TALiNT International May & June 2021

May / June 2021

THE INCLUSION ISSUE How can the TA industry work together to build more inclusive organisations?

Plus...

- HR Tech M&A - Talent Solutions trends - Tech-enabled inclusion

Book Your Consultation

www.volcanic.com

01 Leader

Learning lessons The expansion of D&I initiatives is laudable, but we need to look at why so little progress has been made on gender to work out the best way to bring about real organisational change Until relatively recently, the main focus of many organisations from a diversity perspective was gender, with race, sexual orientation and disability barely getting a look in at many (though certainly not all) workplaces. In some respects, this is perhaps understandable given government initiatives such as pay gap reporting have also tended to centre on gender.

Unfortunately, as some contributors in this D&I themed issue note, the pace of change has simply been too slow on the gender front. This is backed up by PwC’s annual Women in Work report, published in March, which suggests that while progress had been made, it has been incremental at best. In the nine years since it began compiling the report, the proportion of working age women in the workforce in OECD countries has barely changed, rising only to 70% in 2019 from 66% in 2011. The gender pay gap has fallen by just one percentage point to 15% over the same period.

of the pandemic is that some workers with disabilities have found it easier to manage their conditions in a remote working setup, as is discussed on page 26.

Joanne Christie Editor

Indeed, thanks to the pandemic, health conditions generally have been a huge topic of discussion over the past year, as has race, driven by the BLM movement. This should mean these issues are moving higher up the agenda in workplaces too.

Here’s hoping organisations advance towards greater diversity and inclusion in these areas faster than they have done on the gender front.

Many organisations have been successful at improving gender balance at entry and board level, but women still face hurdles taking their first step into management.

Even worse, the consulting giant warned that the pandemic was reversing the advancements that have been made on gender equality in the workplace, a sentiment echoed by a number of contributors to this issue, including in our feature on D&I in talent acquisition on page 24.

One issue is that while many organisations have been successful at improving their gender balance at entry and even board level, women still face hurdles taking their first step into management. This is a theme that was noted by participants in a recent PointSix panel devoted to the leadership mindset needed to drive D&I (insights from this discussion from page 14).

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.

Workforce futurist Andrew Spence also picks up on the importance of the ‘inclusion’ part of D&I in his commentary on page 28, where he gives an example of how one firm used organisational network analysis to come up with interventions to overcome gender inequality at the tricky middle level.

Published by Talent Intelligence Partners Ltd Upper Ground Floor 18 Farnham Road Guildford Surrey GU1 4XA www.talintpartners.com

Such tactics can, and should, be used to improve representation on other fronts, such as race and disability. One potentially positive outcome

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 MP calls for end of umbrella firms 11 BBC probes mini umbrella companies 12 Pandemic prompts career changes 13 Jabs vital to office return

14 D&I as a service

14 How can Recruiters, RPOs and HR Tech firms be better D&I partners to employers?

Neil Griffiths, CERIPH P14

Emily Ayre, BRUIN Financial P14

Khurshed Dehnugara, Relume P14

Affi Khan, Cpl UK P22

Nina Goswani, BBC P24

Paul Deemer, NHS Employers P24

Andrew Spence, Workforce Futurist P28

Andrew Brown, Cornerstone OnDemand P30

Bruce Trewhella, Access Group P38

Kiren Asad, Deloitte P38

22 PointSix Profile

22 Affi Khan, CEO of CPL UK, explains why inclusion is an important measure for recruiters

24 D&I in TA

24 Shaking up D&I in talent acquisition

28 Tech and inclusion

28 How an evidence-based process enabled by the right tech can help to drive D&I

30 The Long Game

30 How are talent solutions providers adapting to short-term demands?

34 Retrain to retain

34 Why internal mobility is a top TA priority

38 Prepare to succeed

38 Insights from the HR Tech Investor Summit

42 TALiNT Talk

42 Why the merry-go-round of converging talent trends has employers' heads in a spin Picture credits: Shutterstock, iStockphoto and Unsplash Cover: Unsplash 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 May / Jun 2021

04 TALiNT Scene Our Spring events brought together agency, inhouse and talent tech leaders to explore TA trends, share tactics and gain expert insight on M&A, technology, D&I and agile talent solutions.

9th March – TALiNT PointSix and Deloitte co-hosted the fourth annual HR & Talent Tech Investor Summit, bringing 20 scaleup founders from around the world together for individual meetings with 10 investors for investment advice and feedback on business strategy. The expert panel included Jeremy Duggan, CEO of Multiverse, who shared insights from his experience of scaling four start-ups to billion dollar valuations. Read our review from page 38.

11th March – Our TALiNT Inhouse Leaders event on ‘Getting the most out of your talent tech’ presented insights from a panel including Simon Gray, Global Head, Executive Talent Acquisition at Celonis; Adhika Chudasama, Global People Director at FinTechOS; Kate Phillips, Regional Talent Acquisition Strategy and Planning Manager at Baxter International and sponsor experts Pete Cadman, Operations Manager - Business Systems, at Guidant Global and Gavin Malcahy, Director of Sova Assessment.

TALiNT International May / Jun 2021

05 25th March – TALiNT PointSix hosted a webinar for the UK’s top staffing and talent solutions firms for insights on how recruiters and RPOs can be better D&I partners.

The panel of experts included FTSE 100 executive coach Khurshed Dehnugara, partner at Relume; Emily Ayre, MD of BRUIN Financial and double TIARA winner for D&I; employer brand expert Neil Griffiths, Director of CERIPH; and partner expert Adam Dale, CRO of SourceBreaker. Read our review from page 14.

25th March – TALiNT Partners and AMS co-hosted a virtual breakfast roundtable on how HR and TA leaders are adapting to new talent trends and challenges and adopting new agile approaches. Hosted by TALiNT Partners MD Ken Brotherston and Employer Programme Director Debra Sparshott with AMS Regional Director Maxine Pillinger, it brought together leaders from Aegon, Nike, Lego Group, HelloFresh and Christian Dior Couture, amongst others.

TALiNT International May / Jun 2021

06 TALiNT Scene Last month TALiNT Partners co-hosted roundtables in the UK and UAE with PeopleScout, Guidant, Sova and eArcu for HR and TA leaders from the world’s biggest employers.

25th March – TALiNT Partners and PeopleScout co-hosted a virtual roundtable with its now legendary cheese and wine hampers for HR and TA leaders from Turner & Townsend, International Airlines Group, the Financial Ombudsman, Adidas, Colt Technology Services, Bestway Retail, the Mind Gym, EY, Investec, Nokia, Ricoh UK, Royal Mail, SC Johnson, Natwest, Peak Scientific and ERM.

31st March – Louise West, Guidant’s Director of Client Services, co-hosted a roundtable on retention and internal mobility with TALiNT’s Debra Sparshott and talent leaders from organisations including the House of Commons, Kerry Food Group, Lufthansa Group, Mercer, MSCI and SSE Energy Services. Read our review from page 34.

TALiNT International May / Jun 2021

07 6th April – TALiNT Partners teamed up with Sova Assessment to co-host a webinar on TA trends and challenges in the UAE for a wide range of HR and TA leaders from across the region.

Participating organisations included Abu Dhabi Islamic Bank, Wyndham Dubai Deira, Serco, General Motors, Petrofac/PDO/ ADNOC and Etihad Rail.

28th April – A virtual conference entitled ‘Shaking up D&I in TA’ presented insights from experts including Paul Deemer, Head of D&I at NHS Employers, and Nina Goswami, Creative Diversity Lead at the BBC, as well as partner experts Andy Randall, CEO at eArcu and Karina Townley, UK Client Solutions MD at Guidant Global.

Read more from page 24.

TALiNT International May / Jun 2021

08 News in numbers

Going up

232% Year-on-year rise in job postings in April (Source: CV-Library)

426,000

Need to know

93%

The percentage of UK adults who are positive about vaccination against Covid 19

£28.5bn The cost to UK businesses of workplace conflict, including dealing with legal action, sickness and resignations, according to Acas

Number of workers aged 50-plus who were unemployed in the three months ending February

Going down

16% The percentage of employers cutting graduate jobs, down from 44% in 2020 (Source: Institute of Student Employers)

4.9%

The percentage of unemployed workers in the UK, down 0.1 percentage points on the previous quarter

TALiNT International May / Jun 2021

36%

The percentage of NEDs who said the boards they sit on discuss D&I more than five times a year (Source: The UK Leadership Diversity Report)

26%

The percentage of UK businesses planning to downsize or close offices post pandemic (Source: Applaud)

65% The percentage of workers who put work-life balance as their top consideration in choosing a new employer (Source: Randstad)

09 Advertorial - HIVE360

Harnessing the power of employee engagement David McCormack explains why a robust employee or candidate engagement strategy has the power to supercharge agency retention and attraction rates If you are worried about retaining or attracting the best talent, a robust employee engagement strategy will certainly help by making workers feel valued and supported, something which has been proven to boost retention levels.

Recent research from Totaljobs revealed that 89% of UK workers are looking for or considering a new job in 2021, with 77% actively searching.

This level of staff turnover is a significant burden for any business, especially recruitment businesses, which rely on strong recruiter talent, as well as their candidate base, to thrive.

Consider the time and financial resource surrounding the administration of a resignation: the recruitment and selection process, temporary cover and training and settling-in time for the new hire. Some estimates put the cost of replacing an employee at £12,000, while others have it as high as the equivalent of nine months of the position’s annual salary. This means taking a proactive approach to retaining staff must be top of the agenda.

THE IMPORTANCE OF WORKPLACE CULTURE Employee retention involves key actions and practices that improve or maintain a positive working environment to incentivise employees to remain at the company.

Having a workplace culture that supports wellbeing plays a big part in a person’s decision to stay in their job. According to the latest BreatheHR Culture Economy Report, 27% of UK workers said their decision to leave their job was based on the culture.

Proactive employee retention practices often include onboarding and career progression, reward and recognition policies, training and development, employee benefits and worklife balance initiatives such as flexible working, financial and mental health and wellbeing support.

All of these can and should feature in an

effective employee engagement strategy for recruiters’ own employees, as well as its valued candidate workforce.

