hive360.com

Burnout is now classified by the World Health Organisation as an official health condition. It is a syndrome resulting from chronic workplace stress that has not been successfully managed, and is characterised by feelings of energy depletion or exhaustion, increased mental distance from a job, and reduced professional efficacy. If left untreated, burnout can lead to serious mental health issues such as anxiety and depression. And with stress levels rising, teachers are at risk. Supporting mental health and reducing stress A solution lies in giving education staff easy, confidential access to help and resources that will help foster wellbeing. As an expert in recruitment agency PAYE outsourced payroll and a commercial partner to the recruitment sector, HIVE360 has taken a digital-first approach to providing this support, and developed a unique, customisable employee pay, benefits and engagement app: Engage. Provided as a standard element of our HMRCcompliant outsourced PAYE payroll solution for recruiters, Engage gives workers access to an extensive range of health and wellbeing benefits and employee support services, including 24/7, confidential access to mental health support, counsellors and GPs. It also offers thousands of high street and online discounts, mobile phone savings, online training resources and access to the HIVE360Skills Academy, a secure digital payslips portal, a real-time workplace pension dashboard to support employees’ financial wellbeing and an incident reporting system to ensure the safety of employees in the workplace.

04 TALiNT Scene Our TALiNT Advantage and PointSix programmes for inhouse and agency / RPO leaders explored everything from onboarding remote workers to how to choose and win the right awards and tactics for boosting repeat and referral business... 13th May – Our TALiNT Advantage 'Onboarding Experience' webinar sponsored by Eli Onboarding and Orange Genie looked at how employers can create a sense of brand loyalty and belonging in their new employees when it's a new job but the same desk at home. Employer Programme Director Debra Sparshott hosted speakers including Jo Gregory, Global Recruitment Transformation & Compliance Manager - TA, Rolls-Royce; Emily Chaytor, Site Senior HR Lead, KP Snacks; and Lesley Gregory, Director of Digital Onboarding, Capita.

20th May – TALiNT Partners Programme Director Alex Evans co-hosted a workshop on awards strategy for 50 execs and heads of marketing from the PointSix network with awards expert Donna O'Toole, founder of August. The secret to winning awards was revealed as having an equal balance of Impact, Values and Evidence in entry forms and bringing it to life with a meaningful story.

TALiNT International July / Aug 2021

05 27th May – AMS and TALiNT Partners co-hosted a European Talent Leaders breakfast for German heads of HR and TA to share insights on how they are preparing for a post pandemic employment landscape and adapting to hybrid working. The event was by an impressive group of talent leaders from CSL Behring, Deutsche Telekom AG, Essity, GE, Google, Isar Aerospace, Lonza, Philips, Sandoz Syngenta, Tetra Pak Int and Zurich Insurance Company.

25th May – Odro CEO Ryan McCabe co-hosted a PointSix roundtable on how to use brand, technology and content to boost repeat and referral business. This fascinating discussion brought together senior execs and heads of marketing from the PointSix members including: Templeton Partners, Rullion, ManpowerGroup, WSS Associates, Trinnovo Group, PeopleScout, Amoria Bond, Claremont Consulting, Futureheads Recruitment and NES Fircroft. Find out more from page 39.

TALiNT International July / Aug 2021

06 TALiNT Scene TALiNT led more great conversations for HR, TA, staffing and talent solutions leaders in June with partners including Cornerstone, JobDiva and Osborne Clarke. We also enjoyed our first live lunch with 30 RPO execs sharing tactics for how to say no the wrong kind of business...

9th June – TALiNT Partners and Cornerstone co-hosted one of its hugely popular virtual wine and cheese roundtables with talent leadeers to debate workforce planning, agility and AI driven technology. This insightful event was attended by HR and TA leaders from Lidl GB, Ricoh UK, Version 1, QBE, EY, Footasylum, United Utilities, Mitchells & Butlers, Robertson, Transunion and Willmott Dixon.

23rd June – TALiNT Partners co-hosted its first live lunch with Cornerstone-on-demand at The Orangery, Kings Fund in London, which was attended by an impressive group of RPO leaders from companies including Reed Talent Solutions, Michael Page, Hays Talent Solutions, Resource Solutions, Gattaca Plc, PeopleScout, KellyOCG Hudson RPO, Lorien, IBM, and Armstrong Craven.

TALiNT International July / Aug 2021

Please visit https://talintpartners. com/reports/ to read our white paper from this event which is entitled: Talent Solutions Trends The art of saying no & the rise of ESG.

17th June – TALiNT PointSix came to Ireland (virtually) bringing together the industry's top Agency Leaders to hear market updates, industry insights and lockdown lessons from a panel including the NRF's Geraldine King, ManpowerGroup MD John Galvin, Cpl CIO James Louttit, and JobDiva director Neil Brodie. Read our review from page 31.

24th June – Over 50 agency and RPO leaders joined our TALiNT PointSix M&A webinar to hear updates and deal drivers from our expert panel including Osborne Clarke partner Matthew Bodfield, Azlan Advisory MD Sohail Ahmad & Optima Corporate Finance founder Philip Ellis.

TALiNT International July / Aug 2021

08 News in numbers

Going up

21% Increase in demand for IT contractors from H1 to H2 (Source: Hays Technology)

Need to know

30%

Percentage of companies currently using project RPO (Source: AMS)

3 in 10

2.2

Number of working parents worried their caring responsibilities make them vulnerable to redundancy

Number of claimant unemployed per advertised role in June , up from 1.2 in March

(Source: Working Families)

30%

(Source: Adzuna/IES)

Going down

2.4m

Number of people furloughed in the UK at the end of May, down from 3.5m at the end of April (Source: HMRC)

4.7%

UK unemployment rate in April, down 0.3pp on previous three months (Source: ONS)

TALiNT International July / Aug 2021

The percentage of the UK’s national income contributed by family businesses in 2019 (Source: IFB Research Foundation)

123,000 Number of people in job share roles in the UK (Source: Statista)

£3,131 Average yearly amount earned by Swiss workers for public holidays (Source: Ezra)

10 Industry news

Skills gap widens as economy picks up There are encouraging signs that the recent rebound in hiring extends beyond crisis-hit sectors such as hospitality and retail, with skilled vacancies also on the rise. According to the latest Recruitment & Employment Confederation (REC) Jobs Recovery Tracker, postings for jobs in hospitality and leisure have started to level off, but adverts for professional and skilled occupations rose at the end of June. In particular, demand was high for education staff, likely due to seasonal fluctuations within the sector. The latest REC/KPMG UK Report on Jobs survey had similar findings, reporting that roles in IT and computing rose at the fastest rate in June, followed by hotel and catering jobs and engineering. Neil Carberry, Chief Executive of the REC, welcomed the positive data, but warned there was a need for a plan that “reforms the skills system”. “Sustained momentum in our jobs market is great news, but vacancies and unemployment don’t just resolve themselves – it takes support to help people find their new role. Rising job adverts for roles that require key skills to get hired – from IT to haulage – highlight the ongoing need to put the skills and job search support people need in place.”

58.1% Percentage of travel and tourism workers not planning to return to the industry, according to CV-Library

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Empty seats at the table: The number of vacancies is rising across the UK and the high demand is expanding beyond unskilled jobs into professional positions. But without action to address skills gaps, experts warn shortages will persist Critical roles unfilled His view was echoed by a recently published report of the Professional & Business Services Council and the Financial Services Skills Commission. It found that almost one-third of sector employers reported skills shortages that resulted in vacancies, with thousands of critical roles in areas such as data and technology going unfilled. This was leading to increased workloads for staff, higher operating costs and firms struggling to innovate or meet quality standards.

The report, entitled Skills for future success, said the pandemic had exacerbated trends already in play, with factors such as automation, digitisation, globalisation and changing workforce demographics meaning the skills gap was widening. It suggested that addressing this gap could boost yearly output by 12%, equivalent to an annual rise of £38bn by 2038. Mark Hoban, Chair of the Financial Services Skills Commission, said: “Urgent action is needed to build an enduring skills culture across the UK and build a sustainable pipeline of high-level skills.”

58% 400,000 275,000 Percentage of businesses 'somewhat confident' about growth this year, according to Robert Half

Number of roles energy sector needs to fill by 2050 if UK is to reach its net zero target

Number of new job listings added to job site Reed during May

HR lacking in digitisation... There is a ‘distressing’ lack of digitisation in HR teams and rectifying this should be a top business priority, according to a recently published report. Boston Consulting Group and the World Federation of People Management Associations surveyed more than 6,600 respondents in 113 countries and interviewed more than 30 executives at leading companies and start-ups for a report entitled, Creating People Advantage 2021: The Future of People Management Priorities. The researchers considered 32 people management topics, ranking them according to the future importance of each topic, as well as companies’ current capabilities for addressing each one. The authors then came up with a list of three key priority topics, broadly defined as areas that respondents

recognised as being highly important in future, but where their current capabilities were lacking. The first was digitisation, including the use of new technologies such as people analytics, cloud-based applications, AI and robotics. The authors noted that ‘digital, AI, cloud and robotics in HR’ was the capability ranked lowest by those surveyed, and by some way. “This is a distressing result, given the prevalence of technology in all aspects of a company’s operations, including people management,” said the report. The second key topic identified was talent, including strategic workforce planning, leadership development, upskilling and reskilling, while the third was the future of work, including more agile HR, ‘smart’ work and change management.

...but it’s a wider problem Boards are throwing up roadblocks to increasing the digitisation of their organisations even in the face of the pandemic, claim C-level digital execs. Some 70% of respondents to the fourth edition of ‘Digitisation on Boards’, a study by global executive search and leadership consultancy Amrop, felt their boards were paying lip service to digital strategy. The research compared the perspectives of 58 C-suite or board-level digital leaders from fast-growth organisations, mainly in Europe, with their low-performing equivalents and came up with some alarming findings. Among them that only 30% felt their board understood the challenges of their role or supported them in carrying it out.

The majority (60%) also reported ‘digital impatience’ and a lack of realism when it came to digital initiatives, with a similar number saying they were being blocked by the short-sightedness of their board, which they felt had not given enough thought to the transformation of business models via digitisation. The findings were particularly surprising given the study took place at the end of 2020, after a year in which the pandemic forced digitisation to the forefront and was widely understood to be critical to short- and long-term business growth. Nevertheless, of those surveyed, 50% felt their organisation continued to focus on current revenues, paying relatively little attention to any future benefits that could be gained by digital investment.

News in brief Relief for agencies as court confirms holiday pay position The REC has welcomed an Employment Tribunal decision that ruled that a temporary worker did not accrue holiday leave while on furlough, saying it provided much needed clarity for recruitment agencies. The Tribunal ruled against the claimant in Mr D Perkins v The Best Connection Group Limited, stating he was not entitled to holiday pay because he was not a worker for the purposes of the Working Time Regulations 1998. Firms struggling to get to grips with immigration rules The majority of UK employers remain unsure about the post-Brexit immigration rules, according to a survey by identity services company Sterling. It found that only 23% of UK businesses were comfortable with the new regulations, with more than one-third (35%) stating they weren’t comfortable at all. However, the most recent results were an improvement on a survey carried out earlier this year, when just 2% of employers said they were up to speed on the rules. Annual leave no longer ‘use it or lose it’ Employees are now legally entitled to carry over up to 20 days’ leave to the next two financial years, thanks to changes to the Working Time Regulations. The move was designed to help employers and their staff adapt to the pandemic, with many workers having delayed taking time off because of limited holiday options, being on furlough, fear of redundancy or covering for sick or absent colleagues.

TALiNT International July / Aug 2021

12 News analysis

UK plc oblivious to toxic culture The problems caused by a toxic workplace culture are widespread but are being significantly overlooked by UK businesses, recent research suggests. The issue was brought to the fore when Brewdog hit the headlines in June following publication of a letter from a group of former employees alleging a “culture of fear” and a “toxic attitude” to junior staff. However, it seems the brewer is not alone in having allowed such perceptions to infiltrate its business. A study of 500 HR decision makers and 2,002 workers by HR software solution Personio found a toxic workplace culture was almost as likely to prompt employees to leave as issues with pay and work/life balance. While the top reasons for resignation cited by employees were a worsening work/life balance (23%) and pay freezes or cuts (22%), a toxic workplace culture was close behind at 21% and far ahead of the next most commonly cited reason of a reduction in benefits (8%). However, while HR decision makers

38%

The percentage of workers looking to change jobs in the next six to 12 months

were relatively in tune with employees in recognising the prevalence of the top two reasons (20% for work/life balance and 28% for pay), there seemed to be a disconnect on the impact of a toxic culture, with only 12% of HR respondents believing this was a factor leading workers to leave. Worryingly, other relevant factors contributing to employees’ decisions to resign were a lack of appreciation for the work they did (cited by 29%) and poor management (cited by 25%).

Leading from the top This suggests that while HR teams certainly have a role to play, cultural change needs to be driven by those at the top. But rather than taking lessons from Brewdog, it is perhaps Glassdoor’s list of top CEOs that might be more instructive to companies. This year the top five CEOs as ranked by UK employees were BlackRock’s Larry Fink, Microsoft’s Satya Nadella, Softcat’s Graeme Watt, LEGO Group’s Niels Christiansen and the British Heart Foundation’s Dr Charmaine Griffiths.

HR, IT and Marketing top pay rise list Those in IT, marketing and HR have enjoyed the biggest boosts to their salaries after the peak of the pandemic last year.

Specialist recruiter Randstad analysed the salaries of more than 9,000 UK and Ireland workers and data from 700 placed jobs for its 2021 Randstad salary guide, producing some interesting findings. Among them was that software developers and other specialist tech professionals have seen a comfortable 9% pay rise, with those in the East Midlands faring best.

TALiNT International July / Aug 2021

Those in marketing have also done well, especially at the more junior levels, with newly qualified marketers based in the North-West of England receiving a pay rise of 18%. Across the UK as a whole and the marketing function more generally, the average boost was 5%.

working harder than ever, essentially, being asked to do more and with less. Acknowledging the importance of the central marketing function and the role it plays in supporting business objectives, the more junior marketers are getting the recognition they deserve.”

Adrian Smith, Senior Director of Operations at Randstad, said: “With organisations over the past 18 months seeing a long list of changes — from new privacy policies, the accelerated digitalisation of brands, altered consumer behaviour due to the pandemic — marketers are

Junior HR staff are also being recognised, with HR assistant salaries rising by 6% in the North-East and by an average of 4.5% across the NorthWest. Salaries for other HR-related roles rose by nearly 3%, on average, across the country, though for HR managers this was a higher 5%.

WFH showdown looming Goldman Sachs is not the only business keen to get its staff back into the office as soon as possible if the results of a recent survey are anything to go by. Even since the bank’s CEO David Solomon told a conference in February that he rejected the idea that remote working was the “new normal” and instead described it as an “aberration”, there’s been an undercurrent of unease about the future of flexible working. Now a recent study by accountancy, finance and HR recruiter Wade Macdonald has laid bare the extent to which employers are planning for a return to the pre-Covid way of working. According to research for its report Employee Expectations 2021, which surveyed 395 employees, one in five employers have already rejected any form of flexible working, while a further 12% have not yet clarified their position. But employers’ desires for a return to office working were at odds with employees’ wishes, with only 9% of workers wanting to be in the office full-time. The majority (69%) wanted

some form of hybrid working, while 22% wanted to work from home all the time. Chris Goulding, Managing Director for Wade Macdonald, said: “Employers not willing to at least meet staff halfway must be prepared to see a significant decrease of staff loyalty, employee numbers and brand reputation.” Putting loyalty to the test This emerging disparity between employers and employees on flexible working threatens to roll back some of the recent gains make in terms of employee loyalty in particular, which by a number of accounts had increased during the pandemic. For example, the latest edition of Randstad’s Employer Brand Research report found that businesses’ responses to the pandemic had led 68% of employees to feel more loyal towards their employer, with only 6% reporting they felt less loyal. The research, which surveyed 190,000 people across 34 markets in the first quarter of this year, also found that non-financial factors had become almost as important as salary and benefits to workers.

Remote staff risk burnout The rise in remote working has led to many employees working longer hours and experiencing a worsening of their work/life balance, according to new research.

January this had risen to 11 hours.

Digital coaching firm Ezra compared the amount of time workers spent logged in before the lockdown with the time spent in January 2021 and found the total had risen. Prior to the pandemic, UK employees were working for an average of nine hours a day, including breaks, but by

But Nick Goldberg, Founder of Ezra, warned: “While we’re working longer, we’re not necessarily working harder or better, and our work/life balance is completely out of whack. This can lead very quickly to job dissatisfaction, frustration, and burnout, if not worse.”

It also found that, on average, workers had started their work day later during the second wave than the first.

News in brief Candidates rank sectors on interview difficulty Job seekers think it’s easiest to get through a job interview for a role in the transport sector, while technology positions make for the toughest interviews. This was the finding of research carried out by Reboot Digital Marketing, which cross-referenced Nasdaq listings with Glassdoor to rank various sectors and firms. Candidates were least daunted at being put through their paces for jobs in airlines, parcels and logistics firms, with the transportation sector getting a difficulty score of just 2.48 out of 5. The next easiest sector was consumer services, followed by the materials sector. Revealed: where Gen Z wants to work most Jobs in the services sector are the most popular with Gen Z graduates and job seekers looking to begin their careers, according to new research. A study carried out by Small Business Prices found that service occupations were most desired due to the combination of their high levels of social orientation and face-to-face contact and the appealing average starting salary of £33,000. Bias thriving in over half of firms Only 46% of businesses invest in anti-bias training for hiring managers, according to the results of a recent study. A report by global emerging talent and reskill provider mthree also revealed that 54% of firms do not use deliberately neutral job descriptions, and only 37% anonymise CVs by removing all potentially identifying information such as name, age and educational history.

TALiNT International July / Aug 2021

#TIARAS2021 #ustalentsolutions

Delivering when it matters most Winners of the inaugural US TIARA Talent Solutions Awards show how agility, boldness and a relentless focus on client service is helping employers adapt to the challenges of the pandemic

Thank you to our TIARA Sponsors Our partners not only support the TIARA campaign to recognise the industry’s best RPO and MSP companies, but help them to improve performance, deliver value and win new business.

As the terrible impact of Covid-19 revealed itself throughout 2020, talent solutions providers were called upon as never before to ensure organisations on the front line had access to critical talent. More widely, as every employer wrestled with how to respond to new remote working models, as well as acknowledge how the killing of George Floyd reflected on their own DE&I efforts, many RPOs and MSPs stepped forward to share best practice and demonstrate true leadership.