David McCormack CEO, HIVE360

Employee engagement is all about the emotional commitment an employee has to the organisation they work for, and how the business embraces workers’ vision and goals.

When workers feel a connection, they are more likely to go the extra mile when times get tough.

The last 12-plus months have been amongst the very toughest of times, and as we look to the future, a committed workforce will form the foundation of our economic recovery. Assessing how your team is coping and feeling at this pivotal time is critical, and will inform the evolution of a positive, supportive workplace culture.

HIVE360 is an expert in recruitment agency PAYE payroll, wellbeing and benefits provision, and champions a new model of employment administration. Visit www. hive360.com.

Happy and engaged employees who feel valued can only boost morale and productivity in the workplace, not to mention improve customer satisfaction, push sales and strengthen future planning and key business decisions. There’s also a positive impact on stakeholders, with growth and profitability limiting investor concerns and boosting the company’s image.

ON-THE-GO ENGAGEMENT HIVE360 is a specialist in wellbeing and benefits provision, and brings this together in one powerful, unique solution: Engage.

This mobile, customisable engagement app gives employees and temporary workers access to a range of benefits and services. These include 24/7, confidential access to mental health support, counsellors and GPs, a support helpline and care support, gym memberships, high-street, lifestyle, dining and insurance discounts, digital payslips, a real-time workplace pension dashboard and access to an online training platform.

Engage records an average of 200,000 user sessions each month, and clients using it record employee engagement levels of well over 80%.

TALiNT International May / Jun 2021

10 Industry news

Umbrellas under fire from MP...

Following the introduction of the new IR35 legislation in April, as expected there has been an increase in the number of workers using umbrella companies, but these structures have since come under intense scrutiny.

Speaking in parliament in April, Ruth Cadbury MP effectively called for an end to umbrella companies by suggesting the government strike out part of the Finance Bill that is currently making its way through the legislative process.

The co-Chair of the Loan Charge APPG, which recently published the report, ‘How Contracting Should Work’, was scathing in her view of the umbrella industry.

“The unintended consequences of IR35, off payroll legislation, has been a proliferation of umbrella companies, some of which have pushed people into disguised remuneration schemes,” she said.

Opportunity for change While she said that in the long term an alignment of tax and employment laws was needed, Cadbury suggested the government had an opportunity now to stamp out bad practices by making changes to Clause 21 of the Finance Bill, which deals with workers provided by intermediaries.

Speaking in Parliament last month, Ruth Cadbury MP said IR35 changes had led to a proliferation of umbrella companies and called for Clause 21 to be struck out of the Finance Bill “The government could simply strike out Clause 21, which would then ensure workers got the agency rights they should be getting. Agencies can run their own payrolls, they do for their own staff anyway, they do not need umbrella companies and neither do their contractors.

“Or, the government could redraft Clause 21 to seek to stop the exploitation but they must do one or the other.”

She said some schemes were not transparent about tax avoidance during the sales process and had

caused “misery” for workers.

“The government and HMRC are well aware schemes are still being mis-sold to people, including mid and low paid public service workers, nurses, doctors in the NHS and other clinical specialists, teachers and social workers. And also many in the private sector, IT, business services and so on.”

Workers duped Indeed, in May an investigation by the BBC’s File on 4 programme reported on workers at Covid testing centres unwittingly being contracted by umbrella companies.

338% £4.9m 48,000 40,000 Y-o-y rise in contractors working via umbrellas in March, according to Cool Company

TALiNT International May / Jun 2021

Amount HMRC is seeking from sports star Gary Lineker under IR35

Number of mini umbrella companies created over the last five years

Number of Filipino workers reportedly recruited to front mini umbrellas in the UK

11

...and MUCs probed Its probe focused specifically on mini umbrella companies (MUCs), which are used to minimise the National Insurance contributions paid by employers.

The BBC report told of one employee working at a Covid testing site run by G4S who was unaware he was working through an MUC until he received his first payslip and noted that neither G4S nor the agency that hired him were listed.

Instead, he appeared to have been paid by a newly formed company, the director of which was based in the Philippines. In response to the investigation, G4S said when the matter came to its attention it had notified HMRC. ‘Fraudulent employment model’ MUCs are set up to exploit the government’s Employment Allowance, which allows companies to claim National Insurance discounts of up to £4,000 per year as an incentive to take on more workers.

Usually, employers have to pay 13.8% in NI contributions on employee earnings if they earn more than £170 per week.

Some recruitment agencies are employing large numbers of workers through a series of MUCs – as each one has only a small number of employees, it is able to benefit from the NI discount and NI is avoided for all of these workers.

Typically, the MUC provider sets up a UK company with British directors, who resign shortly after incorporation and are replaced by foreign directors, making it difficult for HMRC to pursue the company.

“It is a fraudulent employment model that presents an organised crime threat to the UK Exchequer costing ‘hundreds of millions of pounds’ in lost taxes,” commented Clarke

Bowles, Director of Strategic Sales at Parasol Group.

“As a fully compliant umbrella company, it is disappointing that non-compliant models are still operating in our industry.”

Industry hits back The BBC investigation is likely to lead to renewed calls for a ban on umbrella companies.

However, representatives of legitimate umbrella firms argue the whole industry should not suffer due to the actions of a few.

Dave Chaplin, CEO of contracting authority ContractorCalculator said: “Why should the honest umbrella companies suffer because of the few that are up to no good?”

Following Ruth Cadbury’s comments, Chaplin said it was simply a “level playing field” and better regulation that was needed, rather than a ban.

Crawford Temple, CEO of Professional Passport, expressed a similar view.

“The proliferation of these arrangements is a direct consequence of ill-thought through legislation with the responsible stakeholders in the sector all aligned on highlighting these problems in their responses to previous consultations that have been ignored.”

Phil Pluck, chief executive of the Freelancer & Contractor Services Association, said that it is not only regulation but also enforcement action that is needed.

“We would go further and say that this also requires robust and visible policing. HMRC are caught between maximising tax revenue and prosecuting tax avoidance criminals.

This conflict means that not enough prosecutions end in convictions and not enough directors see the inside of a prison cell.”

News in brief More workers taking on side gigs due to Covid crisis The pandemic has led to more people juggling more than one job or mixing employment with self-employment, according to new research. A survey undertaken by freelance jobs marketplace PeoplePerHour found that 19% of freelancers were self-employed in addition to holding an employed position, while separate research from Scottish Widows suggested that 15% of UK workers have more than one employed job.

Contractor demand booming outside Europe The increasing trend towards remote working caused by the pandemic is leading firms to look further afield for contract workers. According to a recent analysis by 6CATS International, in Q1 there was an increase in demand for contractors outside Europe, with opportunities booming in India and South Africa in particular. On a sector basis, demand for contractors was highest in the pharmaceutical area, with oil and gas, engineering and IT also seeing a rise in activity in the first quarter of 2021.

Seven in 10 UK contractors to leave or charge more over IR35 A survey of more than 2,700 contractors revealed that just 14% will accept an inside IR35 decision, according to research by specialist insurance broker Kingsbridge. Overall, 69% of contractors said that if they were deemed inside IR35 they would either leave or charge a higher fee, raising fears that UK companies could be on the verge of a massive talent exodus.

TALiNT International May / Jun 2021

12 News analysis

Pandemic prompts career changes New research suggests the pandemic has led to workers considering dramatic career shifts, including not just changing job but also switching from one industry to another.

According to analysis by FutureLearn, 21% of UK working age adults do not expect to be working in the same industry in 2030, with many planning to upskill to help them change roles.

Catalina Schveninger, Chief People Officer at FutureLearn, said: “There are no more jobs for life, which is something research has been predicting for some time. Lifelong learning is going to play an ever more central part in helping employees, jobseekers and career-changers alike to develop new skills, grow in confidence and increase their employability.”

While the trend for workers to switch industries during their career has been in play for some time, the survey of 2,200 UK adults found that Covid-19 had exacerbated the move in this direction.

This finding was backed up by separate research from insurer Aviva,

40%

The percentage of UK workers planning to take an online course in the next five years

which found that 60% of UK workers were planning changes to their careers as a result of the pandemic.

Its survey of 4,000 workers in February revealed that 9% of workers wanted to follow a completely different career path, up from 7% when its last survey was undertaken last July.

A further 10% wanted to retrain or learn new skills, while 8% planned to gain further academic qualifications.

Those in the 25-34 age group were most likely to want to retrain (14%) or follow a completely different career

path (also 14%).

Gareth Hemming, Managing Director of personal lines at Aviva, said: “As the pandemic has continued, an increasing number of people have given thought to what they want from their careers and now three-fifths of people would like to make changes to their working lives.

“The extent of these changes varies: in some instances people want more flexibility, such as the ability to work from home, while others wish to change their career paths completely.”

Jobs pick up, but firms remain cautious In what should prove good news for both recruiters and jobseekers, the latest data suggests the recovery in the UK jobs market is running far ahead of the country’s roadmap back to normality.

Despite the country being in lockdown, the first quarter of this year saw vacancies increase 20% on the final three months of last year, according to job boards network Broadbean Technology.

Even more encouragingly, the rise in job postings was not matched by applicant numbers, with these rising

TALiNT International May / Jun 2021

just 4% over the same period. The number of applicants per vacancy was down a significant 34% on the same period last year.

However, the latest JobsOutlook data from the Recruitment & Employment Confederation (REC) suggested that employers may be taking a cautious approach as the country starts to reopen for business.

While its first quarter survey of 600 employers showed a clear rise in the level of confidence in the UK economy during the period, it seems companies do not yet feel

certain about committing long term to workers.

Employers’ plans to hire permanent staff in the short term remained unchanged in the survey, but hiring intentions for temporary workers in both the short and medium term rose to the highest level since mid-2018.

Neil Carberry, Chief Executive of the REC, said: “It’s no surprise that this report shows the value of agency work – it is a huge benefit to the UK, getting people into work quickly and helping businesses hire in uncertain times.”

13

Jabs vital to office return The rollout of the vaccination programme is a key factor in whether or not workers feel confident returning to their physical workplaces.

before returning to work, while 17% were unsure of their company’s policy. This left 28% saying they weren’t confident about returning to work, while 21% were on the fence.

A survey of more than 2,000 employed adults carried out for insurer Aviva in March and April found that 71% felt optimistic about going back to work due to the success of the vaccination campaign.

This echoed the finding of a more comprehensive Randstad survey of 27,000 workers across 34 countries in February and March. The majority of UK respondents to that survey also said they wouldn’t feel safe returning to their workplaces until their colleagues had been vaccinated.

Chris Andrews, Director of Risk Management Solutions at Aviva, said: “The vaccine rollout has had an enormous benefit to employee confidence in returning safely to the workplace.”

However, separate research from Ezra suggested that the speed of the rollout alone is not enough to convince workers – they also want to know specifically how this translates to their own workplace.

Its survey of more than 1,000 office workers found that only 51% felt safe going back to work if either they or their colleagues weren’t required to have a vaccination.

However, 80% of respondents said they did not have to be vaccinated

Almost two-thirds (63%) said they would prefer to continue to work from home until the vaccine had been widely distributed.

But Victoria Short, CEO of Randstad UK, pointed out: “While remote working has its benefits, teams are missing out on extra shared learnings, mentoring, spontaneous meetings and ideation sessions which are typically trickier to do virtually.

“With three in five UK adults now vaccinated and with restrictions lifting, it’s the perfect time to navigate safely back to the workplace, and take advantage of the increasing job opportunities we are seeing as the demand for talent rises.”

More women on UK boards The number of female directors at FTSE 100 companies has risen by 18% in the last three years, but the UK still has some way to go before it reaches gender parity in the boardroom.

According to research by Yoppie, there are now 305 female directors in the UK’s leading listed companies, up from 259 in 2017.

Daniella Peri, Founder of Yoppie, said: “It’s great to see an increase in

the number of women bossing it at the highest level of business and it’s long overdue.”

However, there is more work to be done, with women still accounting for only 33.8% of all UK board directors.

While this is impressive compared with some countries – in the US the figure is just 28% – the UK lags European nations such as France and Norway, where women account for 44.6% and 44.2%, respectively.

News in brief Specialist recruiters receive Queen’s stamp of approval Three recruitment companies have won prestigious Queen’s Awards for Enterprise, which recognise outstanding performance in international trade, innovation and sustainable development. Specialist ICT recruitment and project solutions consultancy LA International won its second Queen’s Award for international trade. Temp, perm and RPO specialist recruiter nGAGE also won a Queen’s Award in recognition of its overseas growth, as did specialist audio and entertainment technology recruiter Interfacio.

Recruiter results show recovery in market sentiment The improving jobs market saw a number of recruiters report better-than-expected Q1 results.

At Robert Walters Group net fee income for the first quarter was down just 11% year-on-year on a constant currency basis. Similarly, at Hays net fees for the quarter decreased by just 10% on a constant currency basis.

Niche offerings drive Q1 growth Meanwhile, while both Randstad and Manpower also beat consensus expectations with their Q1 results, it was their talent solutions divisions that stood out.

Randstad’s Inhouse concept was a major growth driver for the company, with Q1 revenues up 13% on the same period last year.

At Manpower it was the recently launched Talent Solutions brand that was the star performer.

Though currently accounting for just 16% of the company’s gross profit, it had the highest organic gross profit increase of its brands.

TALiNT International May / Jun 2021

14 D&I and the role of vendors “Often the priority is on speed to hire and automation, but we know from experience that it can take up to eight times as many approaches for a woman to consider a role by comparison to a man, so that is an education exercise that needs to be had.”

Emily Ayre, MD, BRUIN Financial

The awkward conversation

Recruiters, RPOs and talent tech providers can all help to drive diversity and improve inclusion, so why has so little progress been made?

Much has been said about diversity and inclusion over the last decade but very little has changed. While there has been progress on gender, the dial has barely moved on ethnicity and disability. The widespread acceptance of remote working and virtual onboarding has created an opportunity to build more diverse talent pipelines, but how can recruiters, RPOs and talent tech providers be better D&I partners?

To answer this question, TALiNT Partners convened a PointSix panel of experts to present insights on the leadership mindset needed to drive D&I, meaningful metrics for the greatest impact, how to balance personal, employer and client brands to attract the right talent mix, and the role of technology in addressing bias and enabling greater diversity and inclusion.

we wanted to explore lessons and successes that might help to drive ethnic diversity on boards.”

By Alex Evans, Programme Director TALiNT Partners

Khurshed’s research highlighted some assumptions that have long been obstacles to diversity and inclusion. “Amongst the most notable early findings was that people felt there would be a domino effect, that if you fixed gender diversity all other forms would naturally follow as well – and that just hasn’t been the case. Embarrassment was clearly an early driver for gender representation, with very public shaming of boards with a lack of diversity – so stick rather than carrot was the lesson from that.”

CHALLENGER MINDSET The first speaker was Khurshed Dehnugara, a partner at Relume and an executive coach who has been working with the executive teams of large listed global organisations for more than 20 years. Khurshed has written three books on how to develop leaders and cultures that challenge the status quo, and recently published some research into the lack of representation of ethnic minorities in corporate life.

This last point on public accountability is an important D&I driver to consider, Khurshed explained: “There was a big campaigning infrastructure around gender, with the 30% Club the best-known example, but a lot of resource was invested in that, with chapters all around the world all doing the same thing. There hasn’t been the same level of awareness of the Parker Review or the Lammy Review or initiatives like Business in the Community’s Race for Equality, or the same level of accountability. There is a big opportunity to occupy that space and bring everyone together, but it hasn’t been filled yet, so progress will be much slower on ethnicity.”

“There is clearly a lot of fatigue around D&I, that we’re the generation that should have fixed this, but we haven’t,” said Khurshed. “Acknowledging that it’s taken 10 years to get where we have on gender and we’re still not there yet means we need something to sustain our energy for what might be at least another decade on ethnicity.

However, while there is still more to do on gender, a lot has been achieved in that time and

MISSED OPPORTUNITY Based on its representation of employers and recruiters, the REC should have long occupied this space and driven D&I with meaningful data, but despite the BLM movement compelling many agency and RPO leaders to improve D&I in their own and client organisations, related data and analysis did not feature in the REC’s 2020 industry status report. Perhaps acknowledging

TALiNT International May / Jun 2021

15

20%

Disabled workers earn a fifth less than nondisabled peers, are the first to lose their jobs in recessions, and the last to be re-employed (TUC) this absence, Apsco and the REC jointly launched a survey for the UK Recruitment D&I Index in December, “to better understand the level of diversity within the UK recruitment sector”. Will this enable recruiters to understand how to deliver more value to clients around D&I and why this will help them to win or retain clients?

4.7%

of the 1,099 most powerful roles in the UK are filled by non-white individuals (Source: Green Park, The Colour of Power 2020 Report)

Our second speaker was Emily Ayre, MD of BRUIN Financial, which has won a TIARA D&I Award two years in a row for being the best recruitment partner. “The biggest D&I obstacle for our clients is usually process,” she explained.

“The contingent recruitment process doesn’t lend itself particularly well to diversity, so it is important to really focus on it at all stages. Often the priority is on speed to hire and automation, but we know from experience that it can take up to eight times as many approaches for a woman to consider a role by comparison to a man, so that is an education exercise that needs to be had, which can be a difficult conversation.”

BRUIN has invested in multiple initiatives to educate clients, from thought leadership events

“There is clearly a lot of fatigue around D&I, that we’re the generation that should have fixed this, but we haven’t. We need something to sustain our energy for what might be at least another decade on ethnicity.”

Khurshed Dehnugara, Partner, Relume

and training to bespoke data, candidate tools and partnerships with industry campaigns. “It’s definitely a collection of things rather than one standout initiative that makes a difference, but get your staff involved and make it part of your culture as a recruiter so it’s embedded,” Emily added. “Thought leadership and partnering with the right campaigns is an important part of educating clients, attracting different candidates and starting more of the right conversations.”

THE ROLE OF QUOTAS Emily observed that other measures should be applied more broadly. “Often, quotas seem to focus on board level diversity when it could be applied to mid-management level as well,” she explained. “We also need to look at where we are losing people. You might hit your quota on more diverse hires but what can be done to ensure they thrive? We should be looking at the use of coaching and building an inclusive culture that encourages those at management level to stay. Quotas can be good but a focus on inclusion is just as important. Inclusion is becoming a more important measure for recruiters.”

Khurshed observed that there was something ‘quite disturbing’ about how easy it was to fix diversity at board level compared to the rest of the organisation. “You can parachute people in at board level and change your representation stats quite quickly, but the much harder work was how people progress through layers of organisational life when it’s clear in these large, listed organisations that the junior intake was well-distributed across different minorities. But

TALiNT International May / Jun 2021

16

80%

D&I and the role of vendors “People feel more included when they see their Chief People Officer and CEO commenting on things like BLM because they feel included in the conversation.”

Neil Griffiths, Director, CERIPH

each time you go up a level, that distribution becomes less and less representative – to the extent that the top 100 executives had low or no representation but at board level it looked more diverse.”

LEADING CHANGE Leadership does have a transformational role to play in championing D&I. “A striking finding was that the biggest difference on gender was made by men in power, which debunked the view that women needed to do more to break through themselves, and there is a parallel here for ethnicity,” he added. “There seems to be a lot of pressure put on a small number of non-white senior executives to make the difference but, ultimately, it will be senior white people in power who make the change.”

global communications and marketing leader at Korn Ferry and AMS, who is now a director of CERIPH, a storytelling consultancy for talent leaders.

Neil Griffiths CERIPH

Adam Dale SourceBreaker

So how can CEOs be better champions of D&I in their organisations? “CEOs need to put effort into their own education about D&I and take an interest in the big issues in society so they’re not relying on the non-white members of their organisation to educate them,” said Khurshed.

“It’s not easy for them to talk about their experiences of discrimination and it shouldn’t be their responsibility to change the environment.

Male executives in power made the difference on female representation at executive team level. White executives in power will make the difference on ethnic minority representation – once they make it their fight.”