Ken Brotherston, Managing Director, TALiNT Partners

TIMELY RECOGNITION It was an honour for TALiNT Partners to host a campaign that recognised the work done across the sector, celebrating the finalists, highly commended and winners in a truly unique virtual ceremony. All of the finalists shortlisted for the inaugural TIARA Talent Solutions US Awards are an inspiration to the RPO and MSP sector. From bold and innovative scale-ups to the largest global players, there has been a clear demonstration of their impact and value at a time when their clients needed them most. As we look forward, it is clear that the acute

“We believe the TIARA Talent Solutions Awards offer a powerful endorsement to differentiate solutions and reassure buyers on the capabilities that matter most.”

TALiNT International July / Aug 2021

TalentLink supports RPO and MSP’s to: • Deliver a class-leading user experience • Drive innovation into your hiring community • Manage multiple projects and clients • Drive efﬁciencies into your hiring process leading to cost savings • Deliver a ‘Total Talent’ strategy, creating the right hiring outcomes for clients whatever their needs. Working with 80% of the HRO’s Bakers Dozen for best in class RPO vendors, Cornerstone TalentLink provides the technology foundation for your Total Talent Approach

Find Out More

talent shortages we are currently experiencing will continue for some time to come, so agility, responsiveness and innovation will be every bit as important as value for money in defining great partnerships. We believe the TIARA Talent Solutions Awards offer a powerful endorsement to differentiate solutions and reassure buyers on the capabilities that matter most. CREDIBILITY AND PRESTIGE The judging process was designed to be independent and rigorous, built around an expectation of demanding and often highly complex employer requirements, and based on key performance metrics, case studies and testimonials. The talent solutions sector has evolved hugely over the last 30 years. While outsourcing providers being able to fulfil open requisitions quickly and cost-effectively remains as important as ever, as TA has become more strategic they have had to respond by developing best-in-class services not just in fulfilment but in broader areas such as, branding, onboarding and strategic workforce planning. A programme for their services to be assessed, judged and recognised by an independent panel of judges is long overdue. This will play a key role in helping firms to constantly improve, as well as guiding those organisations considering outsourcing some, or all, of their TA activities. “The TIARA Talent Solutions Awards have been created by those who really understand TA functions and RPO. The array of judges is very impressive and represents expertise across a wide range of industries,” said Jim Richardson, global chair of judges at TIARA Talent Solutions. I would like to offer my thanks to our esteemed panel of judges for their time and commitment in choosing this year’s winners and in providing the feedback that will help both winners and finalists improve their solutions and grow their businesses. Thank you also to all our sponsors, and in particular our headline sponsor Cornerstone, for their support of the creation and launch of the very first US TIARA Talent Solutions Awards programme.

Thank you to our TIARA 2021 judges Our judging process is supported by 11 judges, who score each entry and debate the highest scorers to decide each winner: • • • •

• •

•

• •

Tracey Klein, Workforce Solutions Advisor, Klein Consulting Mike Clarke, Global Talent Acquisition Lead, Symphony Shilpa Shah, Global Head of Talent Acquisition, GE Healthcare Matt Dziedzic, Executive Director (Head of Experienced Recruiting), Morgan Stanley Sachin Jain, Senior Director – Talent Management, PepsiCo Andrew Brown, Head of Recruitment Outsourcing Partners, Cornerstone OnDemand Russell Griffiths, Senior Director – Global Head of Consulting, Coleman Research Mary Pace, Director of Talent Acquisition, Omnicom Health Group Steve Lickus, Sales Leader – RPO & Large Enterprise Search & Staffing, LinkedIn Talent Solutions Sudhakar Maruvada, CEO, WorkLlama Ben Thakur, Principal, eTeam

“The TIARA Talent Solutions Awards have been created by those who really understand TA functions and RPO.” Jim Richardson, Chair of Judges

TALiNT International July / Aug 2021

The WorkLLama Diversity, Equity & Inclusion Award

Judges chose AGS for the boldness of its approach to helping a client significantly improve its DE&I results by creatively partnering with a wide range of different groups Allegis Global Solutions (AGS) provides a clientfirst approach to its inclusion and diversity (I&D) strategy, which combines deep talent acquisition experience, a broad and flexible technology stack and a business approach that delivers operational improvement and near-term impact. Its strong history of driving diverse recruitment on behalf of its partners provides its clients with the tools and people capable of achieving their I&D goals. AGS has a run-grow-transform model for I&D strategy: run – educate stakeholders and drive best practices; grow – expand the internal visibility and impact of an I&D strategy; and transform – derive accountability and action organisation-wide within a client’s business. In this category, judges were incredibly impressed by how innovation for the client occurred via two areas of focus: disruptive advisory relationships with recruiters and managers and a four-pronged, long-term transformation strategy. The disruptive approach, while not easy for AGS as the RPO partner or for the client, played a vital role in forcing stakeholders to continuously question every part of the recruitment cycle. By examining where recruiting took place, how channels were created, how interactions with talent occurred and who represented the company to the community, the approach created continuous change. The multi-pronged strategy led to a holistic approach to I&D, something that is often new to organisations, even those growing more aware of the concepts and nuances of achieving a truly diverse, equitable and inclusive workforce. For this client, bringing in established, holistic I&D concepts involved the implementation of a clearly delineated strategy. By growing the effectiveness of employer branding, sourcing, recruiting and hiring, and stakeholder participation, the company embraced an approach that is aligned to long-term transformation, helping to ensure that it not only improves diverse hiring, but also develops a truly inclusive culture to keep talent on board.

Allegis Global Solutions’ Programme Executive Scheneitha Foster accepts the WorkLLama DE&I Award

The WorkLLama DE&I Award Finalists Airswift Allegis Global Solutions (Winner) AMS (Highly Commended) Volt Consulting Group

“Judges were incredibly impressed by how innovation for the client occurred via two areas of focus: disruptive advisory relationships with recruiters and managers and a four-pronged, long-term transformation strategy.”

TALiNT International July / Aug 2021

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The Cornerstone OnDemand Best Use of Technology Award

In a real ‘battle of the heavyweights’, AMS landed a knockout by creating an elegant ecosystem of solutions to deliver a tech transformation AMS enables organisations to thrive in an age of constant change by building, reshaping and optimising workforces. Its proposition of True Workforce Dexterity underpins everything that it does. This drives its 4,500-plus experts to deliver solutions that include talent acquisition and contingent workforce management, internal mobility and skills development, and talent and technology advisory services. It aims to help global clients, including 100-plus blue-chip companies, create workforces that are fluid, resilient, diverse and differentiated. In this entry, AMS took a traditional, manual service delivery model and by implementing AI and robotics, transformed the way it was able to look in an innovative way at talent acquisition within the business. This not only allowed the sourcing team to identify talent quickly, but it also led to the TA team being able to evaluate ‘potential’, which dramatically increased the talent pool available. Judges were impressed by the comprehensive way the global solution was implemented and the range of metrics to demonstrate success.

“Judges were impressed both by the comprehensive way the global solution was implemented and also by the range of metrics used to demonstrate success.”

Jessica Dorin, Head of Client Services at AMS, accepts the Cornerstone OnDemand Best Use of Technology Award

The Cornerstone OnDemand Best Use of Technology Award AMS (Winner) PeopleScout Talent Solutions TAPFIN (Highly Commended)

TALiNT International July / Aug 2021

The Employer Brand Award

The winning entry told a great story of how to leverage a complex international employer brand structure to maximum effectiveness AMS’s dedicated Brand and Attraction Advisory services team offers a wealth of experience in developing custom employer branding, attraction, candidate experience, onboarding and employee experience solutions across multiple sectors and geographies.

Shanna Cole, Global Talent Acquisition Leader for AMS, accepts the Employer Brand Award

The team comprises 30+ industry experts, whose combined knowledge and capabilities span the globe. From Employer Brand Strategists and Project Specialists, Creatives, Channel Strategists, Media Planners and Buyers, to Social Media, Content and Digital Specialists, it handpicks its talented experts to support clients with a full end-to-end attraction and candidate engagement offering. Unlike traditional recruitment marketing agencies, AMS’s positioning means it approaches each client challenge with a holistic view of TA. In this submission, AMS led the campaign with an articulation of the Marsh McLennan employer brand targeting North America, the United Kingdom, Australia and New Zealand as the key geographies. It developed a strong network of like-minded professionals to engage for highly complex and specialised roles and leveraged a systematic methodology to distribute its communications to select attraction channels. It pushed content to deliver value-add resources to relevant audiences, not just those who were actively searching for a role, but to passive candidates, as they went about their day-to-day digital lives. The judges recognised the brand-oriented KPIs as being fundamental to the success of the entry, especially the real-time optimisation approach, which ensured that media spend could be directed where it would be most effective.

The Employer Brand Award Finalists AMS (Winner) Mthree Volt Consulting Group

“The judges recognised the brand-oriented KPIs as being fundamental to the success of the entry, especially the real-time optimisation approach, which ensured that media spend could be directed where it would be most effective.”

TALiNT International July / Aug 2021

The Candidate Experience Award

Mthree delivered a great proposition that enabled agile learning for a key employee demographic. Its entry was supported by fantastic client testimonials Mthree bridges the skills gap in technology and other high-demand disciplines by connecting education with the working world. Its Alumni offering focuses on emerging talent and it identifies outstanding graduates, trains them in its industry-led Academy and then places them into a client’s team for 12 to 24 months, after which they can be converted to full-time employees at no extra cost. Its ‘last mile’ training turns graduates into professionals who immediately contribute to the bottom line, and has become increasingly popular. However, delivering this training requires significant investment and while some providers restrict trainees’ freedom to leave their placement, mthree does not have lock-in clauses in its contracts, meaning Alumni are free to leave at any point without any penalty. Graduates are carefully matched with the right company and role, and then each placement is customised with a continuous development programme. By nurturing talent, rather than relying on a training bond, the trainees feel valued, which is better for them and better for the client. The results speak for themselves, with 90% of Alumni staying on under their clients’ permanent headcount at the end of the initial period. The judges were won over by the customisation of the training and the fact the focus was on more than just technical skills and also included communication, collaboration, critical thinking, problem solving and interview techniques, all of which are valuable qualities that enable mthree’s Alumni to outperform other sources of emerging talent. The entry was seen as a great example of how the right curriculum and training content can provide a genuine solution to a clients’ challenges.

Mthree’s Head of Talent Scott Coleman-Allan accepts the Candidate Experience Award

The Candidate Experience Award Finalists AMS Mthree (Winner) Volt Consulting Group

“The entry was seen as a great example of how the right curriculum and training content can provide a genuine solution to a clients’ challenges.”

TALiNT International July / Aug 2021

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The eTeam Client Service Award

The winning formula was Guidant’s focused approach of delivering bespoke advice to each of its clients as they sought to make sense of the impact of the pandemic on their TA and resourcing efforts Guidant Global provides global workforce management solutions that help companies find the best permanent and contingent talent, and delivers complete visibility of their workforces. Its people-led growth business strategy drives its interactions with its own people, candidates, customers and suppliers alike. Its services are bespoke to each client and are based on its understanding of each client’s unique challenges. The consequence is an impressive 98% client retention rate. With the onset of the coronavirus pandemic, digital sourcing and screening technologies assumed a much higher level of importance. It also became necessary for many firms to add a range of other digital solutions, especially platforms for contingent worker, early-in-careers and diverse communities’ engagement and remote onboarding. When it became clear that remote working would long outlast spring 2020, Guidant acted quickly to invest in technology that would enable it to deliver the extra support that its clients needed. The investment was not just in technology and in spite of the uncertain market conditions, its service excellence team was expanded to review, improve, create and roll out best practice standards throughout its client operations. The rapid and wide-ranging response from Guidant to help all of its clients during these unprecedented circumstances was the key factor in the judges’ decision-making process in determining the winner in what was a very competitive category.

Brian Salkowski, Chief Operating Officer at Guidant Global, accepts the eTeam Client Service Award

The eTeam Client Service Award Finalists Advantage xRPO AMS BPS (Highly Commended) Guidant Global (Winner) Harvey Nash LevelUP (Highly Commended) Resource Solutions

“The investment was not just in technology and in spite of the uncertain market conditions, its service excellence team was expanded to review, improve, create and roll out best practice standards throughout its client operations.”

TALiNT International July / Aug 2021

The Best New or Scale-Up Solutions Provider

In a rapidly changing competitive environment, High5’s unique new talent experience platform demonstrates high levels of creativity and innovation The High5 platform creates a global digital talent supply chain by bringing together an open marketplace of talent and global networks of independent recruiters and experts, who source and vet at scale and submit talent to jobs on High5. A major differentiator for High5 is how the network effects of its digital talent supply chain are able to rapidly assemble a large, discrete talent supply for any skill set, as well as the fact that trust and high-quality outcomes are delivered to all users. Each candidate, recruiter, talent supplier, customer and job are vetted and verified before entering the supply chain. When paired with High5’s talent engagement technology and global payrolling capabilities, these talent supply innovations can deliver any candidate, with any skill, on any form of work, to any employer or managed staffing programme anywhere in the world. The flexibility and agility built into the model attracted well-deserved rave reviews from High5’s clients. Judges were excited at the scale and breadth of High5’s ambition. While as with any scaleup there are challenges ahead that have yet to be overcome, the passion and precision being put into the business bode well for the future, meaning High5 could be a real game-changer.

Robert Merritt, Chief Revenue Officer for High5, accepts the Best New or Scale-Up Solutions Provider Award

The Best New or Scale-Up Solutions Provider Finalists High5 (Winner) Talentful

“Judges were excited at the scale and breadth of High5’s ambition. While as with any scale-up there are challenges ahead that have yet to be overcome, the passion and precision being put into the business bode well for the future.”

TALiNT International July / Aug 2021

The Long-Term Partnership Award

AGS delivered value over eight years to drive not just better talent outcomes, but also far better, more measurable organisational results AGS guides companies through a transformative journey to rethink the way work gets done. With decades of experience, continuous investment in innovation and a robust portfolio of workforce analytics and insights capabilities, it helps companies navigate uncertainty and complexity by empowering their ability to run, evolve and work smarter through creative workforce solutions.

Allegis Global Solutions’ Talent Acquisition Leader Katie Lively accepts the Long-Term Partnership Award

Over eight years, a long-term partnership with one particular client decreased time-to-hire, turnover, risk and cost per hire – plus increased quality of hire, access to wider talent pools, alignment to workforce strategy, competitive advantage, and ultimately revenue and productivity. Specifically, AGS has a strategic seat at the client’s executive table, enabling it to continue to innovate and drive performance. For example, by implementing a chatbot to foster candidate engagement and also by implementing a preemployment assessment technology tool for high-volume contact (call) centre roles. In terms of measuring success, AGS has used NPS methodology to understand and systematically improve the hiring experience, improving NPS scores from hiring managers and new hires by nearly 20 points in two years.

The Long-Term Partnership Award Finalists

The client is now positioned as an employer of choice in a very competitive sector and AGS continues to draw on relevant industry trends and its own metrics for comprehensive management reporting, with dashboards highlighting hiring needs and recruitment results, overall recruiting function performance, hiring management/candidate satisfaction, the competitive landscape and diversity metrics.

Allegis Global Solutions (Winner) AMS Guidant Global LevelUP PeopleScout Volt Consulting Group WilsonHCG (Highly Commended)

This was an entry with a very powerful narrative arc, demonstrating how AGS had taken its client on a transformational journey. The judges found the hard evidence and measurable insight to be very compelling, making AGS a worthy winner against a highly competitive field in this category.

“The judges found the hard evidence and measurable insight to be very compelling, making AGS a worthy winner against a highly competitive field."

TALiNT International July / Aug 2021

The Best Talent Solutions Firm To Work For

A joyous and compelling entry was the clear winner in one of the most challenging Talent Solutions Awards categories WilsonHCG is strongly positioned within the RPO and total talent sectors, with a highperformance culture and a deep commitment to driving superior outcomes for its clients. The company has gained a reputation as having a unique and competitive edge in the industry, with leading analysts saying the company is the first organisation that competitors enquire about. The business is continuing to grow its revenue organically and through acquisitions. It has established a robust and ever-growing global footprint with clients, which continues to expand year-over-year. Its people strategy is to hire the best there is and invest in their development, while empowering them to provide innovative consultations to every single client. As a leader in global talent solutions, this culture-first hiring approach has created an environment that prioritises collaborative and results-oriented work. This is achieved through a strong, yet flexible partnership approach. There is strong evidence of high employee satisfaction ratings through the company’s Pulse surveys and Glassdoor (4/5 stars, 84% would recommend to a friend and 92% approve the CEO), with an employee engagement team that operates globally. There is also a comprehensive range of employee engagement initiatives, from the standard – recognising top performers with an annual incentive trip, a global mentorship programme – to a whole range of innovative and bespoke initiatives aimed at fostering a culture of ownership and communication among employees. These include an online peer-topeer recognition system (Kudos), which was designed to engage teams with communication, collaboration, appreciation, recognition and rewards, and a comprehensive wellness programme, which was recently named a 2020 CignaWell-Being Award winner. All in all, judges were taken with the sheer range of different ways to engage employees, all seemingly delivered with boundless passion and enthusiasm.

TALiNT International July / Aug 2021

Jennifer Koss, WilsonHCG's VP of Talent Operations, accepts the Best Talent Solutions Firm to Work For award

The Best Talent Solutions Firm To Work For Award Finalists AMS Advantage xRPO Guidant Global WilsonHCG (Winner)

“All in all, judges were taken with the sheer range of different ways to engage employees, all seemingly delivered with boundless passion and enthusiasm.”

The Talent Solutions Provider of The Year

When it came down to choosing an overall winner, judges chose Allegis Global Solutions for the boldness of its solutions, its demonstrated capability and its bravery in tackling challenges head-on

Brad Dever, Managing Director at Allegis Global Solutions, accepts the Overall Winner Award

The overall winner is decided by the judging panel based on a number of different factors. The winner can be selected either due to a single outstanding entry or because of consistently high standards across a number of categories. Other factors, such as innovation, willingness to challenge established orthodoxies and solutions that engage multiple stakeholders, are also considered. For our 2021 TIARA US Talent Solutions campaign, there were a number of providers that delivered impressive client success stories, but AGS showed its ‘’adaptability and strength in tackling a range of client needs”, according to judges. The fact that AGS won the WorkLLama DE&I Award, in which it showcased a successful diversity and inclusion programme implemented by a financial services client, was especially persuasive in helping the judges decide on an overall winner.