Khurshed added that CEOs need to be more comfortable with a degree of discomfort about D&I discussions. “Many worry about appearing as unskilled at best and racist at worst in the conversations that are harder to have, but good intent is always understood and the more you educate yourself, the easier those awkward conversations will be.”

This point was echoed by Neil Griffiths, a former

TALiNT International May / Jun 2021

Women are 1.8 times more likely to lose their job as a result of the pandemic, compared to men (McKinsey)

The fall in the number of employers reporting on the gender pay gap, from 10,833 in 2018 to 2,440 in 2020 (Source: CIPD)

Emily Ayre BRUIN Financial

Khurshed Dehnugara Relume

“A recent Edelman Trust report found that 86% of workers believe their CEOs should comment on the macro issues,” he explained. “People feel more included when they see their Chief People Officer and CEO commenting on things like BLM because they feel included in the conversation.”

Neil was invited to present his insights on the most common mistake made by RPOs in D&I branding and communication for their clients.

He explained that the client’s employer brand and D&I objectives can be mis-represented or lost with multiple consultants, campaigns and touchpoints.

“When a new RPO is brought on board and they need to work with a number of recruiters to support that account, they all need to be briefed on the client in the right way,” Neil explained.

“Consultants should be given information about the client’s culture, representation and purpose, as well as the target segmentation they are looking to attract.”

Neil also observes that consultants are increasingly empowered to use their own personal brands to attract candidates, particularly Gen Z. “But are consultants too reliant on their personal brands and not immersed enough in their client’s brand to attract the right people? Too often people join a company and see a different culture to the one described by the consultant or the employer’s website, which in turn leads to a high rate of attrition.”

THE ROLE OF TECH RPOs and recruiters are more reliant on technology to manage larger volumes of applications and speed up the process, but there

18 D&I and the role of vendors “The role of technology in D&I is identifying the parts where it can have an impact. One example is qualifications, expanding from just looking at A Levels to NVQs in the UK and including international equivalents.”

Adam Dale, CRO, SourceBreaker

are still limitations around D&I. “Up until recently CRMs didn’t allow you to hold diversity data appropriately, you still can’t search on most job boards by many of the key diversity characteristics, and the majority of portals don’t enable a conversation about D&I because they are too automated,” said Emily Ayre.

The final question, about how RecTech is adapting to D&I, was posed to our last panel speaker, Adam Dale, CRO of SourceBreaker. The AI-driven search and match platform for recruiters won a TIARA for Best Talent Tech Company to Work For last year.

“The role of technology in D&I is identifying the parts where it can have an impact,” Adam explained. “SourceBreaker is looking at how to open up candidate pools from different places.

One example is qualifications, expanding from just looking at A Levels to NVQs in the UK and including international equivalents. As we move to using AI and automation to augmented solutions there is scope to address issues such as the one that Emily raised, about eight times more headhunting calls for female candidates, by building in earlier pre-screening to be able to engage this candidate pool while keeping to the client’s time frames.”

84% of workers over 50 believe the recruitment process is ageist and makes it harder for them to be shortlisted (Source: FSCS/UBS survey of 600 workers over 50)

64% of professionals are aware of their employer’s D&I initiatives, compared to 32% in 2019 (Source: Robert Walters ‘Driving Diversity & Inclusion in the Workplace Strategy Report’, based on a survey of 7,500 professionals across the UK & Ireland)

Adam concluded with a final word of caution on how to optimise talent tech. “Being able to implement this at scale for large volumes of applications can be a game changer but technology is reliant on the right input for the best output. Caution needs to be used as biased previous hiring information will then drive the same matching from the system and will be less diverse.”

It’s clear that recruiters, RPOs and talent tech providers are in a strong position to help clients achieve their D&I objectives, but they can only do this if they understand how these objectives support their talent strategy, culture and purpose. l pay (Source: HRLocker

TALiNT International May / Jun 2021

22% HRs believe DEI training has raised awareness among employees, customers or suppliers (Source: Josh Bersin survey of 800 HR professionals)

12% HR leaders don’t believe in equal pay (Source: HRLocker from a survey of 260 HR leaders)

“Up until recently CRMs didn’t allow you to hold diversity data appropriately.”

Emily Ayre, MD, BRUIN Financial

Power your Performance

Access offers a unique breadth of software to power your entire business.

Website Recruitment CRM and worker app Screening and compliance Pay and bill software and outsourcing Performance analytics On-demand pay Financials Available as standalone or integrated solutions for better efficiencies

www.theaccessgroup.com/recruitment 0845 345 3300

DOWNLOAD BROCHURE

20 Advertorial – PSD Group

The race to equality

Ebony James, a consultant in PSD’s Banking and Financial Services and Professional Services Practices, offers a recruiter’s perspective on race, diversity and inclusion

In recent times, we have seen a crucial focus on diversity and inclusion across many industries.

This has included seeking more women in senior leadership positions, encouraging BAME members into the business, understanding the needs of professionals with disabilities or mental health conditions and supporting LGBTQ+ communities and their rights.

The last decade saw diversity strategies centre principally around gender equality. Progress is being made, and the number of women in senior management roles globally has grown to 29% (an increase of 5% since 2018). However, we still have further to go before we reach true gender equality.

Less light has been shone on issues of race and tackling the inequality and systematic bias that surrounds promoting or hiring BAME professionals. This was thrown into the spotlight following the shocking killing of George Floyd and the growing Black Lives Matter movement, which has sparked debate and ignited people’s passion to act.

The Colour Of Power 2020 report, conducted by Green Park, highlighted the fact that less than 5% of the most senior jobs across UK companies, government and public bodies are held by people from ethnic minority groups. To quantify this, only 52 out of 1,099 of the most powerful roles in the UK are occupied by members of the non-white community. Clearly the biggest priority should be increasing representation at the senior and executive board level.

As a female mixed-race recruitment consultant within the financial and professional services sectors, two of the largest sectors contributing to the UK’s economy, I felt I was uniquely placed to gain perspectives on the issue. I think back to my own journey and frustrations as I remember the pressure I felt from an early age to stand out

TALiNT International May / Jun 2021

more than my white peers to get noticed. There have been instances where I’ve felt discriminated against; being told ‘I wasn’t the right fit’ for certain opportunities.

Ebony James, PSD Group

The lack of diversity in these businesses made me question whether it was perhaps the colour of my skin, my gender or my working-class background that prevented me from ‘fitting in.’

It’s for these reasons that I felt compelled to explore viewpoints from executives and D&I leaders across both sectors.

THE BENEFITS We currently hear a lot about ‘ESG’ (environmental, social and governance), and if we look at what the ‘S’ in this stands for, ‘social’ relates to representing the community.

Increasing the number of BAME employees at a senior level will not only create a culture which embodies this inclusivity, but it will help naturally drive business in the customer-based community. As emphasised by Roger Dix, CRO from Wesleyan: “It’s important that we do the right thing for the right reasons!”

Individuals are choosing ethical brands when it comes to making purchase decisions. Likewise, professionals are considering how socially and ethically responsible a business is when considering a role and their future career. It’s important that people feel aligned with the intrinsic values of a company and believe they can bring their whole self to work; this can be key to keeping your talent or pushing them towards a competitor.

THE CHALLENGES Many leaders recognise that without fully understanding the demographics within their business, it’s difficult to improve on their diversity statistics. But employees need to feel safe and encouraged to volunteer their ethnicity

21

job adverts and interview processes free from unconscious bias? If offices are not based in a diverse area, do we have remote working options for non-local candidates?

It is important to work with executive search and recruitment firms that have diversity at the forefront of their agenda.

We have seen many organisations strengthen their diversity policies, champion diversity leads and make big strides with initiatives such as:

information. Zurich Insurance reported an excellent staff declaration rate of 85% for race before bringing in behavioural scientists to understand retention and career development e.g. promotions across BAME employees.

• Reverse mentoring schemes where execs have an opportunity to learn and ask questions of staff at other levels – Standard Life Aberdeen has pioneered this, working hard with its network group Unity to implement.

Whilst the statistics make for difficult reading, it is imperative that we understand the true demographics of the business so we can reflect and look pragmatically at the next steps. “Having this information allows us to honestly look at where we are on our D&I journey, and from there effect positive change,” says Pippa Marler, Diversity and Inclusion lead at Weightmans LLP.

• Executive led and supported networks, groups and safe spaces internally. Vannessa Whitehead, co-chair of Unity (race network group), suggests having leaders who belong to the community they are representing is critical for engagement.

Powerful allies from outside are equally vital.

• Community programmes and apprenticeship schemes aimed at breaking down barriers from an entry level perspective. Direct Line Group’s £3.5m Covid-19 community fund helped the most vulnerable in society in their time of need.

The idea of imposing targets or quotas meets with expectedly mixed responses. Employees especially feel they might create a sense of tick box hiring or possibly upset colleagues already in the business, leading to resentment. But targets can be a positive commitment to keep the organisation on track with diversity.

• Establish your D&I strategy early and form a steering group of leaders, allies and employees to drive the strategy forward. Weightmans LLP has a dedicated D&I Lead who coordinates the voluntary Steering Group, which is supported by a wide network of D&I Champions from all areas and pay grades.

Business in the Community’s (BITC) Race At Work Charter encourages percentage targets for the board. Targets are also championed by Nathan Wallis, Head of Culture and Engagement at Wesleyan Assurance Society: “We need them to measure our progress and have a realistic goal to work towards.” People are more productive when having clear objectives.

RECRUITMENT STRATEGIES There are three parties that share the responsibility of achieving diversity: the organisation, exec search and agency partners, and the candidates themselves.

From an organisation perspective, where it has been difficult to attract diverse applicants, questions should be asked internally such as: are we making ourselves attractive to wider communities? Do we portray an inclusive culture? Are we using the right language? Are all

• ‘Talk about Race’ and ‘Bring Yourself To Work’ campaigns – ensuring safe spaces are created for positive discourse and discussions.

For more information about how PSD Group can support your D&I initiatives and executive recruitment, visit https://www. psdgroup.com/

• Legislation - reporting on ethnicity pay gaps.

This is likely to soon be debated in the House of Commons and pushed by regulators, as was the case with gender pay gap reporting in 2018. This is an agenda supported by the Association of British Insurers.

Whether you are a leader, manager or individual there is always something you can do. Don’t just listen, provide a platform for the voices on your team – get past the awkwardness and start embracing uncomfortable conversations.

TALiNT International May / Jun 2021

22 PointSix Member Profile: Affi Khan, CEO, CPL UK “You can’t have inclusivity without flexibility. You can’t say you welcome every race, gender, class or religion if they are all expected to behave like clones."

Leading inclusion TI talks to PointSix member Affi Khan, CEO of CPL UK, about how recruiters can be better D&I partners Affi Khan is a recruitment start-up specialist who built and grew RIG Locums within Recruitment Investment Group to £20m in sales in four years before merging it with another healthcare recruiter within RIG and selling to CPL Resources PLC in 2017. Affi now leads CPL UK across the health and tech sectors.

In 2020, CPL was crowned with a TIARA Tech Transformation Award for its speed in developing its MyCpl staffing platform in response to Covid-19. A British-Asian who grew up in a council estate, having left school at 16 and started work with no degree, Affi is a high-profile champion of diversity, equality and inclusion in recruitment.

Why should D&I be a priority for recruiters and their clients?

D&I is clearly not just an HR issue; it should be a high priority for boards across the world. A well balanced and inclusive business benefits from wider intellectual diversity as well. This allows the nuances of different cultures, races, demographics, genders, ages, values and beliefs to be better appreciated, serviced and optimised. This makes a business more in tune, aligned and understanding of its own customers and their drivers. By accepting that a more diverse, inclusive business can have a wider customer appeal, bigger addressable market and greater profit opportunity, we can see D&I as a key driver of value in a business.

Why should inclusion be a more important measure of success for recruiters?

The biggest challenge for recruiters is helping employers to retrofit D&I because an exclusive culture has already been established. Too often D&I is a token effort, and the risk of tokenism is

TALiNT International May / Jun 2021

that people will join but won’t stay – and it seems unfair to blame recruiters for that.

By Alex Evans, Programme Director TALiNTPartners

We all want long-term partnerships with our clients and attrition is a measure we should be using to prove long-term value. Therefore, I would like to see more recruiters sitting on the advisory boards of companies. For example, when a tech firm is scaling up and has secured funding, they’re not just thinking of a recruiter as and when they need to hire lots of people because it’s then too late.

Recruiters should be advising on a TA strategy, building a D&I programme within that, and then making the most of all the tools available, such as gender decoded job ads, competency-based talent pooling and value-driven hiring decisions.

If D&I has always been part of the strategy, then someone coming in doesn’t feel like there’s a culture of tokenism and ticking boxes. If the founders, leadership team, core processes, cultural mindset and intellectual diversity is there, then you can authentically offer inclusion and belonging to anyone and everyone.

Recruiters can’t keep relying on a job spec because if it’s not truly representative of the talent strategy the D&I problem will persist.

“We all want long-term partnerships with our clients and attrition is a measure we should be using to prove long-term value. Therefore, I would like to see more recruiters sitting on the advisory boards of companies.”

23

Recruiters should be engaging C level to understand their talent strategy, then D level on tactics, and recruiter to recruiter on actual delivery. Then you can use the talent tech to automate and remove some of unconscious biases that remain, despite all of the training and development. It’s another important way for the recruitment industry to professionalise.

How should CEOs drive inclusion in their businesses?

You can’t have inclusivity without flexibility. You can’t say you welcome every race, gender, class or religion if they are all expected to behave like clones.

It’s inflexibility about hiring practices and how and where people work that creates obstacles to diversity and inclusion. If CEOs are inflexible about working practices, and don’t address the systemic obstacles to inclusivity, they will keep favouring the same demographic or keep making the same mistakes with tokenism.

How do you drive inclusion in your business?

Driving on merit is only a start, so for us equality in opportunity is first and foremost. How can results be measured as equal if opportunities are not provided equally? Glass cliffs, perhaps, are even more damaging to D&I then glass ceilings.

Clear career roadmaps, objective markers for progression and competency-based hiring, underpinned by values, all are key. Valuing and truly respecting intellectual diversity is how we drive inclusion in our business.

One size certainly does not fit all, and we encourage our people to find their own route to success in a way that aligns to their own antecedence, heuristics and idiosyncrasies. We

encourage an environment where people can embrace inclusivity by respecting each other’s differences. We are all different but together.

Affi Khan, CEO, Cpl UK

Would you fire a toxic top biller and why?

Yes absolutely. As Sir Alex Ferguson famously said, “no player is bigger than the team”. As recruiters we do not make a product, our service is all we are, and our brand is therefore paramount. Toxic people are often only in it for themselves, irrespective of how good they might be as an individual. The damage they cause to the brand, the team and the culture far exceeds whatever they might be billing.

Recruitment businesses are generally poor at accounting for the cost of lost opportunity. We apply as an estimate the same cost to a business of detractors in net promoter scoring and feel one top billing toxic recruiter costs us five average performers. It’s not worth it; get them off the bus!

What do you value most from your membership of PointSix? The UK staffing market is the most competitive in the world, with circa 45k registered recruitment companies. Even if half are dormant, per capita that is still the most fragmented landscape in the world. Therefore, a one-size-fits-all approach to networking simply does not work.

The challenges a leader of a 10-person recruitment business faces are often very different to that of a 100-strong recruiter. This is why I value PointSix so much as a niche network for scaling and large recruiters, because it addresses the challenges which are most relevant to their member community of executives from the UK’s top 500 recruiters.

TALiNT International May / Jun 2021

24 D&I in Talent Acquisition

“Try everything and measure the results – it is not a sprint, it is a marathon.”

Catalina Schveninger, Chief People Officer at FutureLearn

Putting D&I front and centre

The long-standing resistance to flexible working was overcome in the face of the pandemic, so could this crisis also bring about real progress in diversity and inclusion in talent acquisition processes?

Last month, TALiNT Partners hosted an online conference entitled ‘Shaking up D&I in Talent Acquisition’ as part of its TALiNT Advantage programme. Why do we want to shake it up?

Because strategies developed more than 10 years ago are still being repackaged and passed off as innovative, regardless of their limited impact in driving real results.

Given how much the global pandemic has affected the D&I landscape, now would seem the perfect time to take a fresh look at how employers are driving change and inclusivity.

for additional responsibilities, taking on projects or working extended hours. Many women have stepped back from promotional opportunities, additional training and job applications.

By Debra Sparshott Employer Programme Director TALiNT Partners

The impact of the pandemic on gender equality has been significant, with an unwelcome by-product emerging in that career inequality between women and men has widened.

According to McKinsey’s 2020 ‘Women in the Workplace’ report, women’s jobs are 1.8 times more vulnerable to the current crisis than men’s. The report also highlights that despite Women made making up just 39% of the workforce, women up 54% of job losses in have made up 54% of overall job losses during the pandemic, despite the pandemic. accounting for just 39% of the workforce Allison Macquire, Head of Recruitment, Emerging Talent and D&I for Eversheds (Source: McKinsey's Women Sutherland, told our audience of senior HR and in the Workplace report) talent acquisition leaders that women had been affected in two main ways.

First, she referenced “society’s reliance on women during the pandemic”, with cultural and social norms leading to the bulk of home schooling and care for elderly or vulnerable relatives falling to women. With the added burden of family care, many women have had neither the bandwidth or time to do “more” in their roles, whether that is putting their hand up

TALiNT International May / Jun 2021

Second, many of the sectors most directly impacted by the pandemic, in terms of redundancies and extended periods of furlough, employ a high percentage of women. Allison quoted the International Labour Organisation’s ‘Covid-19 and the World of Work’ report, which found that 41% of employed women were in sectors at “high risk of severe Covid-19 in terms of job losses and decline in work hours”, for example, hospitality, retail and travel.

To redress the balance, employers need to examine how individual employees have been impacted, and to provide access to opportunities that will encourage women to feel confident that they have the support they need. Allison challenged organisations to consider their promotion criteria in terms of the discretionary effort often associated with promotions, and also how other behaviours often recognised and rewarded, might deter, or impact their talented women from applying or being considered.

THE POWER OF GOOD DATA Considering job applications on a case-by-case basis requires time and good visibility of the data. Andy Randall, CEO of eArcu, pointed out there is a danger in using generalisations when it comes to driving change in D&I. Averages can skew the reality of regional and cultural differences, for example, considering the diversity of new hire and employee populations against regional demographics is meaningless without understanding how representative they are to the location in question – hiring across

15

ethnic minority groups in London is very different to the same hiring in, say, Norwich.

Andy also highlighted the fact that “dimensions of diversity” have changed over the past decade.

D&I targets in the UK are largely still based on the 2011 census. New categories in the 2021 census, such as gender identity and sexual orientation, are expected to bring new areas of focus for employers in 2022 and beyond.

Putting D&I data front and centre is a differentiator for both new talent and existing employees. In eArcu’s recent jobseeker survey, 70% of respondents saw commitment to diversity as important. That means employers need to not only take steps to improve D&I, but also prove the impact and shout about it in any brand messaging.

One organisation shouting publicly about its achievements in D&I is the BBC. Nina Goswami, Creative Diversity Lead, announced the 2021 results of the 50:50 challenge, where 70% of BBC teams managed to achieve gender balance in the month of March. The BBC initiative started in the London newsroom and is now driving cultural change by increasing diverse representation not only across the organisation, but also its partner relationships.

The whole programme is underpinned by data, with a focus on measuring and setting targets for what is within its control and influencing what is not. Nina pointed out that the BBC’s content makers cannot always control the reporters or presenters used, but by tracking this they are able to give feedback and influence future

Allison MacQuire Eversheds Sutherland

Andy Randall eArcu

planning, without compromising on quality.

The principle behind 50:50 is based on the BBC being more representative of its consumers; for audiences to see themselves reflected in the people on screen. It is a high-profile example of something employers around the globe are struggling with, creating an organisation that is reflective of its customer base.

Nina reported that 41 partners of the 100-strong global network that spans 26 countries published their data for the first time publicly.

Half of the partner organisations reached at least 50% female representation, compared to a third when they first started monitoring.