AGS was also able to highlight work with a higher education institution for the LongTerm Partnership Award. Since 2012, AGS has worked with the client to decrease time-to-hire, turnover, risk and cost per hire, while battling fluctuating staffing needs and other common industry-related challenges. Perhaps the key takeaway from AGS being crowned overall winner is the importance of talent solutions providers in challenging, supporting and leading their clients to deliver better talent acquisition outcomes. A very worthy overall winner.

“The key takeaway from AGS being crowned overall winner is the importance of talent solutions providers in challenging, supporting and leading their clients to deliver better TA outcomes.”

TALiNT International July / Aug 2021

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PointSix: Ireland Agency Leaders

“When you’re thinking about automation, think away from robotic process automation. Think more about how you build and design your systems and processes so that they’re locked in together and work really well for the candidates, for the consultants and for your clients.” James Louttit, CIO, CPL

Transforming tech into ROI

Tech-enabled training and management of remote teams is transforming Ireland’s recruitment sector, but are recruiters capitalising on the right kind of automation? The acceleration of digital transformation is fundamentally changing the way we work and the way we recruit. However, rapid digitalisation raises a plethora of questions for recruiters and talent solution providers as we navigate uncharted territory. How can TA teams capitalise on HR tech to deliver better value? Can automation improve the candidate experience? And how can companies get the best ROI from their HR tech stack?

By Dawn GibsonFawcett, Features Writer

“How do we actually engage with our staff and facilitate their working life around their family life? As leaders and managers, we’ve got to get the balance of that right. We will have to embed new ways of working and that is what will be best for the employee. And, in turn, what’s best for the employee will be best for the business, but it will be experimental for a lot of organisations.”

These were some of the topics discussed when TALiNT Partners’ PointSix Programme brought together thought leaders from Ireland’s recruitment sector to explore the TA trends and models driving transformation and growth. Co-hosted by TALiNT directors David Head and Alex Evans, panellists included Geraldine King, CEO of the National Recruitment Federation (NRF), John Galvin, MD, ManpowerGroup Ireland, James Louttit, CIO, CPL and JobDiva Director of Business Development Neil Brodie. A PEOPLE-FIRST APPROACH As Covid restrictions ease, business confidence is bouncing back in Ireland and companies are back in the market for new hires – if they can find them. While 15% of Irish employers plan to recruit more staff by the end of September, the joint highest rate in Europe, four out of five are struggling to fill positions, according to ManpowerGroup’s Q3 employment outlook survey. As businesses scramble to get back up to speed, roles in high demand include HR, sales and marketing, as well as IT and customs freight. Geraldine King, CEO of the National Recruitment Federation, said talent shortages are at a 15-year high, at a time when companies are adjusting to the new world of hybrid working. Employers are

under pressure to demonstrate their commitment to employee wellbeing, to visibly lead by example, and to actively listen to employees in order to keep them engaged, productive and loyal. “The number one priority for us will be retaining our top talent going forward, and the only way we can achieve this is by putting our people first,” she said. “This will be one of the biggest challenges for employers.

Geraldine King National Recruitment Federation

John Galvin ManpowerGroup

UPSKILL, RESKILL AND BEGIN AGAIN John Galvin, MD at ManpowerGroup Ireland, pointed out that as organisations transform and digitise at speed and scale, skills requirements are transforming as well. The massive shift to remote working means collaboration, communication and teamwork are in high demand, as well as other soft skills such as adaptability, analytical thinking, initiative-taking and empathy. “What we’ve learned from our research is that only 30% of organisations are investing in soft skills, but 89% of employees want more learning opportunities such as remote skills development or career coaching,” Galvin said. Organisations are starting to appreciate the value of a workforce of continuous learners. “Skills are evolving; prepare for that reality,” he added. “We’ve seen an acceleration of HR as a

TALiNT International July / Aug 2021

32 PointSix: Ireland Agency Leaders Mismatch 30% of organisations are investing in soft skills 89% of employees want more skills development or career coaching Source: ManpowerGroup Ireland

business priority, with employers investing in HR tech and hiring more people.” He pointed to the example of ManpowerGroup’s Experis academies, which began by retraining Italian textile workers for the racing car industry and progressed to support upskilling in IT, engineering, defence and aerospace, as well as advanced manufacturing. “We as a business have developed a roadmap to help organisations attract, develop, engage and retain the best talent in the next phase of their skills revolution, including assessments, upskilling, reskilling, coaching and skills pathways – it’s all focused on renew, reskill and redeploy,” he explained. GETTING THE BEST ROI Automation has long been lauded as a tool to reduce the administrative burden, freeing up recruiters’ time for high-level and interpersonal tasks, but this promise has not yet become reality in many workplaces. James Louttit, CIO at CPL (winner of the 2020 TIARA Tech Transformation Award), thinks the problem lies in the type of HR tech companies typically invest in – specifically, robotic process automation, where a robot replaces a human being to move data from one system to another. He believes more effective automation requires streamlining processes so systems are integrated and require little manual input. In a more advanced model, the data would only need to be entered into the system once and would be at a consultant’s fingertips whenever needed. In an extremely advanced model, all of the data would be seamlessly managed automatically within one system. “The key thing to remember here is this is not about removing the connection between the candidate and the consultant; this is about making that connection more valuable, so they have more time to talk about things such as the skills that the candidate needs to be successful.” CPL recently applied its automation solutions to high-volume recruitment campaigns for the HSE and Ireland’s Garda, helping not only in terms of

TALiNT International July / Aug 2021

speed of recruitment and better data access, but also keeping costs down by slashing administration.

James Louttit CPL

Neil Brodie JobDiva

“So, when you’re thinking about automation, I would ask people to think away from robotic process automation,” Louttit said. “Think more about how you build and design your systems and processes so that they’re locked in together and that they work really well for the candidates, for the consultants and for your clients.” Neil Brodie, Director of Business Development at JobDiva, agreed. “Recruitment agencies in general have had more time to review their technology stack to see what’s overlapping and to automate as much of it as possible,” he said. “It used to be that you sent [a candidate] five forms they would need to fill out. Now, they fill out one, and all the generic information is shared seamlessly without any more interaction, so it’s all about streamlining those processes.” For example, JobDiva has built an integration with LinkedIn using Recruiter System Connect. “Some of our clients in the US have reported time savings of about three hours a day just from not having to manually upload that data into the system, and they are also getting increased visibility about the candidates that they’re reviewing,” Brodie said. FULL SPEED AHEAD While we are just starting to comprehend the potential for tech transformation, one counterintuitive trend is the use of automation to boost job creation. ManpowerGroup found 38% of companies planned to accelerate their digitisation and automation plans as a result of the pandemic, while 17% were putting plans on hold. “More jobs are being created than eliminated; 86% of employers that are automating plan to increase or maintain their headcount, compared to just 11% of employers who plan to reduce or hold plans to automate,” Galvin commented. “So clearly those companies that are digitising most are creating the most jobs.”

We are ONE workforce HCRG is a marketing leading recruitment group, comprising of healthcare, social care and education brands. Our sustainable temporary and permanent staﬃng solutions support both the public and private sectors, including; the NHS, local authorities, schools and some of the largest private healthcare organisations in the UK. Recruiting for multiple specialisms, we are ONE workforce.

34 PointSix: Future of Work “There’s more ways to earn and learn using these great digital tools we’re all using now, which is going to allow millions to achieve their economic potential outside of their traditional job. This isn’t a new trend but it has come to a crunch in the last year.” Andrew Spence, Workforce Futurist

Workforce revolution

Recruiters, RPOs and HR leaders are all adapting to new demands from clients, candidates and their own consultants, but the tech-enabled evolution of work will drive even more change “How well do you think the industry has adapted over the last 12 months, and what trends will transform where, how and why we work over the next year?” asked Alex Evans, Programme Director of TALiNT Partners, as he welcomed 12 recruitment and RPO leaders to a PointSix roundtable on the future of work, co-hosted by Access Recruitment’s Head of Strategy Jason Martin, and Guest Expert and Workforce Futurist Andrew Spence.

labour market potentially more inclusive to all. Competition in the labour market isn’t from other agencies or other employers, it’s from entertainment that’s there on tap 24/7. That’s a very interesting dynamic over the next 10 years.” By Marnie Clarke, Features Writer

Among the many trends covered were the rise of the side hustle and the decentralised workforce, industry restructuring and reskilling, the internet of careers, people analytics for productivity and wellbeing, the death of CVs and the birth of blockchain-enabled digital profiles, employer identity and how to make the hybrid model work for clients, candidates and consultants.

Spence’s third trend is the new infrastructure for work. “We need to drag the world of careers into the 21st century – away from our CV, invented by Leonardo da Vinci in the 16th century – into blockchain-enabled digital career profiles, where our skills can be verified and enabling us to transfer our work, to trade our work on platforms. That’s the future.”

WORKFORCE TRENDS “Commentators are talking about a remote work revolution, but I’m really not sure,” said Andrew Spence. “The physical location of work has changed, but the organisation of that work hasn’t changed very much.” Spence highlighted three main workforce trends to plan for, beginning with the decentralised workforce, or the side hustle. “There’s more ways to earn and learn using these great digital tools we’re using now, which is going to allow millions to achieve their economic potential outside of the traditional job,” he explained. “This isn’t a new trend, but it has come to a crunch in the last year. “With platforms such as YouTube, Twitch, Braintrust or Only Fans, people are able to earn money in unconventional ways, which makes the

TALiNT International July / Aug 2021

The second trend is the longer-term impact on our workforce from the later phases of industry restructuring. “We’re going to see bankruptcies, bailouts, mergers, acquisitions and then new products, new services,” he predicted. “That’s where we move the workforce into different areas, which will be both an exciting and challenging time for HR.”

Jason Martin Access Group

Andrew Spence Workforce Futurist

Big HR tech and recruitment firms are already collaborating on this. “You’ve got Aon, Oracle, SAP, Cornerstone, Korn Ferry and Randstad building standards and blockchain-enabled profiles that will be interoperable between all the different systems, and that changes the game. It makes it a very different way for employees to move between employers.” These giants are also buying up workforce tech for people analytics to be able to predict what makes a productive team. “All the data for this, all the knowledge, is in your industry,” he said. “It’s going to be really fascinating to link subsequent outcomes in teams with the candidate pool and use AI machine learning to

work out which of the hundreds of factors are actually best predictors.”

system and stays in isolation. Recruiters need that snapshot when candidates are being brought in.

TECH-ENABLED BOUNCEBACK Access Group’s Jason Martin quoted SIA research predicting 8% growth in 2022 from opportunities around the rising talent shortage, plus new growth models and cost savings enabled by talent tech. “But recruiters and RPOs need to adapt to clients and candidates demanding a 24/7 offering that combines traditional recruitment with digital service,” he said.

Oliver Harris Page Outsourcing

While staffing firms have looked to acquire, build or partner for talent tech, some HR tech firms have been acquiring recruiters. Martin highlighted the example of Spanish HR tech firm JobandTalent, which has been snapping up staffing firms. “As a massive tech provider, they realised they had a recruitment management skills issue, so they bought one of the biggest industrial recruiters in the UK,” he explained.

Bev White Harvey Nash Group

TRAINING TALENT AND INTERNAL MOBILITY Resource augmentation is increasingly in demand, but many employers have overlooked their own talent pools, according to Oliver Harris, Global MD of Page Outsourcing. “There is a huge client appetite to focus on internal mobility, moving people around, looking at the skills that exist within your organisation and those who are best suited to the skills of the future, but they either don’t have the tech to help them identify the existing skills of their workforce or it gets loaded on to their HCM

Joanna Hackett Reed Talent Solutions

“Employers need to track the growing skills of those people as they have their training every year, but it’s either lost or there is limited visibility because organisation-wide implementation is not on IT’s priority list.” Harvey Nash Group CEO Bev White has been looking at both ends of the career spectrum. The IT recruitment specialist has partnered with V Hubs to share content so its candidates and contractors can keep their skills up to date, or move from tech to management, and it has also explored early careers paths and digital boot camps. “We partner with organisations that are willing to take in people who are learning skills early in their careers,” White explained. “We’ll put them through training classes so they can learn coding skills or analytical skills, and while they’re doing that they’re getting on-the-job training with the clients. At the end of the year, the client can take them on full time, and we’ll go out and recruit the new intake.” Commenting on side hustles and freelancing platforms, she added: “You can’t put your head in the sand and pretend it’s going to go away. This is part of the mix of what you need to be able to offer.” CANDIDATE ENGAGEMENT Joanna Hackett, Solutions Architect at Reed

TALiNT International July / Aug 2021

36 PointSix: Future of Work “There is a huge client appetite to focus on internal mobility... but they either don’t have the tech to help them identify the existing skills of their workforce or it gets loaded on to their HCM system and stays in isolation. Recruiters need that snapshot when candidates are being brought in.” Oliver Harris, Global MD of Page Outsourcing

Talent Solutions, returned to the theme of new technology demands and explained that it needed to solve problems around candidate response and feedback. “Candidates expect a more immediate response when they apply,” she said. “We’ve seen more implementation of chatbot software with a designed candidate comms suite. It’s timed and creates the perception of immediate engagement, without the added resource pressure on the recruitment team. “Automated candidate screening, with questions tailored to each vacancy, ensures all candidates are screened effectively in a timely manner without the need for direct recruiter interaction. Technology now exists that allows employers to time decisions generated by the automated screening and be shared with the candidate after a predetermined length of time has lapsed (generally 24-48 hours). This has been assessed to improve candidate perception of the application process.” Hackett also highlighted a further benefit of 24/7 responses. “Candidates receive a response saying they’re not right for the position but are asked to fill in a form listing their skills if they wish to be considered for future opportunities. This enables employers to build talent pools for future roles and gives candidates a more positive and engaged experience. It improves brand perception, while enabling recruiters to fill new roles more quickly.”

beyond monetary incentives. Typically, talent tech companies are very good at this.”

Louise Campbell Robert Walters Ireland

Nick Greenston Retinue Talent Solutions

Nick Greenston, CEO of Retinue Talent Solutions, observed that technology has kept teams and clients connected, but that they have lost some of the closeness and confidence gained from face to face conversations. “You can have high-level, superficial relationships on Zoom calls but if we do not insist that people come into the office, we need to find ways to rebuild relationships that will keep people loyal and engaged.” Commenting on the shortage of available talent to meet the currently higher-than-usual demand for recruitment and RPO services, which is driving up salary expectations, Greenston added: “Clearly, you need to compete with the salary and people need to be able to see that they can advance within your organisation, but different people are motivated by different things. We have focused on more individually tailored incentives and looking at how and where people want to work.”

BRAND DIFFERENTIATION A major challenge arising from the trend of remote working is that brand differentiation becomes much harder when you’re not working from a shared office that reinforces that brand.

CLIENT ENGAGEMENT Alistair Haigh, Executive Director of Rullion, highlighted the challenge of remote client engagement and asked if expectations had changed. “In many ways, client loyalty has been positively impacted because we’ve shared a common challenge and worked closely together to address it, but it’s difficult to replicate those interactions that just happen naturally in a remote environment, and we need that time together in our offices with clients and stakeholders to collaborate, come up with ideas and also give honest feedback to strengthen relationships.”

“What really makes a difference, whether you’re working for us or any other recruitment consultancy, when you’re sitting at your kitchen table?” asked Louise Campbell, MD of Robert Walters Ireland. “We need to bring our employer brands to life in more meaningful ways and look

Technology will be a key component of how recruiters and RPOs adapt to new workforce and TA trends, but it’s clear that the human element is more important than ever. Finding the right balance between the two is one of the biggest challenges in today’s marketplace.

TALiNT International July / Aug 2021

Alistair Haigh Rullion

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39 PointSix: Referrals

“We have almost relied on, as well as succeeded through having, strong relationships and referrals and a large chunk of our business over the past decade has come from that.” Rohan Maheswaran, Associate Director, Futureheads Recruitment

Reaping the rewards

Referrals and repeat business have proven highly successful ways of increasing business across many industries, but are recruiters making enough of these highly trusted marketing channels? Whenever you read an article providing advice on how to find a good builder, solicitor, accountant or almost any professional for that matter, the first tip given is often to ask people you know for recommendations. And with good reason – a Kantar study published last year found that friends and family were the most trusted source of information about brands and services.

By Joanne Christie Editor

Interestingly, its survey of 8,000 consumers worldwide found that online review sites were the second most trusted source, while the public’s faith in advertising had fallen so slow it was at the very bottom of the list of eight categories.

Rohan Maheswaran, Associate Director at Futureheads Recruitment, said: “We have almost relied on as well as succeeded through having strong relationships and referrals and a large chunk of our business over the past decade has come from that.” Similarly, James Chorley, Client Relationship Director at PeopleScout, said one of the company’s key objectives was networking with its existing portfolio to gain referrals to other clients.

Another issue with referral marketing is that it can be tricky to measure; some firms do not measure this at all. Helena Sullivan, Group Marketing Director at Trinnovo Group, pointed out that even where it is tracked, this isn’t foolproof. “In my last role I knew where every single thing was coming from,” she said, having joined Trinnovo only recently from SR Group. “It was the coding we used on our CRM but obviously all of these things are reliant on the consultant putting in the correct information at the time of entry, which as we all know is not always 100% accurate.”

This underscores the importance of word of mouth or referral marketing, but is the recruitment industry making enough of this vital channel? Recruiters typically spend a lot of time hunting new leads, but perhaps not quite enough exploiting their existing contacts. LEVERAGING RELATIONSHIPS However, as was clear at a recent PointSix session hosted by Alex Evans, Programme Director of TALiNT Partners, and Ryan McCabe, CEO of Odro, some recruiters are well aware of this potential and are already actively making use of it.

But Debbie Davenport, Executive Director at Rullion, said that while the recruiter’s existing networks do create a lot of referral business and part of its strategy is to accelerate that, there is a fine line to walk with clients: “How do you lean on your networks without being another one who is trying to lean on their networks?”

Rohan Maheswaran Futureheads Recruitment

James Chorley PeopleScout

THE PERSONAL APPROACH Of course, while personal recommendations are clearly invaluable, no one would advocate relying on these as the sole marketing tool. But there’s something to be said for a more personalised approach and there’s been a huge rise in the use of thought leadership alongside more traditional forms of marketing in recent years. However, it’s important that this is targeted, said Gareth Vale, Marketing Director at ManpowerGroup. “One of the key things that we have focused on at a global level is thinking about how we manage thought leadership and content, and whose role and responsibility it is. We have this mechanism to categorise it in terms of Hero, Hub and Hygiene.