Meanwhile, at the BBC, an audience survey conducted by YouGov suggested the shift in the use of women in programming was being noticed by 62% of the BBC’s audience.

DOES FLEXIBILITY MAKE A DIFFERENCE? The rise of flexible working due to the pandemic has been well documented. There are mixed views on how this has impacted the mutual relationship between employer and employee.

Nina Goswami BBC

As Paul Deemer, Head of D&I for NHS Employers, put it, there has been a “shift in the psychological contract”, and with it the balance of power. Flexible working is no longer a differentiator for employers, it is a candidate expectation.

In addition, with the introduction of shielding, there is more visibility on employee health.

Along with employees living with underlying health conditions, those with hidden disabilities

TALiNT International May / Jun 2021

26 D&I in Talent Acquisition “The integration of D&I within an organisation’s overall commercial strategy, rather than it being a side project, drives a fundamental change of approach.”

(e.g. diabetes or colitis) have been highlighted as a cause for employer concern. NHS Employers conducted a survey of these employees to better understand their experience in lockdown.

Three-quarters of the 5,000 respondents had some form of disability. While there were instances of feeling isolated, particularly amongst those with mental health issues, many of those with disabilities were positive about the experience, having found a new balance in managing their condition whilst also working effectively from home.

Paul suggests that this creates a case for a recalibration of working practices, expanding the parameters of what constitutes a reasonable adjustment. He believes this could be broadened to include adjustments for other protected characteristics, such as age, ethnicity and gender.

This could create greater access to talent that might otherwise have been limited by the workplace or their personal constraints. But what’s the best way to access this talent without coming up against the same hurdles that have caused so many previous projects to fail?

According to Catalina Schveninger, Chief People Officer at FutureLearn, if the science tells us anything, it is that organisations cannot move the dial by doing just one thing in isolation.

Unconscious bias training may or may not raise understanding and awareness, blind screening provides a more skills-based filter, paying attention to language and messaging reduces self-deselection and structured interviews can be extremely impactful in increasing unbiased hiring decisions.

As with the BBC, FutureLearn has looked at its consumers to shape its D&I aspirations, seeking to mirror the diversity of its learner base.

One critical ingredient to success, Catalina stressed, is clarity of purpose on D&I. The integration of D&I within an organisation’s overall commercial strategy, rather than it being a side project, drives a fundamental change of

TALiNT International May / Jun 2021

approach as inclusivity goals and targets are intrinsically linked to operational and commercial success, policy making, performance targets and rewards.

Paul Deemer NHS Employers

Catalina recommends being guided by the data and science: “Try everything and measure the results – it is not a sprint, it is a marathon.”

Guidant Global has also taken a similar approach and seen positive results. Karina Townley, Guidant’s Managing Director for EMEA, said the organisation had challenged itself to seek excellence in its own D&I to improve the quality of client operations, as well as better support clients with their own change strategies.

Catalina Schveninger FutureLearn

She said support from the top had been fundamental in the success of driving lasting change. Karina describes the company’s D&I programmes as “employee-led” and “passionfilled”, with five ‘Ambassador’ groups providing challenges, input and ideas across each area of diversity. As a technology-enabled programme, employees have a platform to share their stories and raise awareness through peer-to-peer communication.

During the pandemic, Guidant was able to broaden the scope of its D&I tools to support employee welfare during periods of furlough and remote working, offering unfiltered communication and connection to its teams. In this way, it was able to closely monitor staff wellbeing and happiness and was therefore able to assess any risks or challenges as they arose throughout the whole period.

EMPLOYER TAKEAWAYS There were some consistent themes throughout the event. The importance of boardroom sponsorship and employee buy-in are well known, but perhaps there also are lessons to be learned from the pandemic.

If long-established barriers to change can be overturned in days to maintain operations when necessary, then can we challenge the barriers to creativity and develop new practices that create a better and more inclusive workplace for every person?

28 Workforce Futurist: Tech and Inclusion "Tweaking job descriptions will not shift centuries of conditioning, but achieving more balanced and cognitively diverse teams might improve design decisions."

Proven progress

How an evidence-based process enabled by the right tech solutions can help TA teams to drive D&I In its Gender Gap Report 2018, the World Economic Forum found that 78% of data science and AI professionals globally were male, while 22% were women. When nearly 80% of those in a team are men, what could go wrong?

I took some photos of several emerging HR tech vendors using chatbots at a tech conference in Las Vegas and a clear trend emerged. Jane, Evie, Olivia, Mya and Ally all appear to be female. An app is just a tool – algorithms used on data – and it certainly isn’t gendered. Product designers struggle with the challenge that people respond better to an app that has human characteristics.

a workforce that is agile enough to respond to changes quickly. A holistic approach is required to ensure that the culture, processes, employee data, workforce technology leadership and practices are aligned.

Andrew Spence, Workforce Futurist

That’s the theory. In practice, many organisations will require a shift in mindset, culture and operational practices. They will also need the right data and technology to make workforce decisions.

Let’s flip the AI gender gap problem around.

How can we use AI to hire more women into teams? The obvious answer is by anonymising job descriptions and using tools to make tone and language more inclusive. Tweaking JDs will not shift centuries of conditioning, but achieving more balanced and cognitively diverse teams might improve design decisions.

Our experience of the pandemic is influenced by our age, health, gender, ethnicity, location, wealth and occupation. Some occupations have had more exposure to the risk of disease, for example, healthcare. In certain jobs such as dental nurses and midwives, women make up 75% of the roles, with 20% BAME compared to 11% of the working population (ONS).

THE GREAT RETURN Organisations with staff working remotely (estimated to be 30-40% of UK workers) are now planning the ‘great return’. There is emerging evidence that the transition back to the office is more likely in male-dominated organisations, and that it is less likely to suit women. Every business change impacting the workforce will have a diversity component.

As industries restructure, organisations will need

TALiNT International May / Jun 2021

Good D&I practices are no different to the steps needed to achieve other business goals. To change behaviour, organisations need to develop relevant goals and metrics, get buy-in from stakeholders and communicate effectively.

Here are some practical tips to improve workforce inclusion: Use an evidence-based process to identify the root cause of inclusion challenges, and critically assess which practices have a better chance of working. Avoid knee-jerk solutions including off-the-shelf training.

CIPD research on UK employers found that while 71% of employers report on their gender diversity, just 21% report on their BAME diversity

Capture the right workforce data across the employee life cycle. CIPD research of UK employers found 71% of employers report on gender, but just 21% report on BAME diversity.

The only legal requirements UK employers have to report on diversity demographics regard gender and, in Northern Ireland, religion.

A general principle is to only measure workforce data if you have a reason for doing so.

Understand the nature and extent of organisational challenges, for example, the gender pay gap, inequality in career progression, or barriers to participation in work for those with disabilities or caring responsibilities.

Descriptive workforce measures might include

29

anonymous applications are used. An industrial manufacturer used people analytics to look at the talent acquisition process and found that as women moved through the hiring process, more were dropped during the interview stage. The company took strategic, programmatic action to reduce unconscious bias and increased the success rate of women and minorities entering and advancing through the hiring process.

IMPROVE THE JOB DESCRIPTION JDs are often subject to plenty of ‘cutting and pasting’. Textio has been used to statistically analyse response patterns to different words, including those in the job description. With gender responses, the phrases, “Work hard, play hard” or “Coding Ninja” attracted more men to adverts, and words such as “adaptable and creative” attracted more women.

distribution of age, gender, tenure, disability and sexual orientation or gender identity. Other people data includes pay, promotions, employee turnover and grievance data. Broader demographic categories might include social class. Workers who come from lower social-class origins in the United States are 32% less likely to become managers than those who come from higher social-class origins.

Make sure you have the capability to measure workforce sentiment, and managers are empowered to not only listen but to act to make improvements.

ORGANISATIONAL NETWORK ANALYSIS Look at actual socialising behaviour to see if different groups behave in different ways. ONA has proved to be effective in D&I initiatives monitoring collaboration patterns by gender, age and ethnicity. This can highlight potential conflict areas where intervention might be needed. For example, a software firm found that there were gender differences in promotion to manager, even though the graduate intake was balanced.

By looking at socialising behaviour they were able to make interventions such as mentoring to reduce gender differences.

Root out bias in your existing management and HR processes by conducting a review and making high-impact changes as quickly as possible. Humans are susceptible to many different types of bias, from affinity bias (we feel as though we have a natural connection with people who are similar to us) to confirmation bias (we look to confirm our own opinions and pre-existing ideas about a particular group of people) and these apply to HR processes.

Consider using standards such as the BSI and ISO HR management suite and Investors in People (IiP) to provide principle-based frameworks and guidelines and to ensure people polices and working practices are bias-free.

THE UPSHOT To improve inclusion in your workforce, the solution is not to focus on a particular demographic, run D&I as yet another HR silo or launch a round of unconscious bias training.

Pace yourself. Long-term changes to working practices and infrastructure take time. Prioritise ruthlessly with high-impact, low-effort changes.

For inspiration, here are some ways you can use technology to improve workforce inclusion: DITCH THE CV Beapplied have a tool that gets rid of CVs, and tests for skills and work samples upfront. This is because the more we know about a candidate, the more grounds for bias we have, so

Andrew Spence writes the Workforce Futurist Newsletter and tweets @AndySpence. https://workforcefuturist. substack.com/

The longer-term solution for HR is to generally improve your analytics, culture, processes and leadership to ensure that the organisation has the capability to make necessary changes. This involves listening to all workers, to hear what they are saying and to act in a meaningful way.

Technology is not the whole answer but it can help to improve workforce inclusion, fairness and productivity if implemented sensibly using evidence-based practice.

TALiNT International May / Jun 2021

30 Talent Solutions: Market Trends “We find the right client, who really does care about D&I and cares about the cultural shift, will pay the margins. If it’s a tick-box exercise, they won’t, and it becomes part of your managed service offering.”