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40 PointSix: Referrals “One of the challenges we are finding at the moment is walking the line with our recruitment teams in terms of how much we encourage them to be brand ambassadors and be speaking on our behalf across our social media channels.” Natasha Crump, ESG Director, Amoria Bond

“Hero campaigns are global campaigns that we run, the Hub pieces tend to be more product and service-led and the Hygiene tend to be the day-to-day noise around recruitment services. We are trying to just be very clear as to how we can better share and systematically ensure that we are not creating the same type of materials and the same types of messages in 80 odd countries, so that kind of structure is something that we have put in over the last year.”

advocates. “Candidates were really happy to be used as case studies and testimonials. We did a couple of short videos with some and we wanted it to be really authentic so if they were engineers or technicians we asked them to film in their workshop or place of work where possible.” Ryan McCabe Odro

Indeed, the past year has forced a rethink on many fronts and with so many of the traditional networking options having been curtailed by the pandemic, many firms have increasingly turned to video to connect with contacts. Chorley said that since the onset of the pandemic he’d started having ‘virtual coffees’ by video and found it much easier to form connections. “It is much harder for them to say they can’t have a virtual coffee with you than to say they can’t when they need to travel to the other side of the country to have a coffee with you.” BRIDGING THE GAP Ryan McCabe at Odro agrees video makes it much easier to network than email. “Recruitment relationships are built in person, so the best relationships that you have are the clients where you were able to go to their sites, that you’ve met with or taken them out for lunch. “It is really hard to bridge the gap between not knowing someone and being behind an email to then getting out for dinner right now. The best way we can humanise ourselves to these people we haven’t been able to see is to get them on video. It is not just about video calls, it could be some content that you’ve recorded about something you want to talk about, whether it is a new candidate or a new client or a new process that you are trying to input.” Aimee Treasure, Head of Marketing at Templeton Partners, said the company had also had success using video to turn candidates into brand

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Debbie Davenport Rullion

Natasha Crump Amoria Bond

She added that this had also been useful in getting sales teams more invested in the marketing process, by promoting what they had done internally when they got good quotes or videos from candidates and translating this into what effect such campaigns had on the business using hard metrics. Some firms were using video or thought leadership that was more focused on individual members of the team, but this can be thorny area, said Natasha Crump, ESG Director at Amoria Bond. “One of the challenges we are finding at the moment is walking the line with our recruitment teams in terms of how much we encourage them to be brand ambassadors and be speaking on our behalf on social media channels.” While many firms have historically been reluctant to allow their brand to centre too heavily on individuals, Crump said there had been a shift in acceptance over the past year, mostly driven by demand from clients. “What we are seeing and the model we are certainly going down when we are doing client presentations and helping our teams with collateral to go out to existing and new clients with is there is increasingly a demand for more personalised marketing collateral. People like to see the credentials of the presenter not just the business, of the individual recruiter or team lead not just Amoria Bond, we are very much seeing that more and more becoming the trend.” Increasingly, it seems that if recruitment firms want to get an edge and leverage the most trusted marketing channels in today’s society, they need to capitalise on their existing relationships and build personal, as well as company, brands.

Navigate to success Just as the North Star gave navigators something to rely on as they charted their epic journeys, so Access NorthStar helps you navigate your way to success. Access NorthStar is a powerful cloud-based business improvement and productivity tool that integrates with your CRM, enabling recruitment agencies to turn information into intelligence and data into decisions. Helping your consultants to be more successful every day, your managers to see the bigger picture and your business to grow sustainably.

Get in touch www.theaccessgroup.com/recruitment 0845 345 3300

42 PointSix Q&A: Guy Hayward, CEO, Goodman Masson

“If we are to create real, modern and progressive workplaces, then racial equality should become a priority for us all.”

Good man’s mission

Our series of interviews with industry champions from our PointSix network continues with the inspiration behind a new D&I campaign for the recruitment sector “We want to be known as the first recruitment company to help its clients keep their people by sharing our knowledge of the modern workplace,” says PointSix member Guy Hayward, CEO of Goodman Masson. Based in London, Dusseldorf and New York, the firm has won more than 40 awards over the last six years for being a great recruitment partner and a top employer. Its staffing and RPO service is highly sought after for everything from recruitment advice to guidance on workplace and employer brand. “We focus on the entire candidate journey, from building talent pipelines to helping clients with their approach to inclusion,” adds Hayward. However, despite the success and recognition Goodman Masson has achieved, both as a provider and as an employer, the murder of George Floyd in the US and the resulting BLM campaign highlighted a major area of improvement for a company that prides itself on being a diverse and inclusive organisation. “ONS stats show that 15% of London’s working population is black so our 150 London-based employees should reflect that – but it’s less than 6%. I started to educate myself about why we haven’t made as much progress on ethnicity as gender and find out why there is such a disproportionately low number of black recruiters,” explains Hayward. Back in March last year, Hayward wrote an open letter to the industry’s leading trade bodies and media platforms asking what we could all do collectively to address this lack of diversity and ethnic representation. “If we are to create real, modern and progressive workplaces, then racial

TALiNT International July / Aug 2021

By Alex Evans Programme Director TALiNT Partners

equality should become a priority for us all,” he said in the letter. “Our board is committed to ensure that diversity, inclusion and respect lie at the centre of everything we do at Goodman Masson, fundamentally changing the way we are behaving, and the way we understand and think about equality. Others have, too. Imagine if we all did.” Inspired to find out what could be achieved collectively, Guy initially collaborated with APSCo and the REC to design a survey to answer a fundamental question – how diverse is a recruitment industry that employs about 140,000 people? WHY IS THERE NO INDUSTRY D&I DATA? “Do we understand the problem of underrepresentation in our sector?” Hayward asks. “I looked at the landscape and wanted to change it but needed evidence to drive it. There wasn’t any, so this survey was created to give us that foundation of data to hold ourselves accountable to.” The joint research was published in June last year, with the ‘UK Recruitment Diversity & Inclusion Index’ revealing that 41% of recruiters do not record data on the demographic make-up of their own workforce and leadership teams – either because they were ‘too small’ (38%) or ‘hadn’t considered it’ (26%). This lack of monitoring, understanding and education was identified by the trade bodies’ leaders as the biggest barrier to more diverse organisations in this sector. Hayward is clearly disappointed that only 105 staffing companies and 348 individual recruitment professionals participated in this

"Programme One is an inclusive, collaborative movement to make the recruitment industry more diverse, to improve ethnic representation and make it more reflective of society." Guy Hayward, CEO, Goodman Masson

survey. This disappointingly low response rate perhaps indicates that few felt confident enough in their progress to participate in the survey. However, it did identify those who had achieved great things and could inspire others to follow their example.

recognise and remove barriers to hiring black recruiters. It also trains mentors and matches them with the right mentees. “When I look at the mentors from businesses like Signify, Spencer Ogden, Gravitas and Meet you start to realise the combined power of our industry in mentoring junior black recruiters and to make a change,” Guy explains.

This inspired Hayward to create Programme One, a collaborative campaign to bring at least 100 new black recruiters into the sector by 2022, and 500 per year after that. “I knew we could only achieve this ambition collectively so I approached award-winning recruiters that could help make a bigger difference together,” says Hayward, who has since been joined in his campaign by 10 firms, including TIARA winners Franklin Fitch, La Fosse Associates and Amoria Bond. COLLECTIVE ACCOUNTABILITY These organisations have signed up to four strategic objectives: to conduct a D&I survey and update and publish it every year; to proactively build more ethnically diverse talent pipelines from schools, colleges, communities and networks; to remove any barriers to hiring black recruiters; and to give every black recruiter hired access to a mentor. “You have to be prepared to publish internal D&I data and hold yourself accountable to it if you want to make a change,” says Hayward, adding that Programme One provides advice on how to design a D&I strategy, understand unconscious bias and identify the main protective characteristics of D&I for internal surveys. The Aleto Foundation, a social mobility charity, is providing access to mentors as part of Programme One and advising on how to

Commenting on his support of Programme One, Gary Elden OBE, chairperson at Amoria Bond and a TIARA Recruitment Awards judge, stressed the importance of inclusion as well as diversity, so not just casting the net wider but doing more to communicate why a career in recruitment presents great opportunities for black talent. “The more role models you have, the more people you can attract,” he says. “We need teams that reflect society.”

Visit www. programmeone.com for more information about this campaign and how to support it.

Hayward’s ambition for Programme One is to make a difference to the industry and society while differentiating Goodman Masson and its partners as champions of DE&I as a service. “Programme One is an inclusive, collaborative movement to make the recruitment industry more diverse, to improve ethnic representation and make it more reflective of society,” he concludes. “Over 50 recruitment businesses have expressed an interest in joining Programme One and, as a force of companies, we will be part of bringing workplace equality for black talent within our industry.”

“I looked at the landscape and wanted to change it but needed evidence to drive it. There wasn’t any.” TALiNT International July / Aug 2021

FCSA launches revised Codes of Compliance What does that mean for agencies and contractors? The UK’s leading membership organisation for compliant payroll intermediary providers, the Freelancer & Contractor Services Association (FCSA) has announced the launch of revised Codes of Compliance (the “Codes”), outlining the most rigorous industry standards expected from member firms. This latest comprehensive review has made them tougher and even more transparent providing added assurance for agencies, end hirers, and contractors.

Extending to over 540 areas of evidence-based assessment, the FCSA Codes continue to set the benchmark for best practice compliance and ethical standards in the industry. “As market conditions change so too must our Codes. This is to ensure the highest standards of compliance are continued to be met by our member firms. Which is why now, we’re announcing the launch of our latest Code revisions,” said FCSA Chief Executive, Phil Pluck when commenting on this latest Code review.

The FCSA Codes – what’s changed?

What makes FCSA accreditation unique?

The Codes now provide greater

Members adhere to rigorous ethical standards

transparency on the financial illustrations that our member firms need to provide to

assessed against published Codes

contractors.

accountants, tax specialists and solicitors with vast expertise in the sector

Member firms are required to provide greater

Independently tested by regulated chartered

transparency regarding holiday pay in every umbrella employment contract and payslip.

Members are required to demonstrate

Members must also submit independently

Commit to the FCSA Charter

audited accounts.

compliance annually

Non-compliance by FCSA members will result

In addition, the FCSA has also introduced new

in suspension or termination

pre-requisite and due diligence checks on all new applicants that they must pass before proceeding

FCSA is a firmly established not-for-profit

to the accreditation assessment stage. “We are grateful to our independent assessors Ernst & Young, Saffery Champness, BDO, Brabners, and JMW who contributed to this review and provided the expert challenge that give the Codes the rigour they need. And, of course for the engagement we received from HMRC, BEIS, and industry-leading trade bodies who we consulted with during this process,” added Phil.

“The most comprehensive and compliant set of evidence-based standards now exist in our sector. No one else in the sector can give agencies, end hirers, or contractors this level of assurance.”

To view the FCSA’s latest set of Codes for umbrella employers, limited company advisors, and self-employed/CIS providers, please visit: www.fcsa.org.uk

accreditation body CEO is appointed by the members and is independent, with no commercial conflict of interest The only compliance standard to be recognised by the UK’s leading recruitment trade bodies REC, APSCo, and TEAM.

How this applies to new applicants and current members The revised FCSA Codes will apply to all new applicants from the 26th May 2021 and to current FCSA members from the 1st October 2021. The latter is to enable our independent assessors to evidence test current members against the newly revised codes.

46 TA Interview: Beatriz Rodriguez, Baker Hughes

“When you look at highly engineered organisations like ours, there is a narrow set of technical skills and experience required, but the pandemic has shown us that transferable skills increase our ability to adapt.” Beatriz Rodriguez, VP HR, Human Capital & Technology, Baker Hughes

Digital talent

TALiNT International recently met with Beatriz Rodriguez to discuss the innovative approaches and challenges her team have faced in the digitalisation of HR at Baker Hughes Beatriz Rodriguez has had an imprssive HR career, with 10 years at GE and most recently four years at Baker Hughes. Traditionally described as one of the largest oil services companies in the world, Baker Hughes has increasingly beeen positioned as an energy technology company, with $20 billion in revenue and more than 70,000 employees globally. Your current title is VP HR, Human Capital and Technology, an interesting combination, what does that mean? We are evolving as a company and positioning ourselves as an energy technology company. My role is making sure that employees feel that. We not only want to focus on delivering outcomes from a digital and technology perspective to customers, but we want to make sure that we evolve internally, and that employees see technology as part of how their HR needs are serviced. My focus is delivering digital HR solutions and services globally and there are three areas of focus: the employee experience across the whole life cycle, operational excellence and data analytics. What does that mean for employees? We’re focusing on how employees interact with HR. In the past, when an employee had any HR need, they would depend on a named person on a particular site. The pandemic has shown that there is an opportunity to deliver a better service digitally. We’re putting a lot of focus on automation, self-service and access to HR 24/7. What particular tech stack are you using? There are two main areas of focus for us: onboarding and offboarding. The parameters of onboarding have completely changed. Before,

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you would attend a physical office, however one of our goals is that you don’t need to go to an office to join us, you can join us remotely and it will still feel like it is your first day with us.

By Ken Brotherston Managing Director, TALiNT Partners

With new hire orientation, we are using data analytics to work out how we connect that new member with the rest of the organisation, and who are the key people that person needs to know. With offboarding, we want to do it in a way that is as positive as possible. What are the biggest challenges in implementation and adoption? The biggest challenge is self-service. The tech relies upon the user having that willingness to seek out those analytics, as opposed to emailing HR. We have tried to simplify processes as much as we can. Some managers were not sure how to use the analytics, so we looked at the top 10 errors and put together a guide, which helped increase adoption. Thinking about how you engage with the outside world for talent, how are you using new approaches to build a more diverse workforce? Two years ago, I was head of a group division and we piloted a role mapper to de-bias our recruitment. Our job descriptions were very standard, and we had never looked at bias with a critical eye. So we took the top five critical roles that we hired for most and applied the role mapper and we saw a more than 50% increase on diverse candidates applying through the same channels used before. That’s an incredible step change, was there anything specific you can identify that made all the difference? It was a combination of things. We pushed for

Beatriz Rodriguez, VP HR, Human Capital & Technology, Baker Hughes

there not being a specific location on job roles, nor a specific requirement for full-time working. We said the roles were open to job share, or part time. Then we looked at articulation, the words that we use in the job spec that really change the perspective of how you do the role. It was surprising and made us realise the power of how you articulate a role. Large energy multinationals are going through a rapid evolution. As your business evolves, how do you determine what skills you will need in two to five years’ time? The first thing we look to is our business growth playbook and portfolio strategy. We are at an important transition point as an energy technology company, so we apply a very structured process. We look at the market, our business plans and then whether we buy, borrow, or build and can we do it alone? We are looking also at a key area of transferable skill sets. When you look at highly engineered organisations like ours, there is a narrow set of technical skills and experience required, but the pandemic has shown us that transferable skills increase our ability to adapt. From a TA/resourcing perspective, during the pandemic what have been your biggest challenges and opportunities? The biggest opportunity has been accessibility to a much broader talent pool. We quickly put a flexible working framework in place, which helped us to access this. The challenges are keeping up morale and people figuring out how to work smarter. We needed to equip leaders in how to interact with their teams in different ways. The other challenge has been bringing tech into everybody’s homes.

If we go forward five or 10 years, what will have changed and what will we have learnt? The big enigma is what collaboration looks like in the next few years, everybody is adopting different flexible working patterns so may not be in the office at the same time and you can’t schedule collaboration. So how do we build connections and innovation through technology? Can analytics help us to figure it out? If we look at the patterns of collaboration and the gaps, we can suggest to leaders how to get it to the next level. The other big challenge is that remote working will require a different approach to owning your career. In the past you would rely on meeting with your manager and them driving your career but that has all gone. This theme of self-learning and taking action on own your career is key to avoiding becoming stagnant. What advice would you give to HR execs at earlier stages in their career about staying relevant and what it takes to be successful? Transferable skills. We need to get out of the traditional curriculum we have in HR and get skill sets that are different but transferable. For my team I am focusing on three things: product leadership – your creativity can transform into a product that your users can buy; project management – you can project manage anything for a delivery and outcome; and analytics – this will be a core foundation of any job going forward. Then this concept of being a self-starter, making sure that every six months or year you recycle your skills or abilities. You need to continuously improve and not just your technical abilities. It is hard to juggle this with families and other commitments, but it is possible, even just with one hour per day.

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48 TALiNT Talk

You can’t fix attraction until you’ve fixed attrition With lockdowns having suppressed staff turnover, the reopening of economies will inevitably have the opposite effect; so the challenge for TA leaders is keeping leavers to a minimum With demand for talent at an all-time high and shortages forecast to continue in Western economies for some time to come, the challenge for TA leaders has never been greater. This is even more so when you add in the additional complexity of accommodating an increasing variety of working patterns, be they fully remote, hybrid or just with increased flexibility.

• •

Ken Brotherston, Managing Director, TALiNT Partners

But there is little point in expecting to make progress with resourcing targets or indeed even maintaining your present position if, as fast as you bring people through the front door, you are losing them out the back door.

• •

a recognition that there isn’t a ‘one size fits all’ approach to retention – more than ever employees have different motivations; fairness in balancing the legitimate needs of the organisation with the needs of employees;

TALiNT International July / Aug 2021

At a tactical level, better onboarding helps avoid early attrition, and a clear programme for career development and a range of options to support wellbeing are increasingly important for both retention and attraction. In the same way that most carmakers’ advertising is really aimed at people who have just bought one of their cars, the same can be said for employer branding. It is vital to ensure your existing employees are continually reminded of your positive attributes as an employer as much as it is to focus your efforts on attracting new talent. And if you don’t have the money to invest in this, then a cheaper option is always to buy a revolving door.

There is no doubt about the fact there is an inevitable amount of job changing catch-up already happening. The pandemic meant that normal levels of attrition were suppressed as employees took a safety-first approach to their jobs, but as they see their economies opening up their willingness to put themselves onto the job market will increase. So while there is likely to be an unavoidable increase in attrition for the vast majority of companies, the rate of it will vary widely. The employers that are responding best seem to have a number of critical attributes at the heart of their strategy in how they attract and keep talent:

an open mind and flexibility on new ways of working; and increasingly, a drive to ensure talent acquisition and talent management operate in a much more coordinated way, indeed they may well end up becoming a single integrated function.

Clearly the talent landscape will continue to evolve and, as the world moves on from the pandemic, there will likely be more equilibrium between supply and demand. But this could easily be 12 to 18 months away – far too long to try and ‘tough if out’. To find out more about how TALiNT Advantage can help TA teams, please contact debra@talint.co.uk.

For those employers that see the opportunities in today’s ‘talent turbulence’ and have the agility and willingness to act, there are huge upsides that will give them a competitive edge, not just for the next few months but for years to come. The place to start is with the employees they already have.

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