The Long Game

Demand for RPO, MSP and SoW services is booming but it’s for short term, interim projects instead of the long-term partnerships that enable providers to demonstrate greater value Talent solutions providers are increasingly being asked to do more with less. Battered from the financial ramifications of Covid-19, more and more companies are turning to RPO and MSP to resolve their talent dilemmas. They expect more holistic, strategic solutions centred on diversity and inclusion, upskilling, reskilling and internal mobility. The key question for providers is how to meet these demands within a sustainable commercial model, especially as organisations are starting to expect these services as part of a standard offering.

The role of talent solutions providers in helping employers with their skills and reskilling agendas was the topic of two Cornerstone OnDemand and TALiNT Partners virtual roundtables held at the end of March.

Attended by global and national leaders in RPO, MSP and total talent solutions, the roundtable discussions were hosted by Andrew Brown, Head of Recruitment Outsourcing Partners at Cornerstone OnDemand; Ken Brotherston, Managing Director and Debra Sparshott, Employer Programme Director at TALiNT Partners.

LOOK BEYOND THE HYPE It is no exaggeration to say that the outsourcing sector is booming. Just over a year since the outbreak of the pandemic, there has been a significant surge in demand for RPO and MSP services across the board as employers react to hiring spikes, as well as ongoing demand for talent, both in specialist and high-volume areas.

Employers that drastically reduced their inhouse HR teams a year ago are now scrambling to keep up with demand, resulting in more companies turning to outsourcing.

TALiNT International May / Jun 2021

The trend has fuelled increased interest from investors, who eye MSP/RPO as a better prospect for returns than permanent or contingent recruitment models.

By Dawn Gibson, Features Writer

However, a lot of the demand is reactive, driven by short-term projects rather than long-term commitments. An executive for a global RPO and contingent talent provider summed up the situation as “two-thirds panic purchase and one-third strategic”.

“We’ve seen more growth in the last two and a half quarters than ever before and it shows no sign of slowing down,” he added. “However, it’s organisations looking at large-scale projects over six to 12 months to fulfil some of the pent-up need. It is like this in every market, but the US is most prominent, followed by Europe and Asia.”

The managing director of an MSP/RPO provider described project recruitment as the sector’s ‘heroin’. “Yes, we’re busy, everyone is busy, we all need recruiters, and recruiters’ salaries are going up – but it’s for the wrong sort of revenue, which doesn’t help my investors or me,” he said. “I want long-term, contracted RPO and MSP revenue. I don’t want the drug that is project recruitment.”

This response may seem counter-intuitive but, in a busy market, the implementation and resourcing of short-term projects is a struggle, as TALiNT Partners’ Debra Sparshott explained.

“Most solution providers do not have a bench of available resource, and interim work is not an attractive proposition when so many are looking to hire recruitment talent. Project RPOs tend to stretch existing resource, leading to team

15

burnout and impacting other accounts.”

IS TOTAL TALENT MANAGEMENT THE ANSWER? The pandemic has accelerated the trend towards total talent management solutions – the integration of TA and talent management functions into one entity, requiring long-term strategic planning around upskilling and reskilling, internal mobility, retention, leadership succession and career planning.

But while employers, especially larger ones, are interested in total talent solutions, there are big question marks over how providers can successfully monetise these services and whether employers are prepared to do their share of the work required to ensure success.

While expectations have risen, budgets usually have not, and in some cases, organisations are pushing to reduce costs while still demanding value-added services.

“It’s a great idea but the level of effort required from the client to support it is something they are not always conscious of, or willing to contribute to, whether financially or with their time,” said one talent solutions leader.

Another talent executive said providers needed to do a better job of educating their clients regarding the value of their services.

For example, there is a big difference between managing the administration required for an internal mobility project and driving the whole programme, including putting the technology and processes to support it in place.

While skills shortages have propelled organisations to seek different solutions, most have not yet reached the pain point required to trigger significant change.

Andrew Brown Cornerstone OnDemand

“As organisations realise the skills that didn’t exist pre-pandemic still don’t exist, this will become an increasingly urgent agenda item,” the CEO of an RPO provider predicted. “Too often the academic world has failed the business world, as people are leaving school with the wrong skills.

“The only way we are going to satisfy the demands of organisations is helping them reskill and [remove] obsolete skills. I think this is very much going to be part of our world in the next five years.”

A talent leader at an international group said clients are increasingly aware that internal mobility and upskilling are key to fixing talent gaps. “They are trying to work out where those little pockets of brilliance within their organisations lie,” she said. “We are certainly having conversations with our clients about how they drive internal mobility, how to keep their best people and give them career pathways and opportunities they wouldn’t otherwise have had.

I think it’s definitely an evolution in how clients are prepared to do some of that groundwork.”

RETURN TO THE OFFICE Attendees had strong feelings about how hybrid working worked for them, their teams and their clients. While it seems extremely unlikely most organisations will go back to a five-days-a-week

TALiNT International May / Jun 2021

32 Talent Solutions: Market Trends “We’re busy, everyone is busy, we all need recruiters, and recruiters’ salaries are going up, but it’s for the wrong sort of revenue. I want long-term, contracted RPO and MSP revenue. I don’t want the drug that is project recruitment.” model, it is too early to assess what kind of hybrid working pattern will be most successful at balancing productivity and staff expectations.

For many senior staff, remote working has proven efficient and productive, enabling, for example, an executive to attend meetings in four different countries on the same day. However, the loss of socialisation and learning opportunities from face-to-face interaction is particularly acute for new and younger staff.

Employers also face the challenge of ensuring fairness for employees whose roles cannot be performed remotely. Within the next three to six months, organisations that try to force staff back into offices risk losing workers to competitors with a more flexible approach.

D&I: MANAGING EXPECTATIONS The conversation around diversity and inclusion has become more nuanced. Whereas 10 years ago, this was largely confined to gender equality, organisations are now just as focused on ethnic diversity and representation of other minority groups, as well as D&I strategies for contingent as well as permanent talent.

However, there is a big division between companies that are genuinely committed to D&I and those that still consider it a compliance exercise. “What we are finding with companies we are working with is that the people driving growth do genuinely believe in their diversity and inclusion agenda,” one talent solutions leader explained. “But we also have some corporate clients where you feel it is an edict that has come down from above and people don’t really buy into it.”

Companies are now increasingly likely to view D&I as a standard part of their suppliers’ capabilities, not an extra they are willing to pay more for. “It is expected to be part of your core offering from start to finish, as opposed to historically it was an extra or value-added or a way to differentiate yourself,” said the managing director of a global talent solutions group.

TALiNT International May / Jun 2021

However, a partner in a talent consultancy said it really is dependent on the client. “We find the right client, who really does care about it and cares about the cultural shift, will pay the margins. If it’s a tick-box exercise, they won’t, and it becomes part of your managed service offering,” he explained.

Providers face a similar challenge around D&I as they do with total talent solutions – of tempering unrealistic expectations and educating clients to understand that the process won’t work without their genuine commitment and effort.

“A lot of it is getting your client to realise that they are part of the solution and they have to work equally as hard as you as a recruiter to embed their D&I strategy,” said the director of a total talent solutions provider. “There is a huge expectation on the recruitment provider, whether it be MSP, RPO or SoW. “On one hand, you are told, let’s bring in D&I around ethnicity or gender. On the other, you are told you have to hit your KPIs and they want to see four CVs for every role, and they want to see them next week. Anything is possible, but if they want this to be a strategic, embedded process, they need to help their hiring managers, or our hiring managers, get on the same page with that.”

An executive at an international RPO provider described how his company had refused to commercialise its D&I strategy because it was still working out ways to improve its own D&I. “Our approach is that if we are going to sell what we do within that marketplace, we will go to the market when we have achieved something. That may well put us behind some of our large competitors who have invested heavily in these programmes, but our differentiator is that we are authentic,” he said.

Those looking for meaningful, long-term relationships with clients will have to manage expectations in the short term as they invest in transformation.

RPO More Value Than You Think REGISTER NOW

Wednesday 24 th March 11:15am – 12:30pm Join our interactive workshop and discover the value RPO can bring to your talent acquisition strategy.

Speakers will include Flogas Britain’s HR Business Partner Karen Birch and Omni’s Louise Shaw, who will demonstrate how an agile RPO approach can unlock cost and process efficiencies while making tangible improvements to candidate experience and D&I.

RPO | MSP | CONSULTANCY | OUTPLACEMENT www.omnirms.com

enquiries@omnirms.com

omni-rms

34 Retention & Internal Mobility “If you are not making it easy to be mobile within your own organisation, it’s making it easy for people to poach your staff and making it easy to leave.”

Louise West, Director of Client Solutions, Guidant Global

Retrain to retain

Staff retention and internal mobility are two of the biggest challenges facing organisations in 2021, so how are HR leaders and TA teams adapting?

The market volatility caused by the outbreak of Covid-19 in early 2020 has settled down to some extent. Companies are once again hiring, sometimes at a frantic pace, to return to operational normality.

However, business as usual it is anything but.

The world of work has changed fundamentally.

Enforced remote working has paved the way for hybrid work patterns in companies that would not have entertained the idea two years ago.

Accelerated digitalisation has transformed organisations globally, while the relationship between employers and employees has become one of greater equality.

On 31 March, TALiNT Partners held one of its popular wine and cheese virtual roundtables with Guidant Global to debate the impact of the pandemic on the retention and development of the internal talent needed to deliver revised business goals and change programmes.

Co-hosted by Louise West, Director of Client Solutions at Guidant Global, alongside Debra Sparshott, Employer Programme Director at TALiNT Partners, guests included global and national leaders in HR and talent acquisition from prestigious public and private sector organisations across government, aviation, food manufacturing, consumer products, technology, energy and professional services.

NEW ROLES, MORE COMPETITION Rapid digitalisation is arguably the most important business transformation to emerge as a result of the pandemic. While many organisations had been pushing a digital agenda for years, Covid-19 upped the ante in a matter of months, forcing managers who previously hid

TALiNT International May / Jun 2021

behind a pile of paperwork to rapidly adapt to online platforms.

By Dawn Gibson, Features Writer

This has created not only a raft of new roles, but also the requirement for new skill sets in existing roles, for example, sales staff with an understanding of e-commerce. It has also required talent teams to act nimbly – one HR executive described how she felt they had missed an opportunity in their large, varied workforce by sending staff members home without finding ways to repurpose roles.

To add to the challenge, the competition for talent is incredibly fierce. While many companies experienced low attrition as employees clung to their jobs in 2020, workers have been more confident about changing employers in 2021, exacerbated by the rise of ‘borderless recruitment’. Previously, a company would have considered its competitors to be other companies in the same sector within a certain geographical radius. Now, the same company could face competition from any company offering similar roles anywhere in the country, or indeed, anywhere in the world.

In many cases, staff turnover spikes are linked to employee burnout. Workers are reluctant to take holidays as they have nowhere to go, and are suffering from an overload of video conferencing and virtual presenteeism.

BECOMING AN EMPLOYER OF CHOICE In the new world of work, two factors are essential to differentiate a company: an authentic wellbeing agenda driven by effective employee engagement and pro-active people managers; and a nuanced approach to office-based, hybrid and remote working

15

which acknowledges that there is no one-sizefits-all solution.

HR and talent leaders have found their own roles rewritten. At the coalface of redundancy and furlough programmes, while simultaneously tasked with fostering engagement across newly dispersed workforces, people managers are being required to be much more proactive and forward-thinking.

One global talent leader described how people managers are under considerable pressure to lead with empathy. “In the last year, our EVP has been very much around caring for and looking after our colleagues,” she explained.

“And, yes, that has been great for engagement and retention, but it is a stretch as we are asking our people managers to evolve this skill set overnight.”

Recent employee surveys demonstrated they had taken the right approach, as engagement scores had rocketed. However, wellbeing scores were low: “We have ramped up various activities around wellbeing in response, but this was already on our radar: we knew people were struggling, and it doesn’t take a survey to know that about your workforce right now.”

OFFICE, REMOTE AND HYBRID WORKING For many employees, remote or flexible working is now regarded very much as a ‘hygiene factor’.

While working from home two days a week used to be a sought-after perk, organisations that don’t offer flexible options in the new world of work will find themselves overlooked by top

talent in preference for employers that do.

But the challenge of providing a model that meets both employee and employer needs is complicated, even after acknowledging that a significant proportion of workers cannot work off-site. While many workers are keen to return to a traditional office routine for at least part of the week, for example, young employees who miss socialising and are tired of trying to work on their laptop in a cramped flat share, there are many people who have enthusiastically embraced home working because it fits in better with their lifestyle and they are in no hurry to return to long commutes.

Talent leaders described how their organisations are rethinking offices. While there was a need for shared space for collaborative activities such as workshops, most companies recognised they did not need to rent space just so people could sit behind a desk and answer emails.

The executive director of a technology company described how her organisation had decided whether workers should be working in the office, remotely, or in a hybrid capacity based on the activities within their role, rather than factors such as title or gender. Workers could opt to be in the office if they wished, but in most cases, did not have to be.

“The reason we are doing this is not for retention – we think that is the happy consequence – but because we think people will be more productive and more engaged, and our pulse surveys are proving this,” she said.

TALiNT International May / Jun 2021

36 Retention & Internal Mobility “Let’s not differentiate; you’re building both internal and external talent – why should we look at them and hold them so separately?”

INTERNAL MOBILITY The case for leveraging internal mobility has never been more compelling. While organisations face an overwhelming number of candidates applying for some vacancies, they are frequently not the right candidates with the right skill sets. Employees also have a growing appetite for training, education and development tools that can help them forge their own career paths.

The intense competition for talent means organisations which are not yet focused on internal mobility are handicapping themselves, according to Louise West at Guidant Global.

“If you are not making it easy to be mobile within your own organisation, it’s making it easy for people to poach your staff, and making it easy to leave,” she said. “If you are not prepared to invest in individuals, then there are others who are.”

Employees cite poor prospects for career progression as a key reason for leaving but the contrasting scenario of ‘hyper-mobility’ can be equally damaging by destabilising business operations. Other challenges include managing unrealistic expectations, with younger workers more likely to be impatient for a rapid rise through the ranks, as well as gaining buy-in from hiring managers reluctant to support initiatives which would remove talented staff from their sphere of control.

LEVERAGING HR TECH The increasing availability of ever more sophisticated HR tech tools has enabled talent leaders to rise to the challenge on two fronts; first, by providing training and development platforms for employees to take greater responsibility for their own career development, and second, by enabling talent and HR teams to gain greater visibility of internal talent.

Louise said visibility was an acute challenge, particularly for companies with thousands of employees. “There’s a lot of clever technology

TALiNT International May / Jun 2021

that we see customers using, which helps map your workforce, so they become your first port of call for a talent pool, and also to map your skills sets and what they need to be into the future. So that gives you gap analysis, which in essence creates your recruitment plan.

“We know that there is no silver bullet. It is not all going to be managed by permanent recruitment or contingent or grad hiring; it’s about understanding what roles look like, heat mapping them, and then having a proactive approach, because trying to reactively recruit nowadays is really hard,” she said.

Organisations are experimenting with a plethora of creative ideas to drive internal mobility.

An EMEA talent acquisition executive said her company had created a talent enablement team to take ownership for internal mobility, as well as having introduced an internal mobility platform while implementing a new CRM. Another talent leader explained how they were using a tech platform to better connect internal networks and referrals to external platforms such as LinkedIn, while others described how they had encouraged employees to experiment with alternative roles through facilitated access to project work or learning experiences.

Looking at internal hires through the same lens as external hires is another growing trend.

If talent teams assess existing employees on the same criteria and are prepared to offer them the same level of remuneration, they reduce the risk of employees seeking a better deal elsewhere.

“In my perfect world, I would have the internal talent side-by-side with external talent, so I can pick the best of the best and look at my whole talent pool,” said a global talent acquisition leader for a food company. “Let’s not differentiate; you’re building both internal and external talent – why should we look at them and hold them so separately?”

INTRODUCING THE

TIARA TALENT ACQUISITION AWARDS SETTING THE STANDARD FOR RECOGNISING INNOVATION AND ACHIEVEMENT Enabling employers to showcase the incredible work they do in talent acquisition and resourcing. https://ta.tiara.talint.co.uk

ENTER NOW

38 PointSix – HR & Talent Tech Investor Summit “Will high deal volumes continue beyond April? I think so. Interest rates are low, PE funds have money and there's been a bit of a feeding frenzy on good assets.”

Bruce Trewhella, Commercial Director at Access Group

Prepare to succeed

HR tech M&A and investment activity is at an all-time high, but what are investors looking for, what is driving valuations and how can HR tech leaders best prepare for investment or exit?

The fourth annual HR and Talent Tech Investor Summit brought together 20 founders and CEOs from the sector’s most exciting scale-ups to meet 10 of the most active investors in this space. This popular event, run by TALiNT Partners in partnership with Deloitte, offered valuable feedback on business plans and potential investment opportunities. So what are investors looking for?

“We’re always looking for growing businesses that are profitable, with SaaS solutions that appeal to the mid market (as it’s the space we serve) and support the move to cloud adoption,” said Bruce Trewhella, Commercial Director at Access Group, which acquired Volcanic after meeting its founder at the 2019 Investor Summit.

“The latest trend that we’re seeing is around career development and helping people identify the right career for them based on their strengths and their weaknesses. With rising unemployment rates, you’ve got the same number of people coming out of university, so employers and education institutions need tools to help those people choose the right career.”

A speaker panel convened as part of the summit offered perspectives on the M&A landscape and what HR tech founders can do to better prepare for investment or exit opportunities.

“We have seen a lot of interest from both financial and strategic investors in HR and talent tech because of the increased adoption of technology,” said Deloitte Director Kiren Asad. “A common pitfall for founders is jumping into an investment process because the market is hot without preparing. Preparation is key because it gives you an opportunity to address any

TALiNT International May / Jun 2021

preliminary red flags before launching into anything formal. Having the right advisers is critical to help you shape the right equity story and market proposition, as well as giving you the right support for your sale or fundraise.”

By Alex Evans, Programme Director TALiNT Partners

HR TECH INVESTMENT DRIVERS What factors are driving investor interest, will this be sustained, and have investment criteria changed in a post-pandemic market?

“Investors are looking for sustained YOY growth, a good forecast with drivers, a clear understanding of your customer base and visibility of your revenues,” explained Kiren, who urged those looking for investment to think about other operational metrics that might be critical, such as customer churn and the cost of acquisition and retention. “This will help to determine valuation and will give investors confidence in your knowledge of the right KPIs and metrics to grow the business,” she added.

It’s worth noting a difference in expectations between US and UK or European investors, as Michael Labriola, Partner at tech specialist law firm Wilson Sonsini explained.

“US investors tend to be more focused on growth and scaling, whereas UK/EU investors tend to focus more on near-term profitability,” he said.

“This tends to be a function of available market size. The US has a huge contiguous market with a common language. Europe is more fragmented by language and culture. The effect is that US investors plan for a bigger opportunity at the expense of short-term profitability. Since there is a bigger need for scale, US investors tend to focus more on hiring than UK investors since hiring moves the needle more.”

15

What are the pros and cons of UK versus US investors in terms of value beyond capital? “UK/ EU investors tend to be less focused on providing additional services since their investment approach is often more focused on already de-risked companies,” Michael observed. “US investors are more prepared to jump in with their portfolio companies and especially around supporting key functions like finance and human capital management.”

building and exiting international HR tech/ SaaS businesses.

Bruce Trewhella Access Group

Human capital technology is generating more interest amongst US and UK investors, but will HR tech M&A activity be sustained beyond lockdown?

“It’s been a really hot space for the last six or seven months, driven by potential changes in capital gains tax,” observed Bruce Trewhella.

“Will high deal volumes continue beyond April? I think so. Interest rates are low, PE funds have money, and there’s been a bit of a feeding frenzy on good assets. For some good businesses, multiples have been going up from what we were seeing two years ago, which is also driving the increase in deal volumes. From a business strategy perspective, we’re seeing founders recognise that profit generation is increasingly important as we will likely be in uncertain times for a while.”

VALUE CREATION This last point on sustaining profitable growth was explored in more depth by panel speaker Jim Darragh, the CEO of Totalmobile, who has more than 25 years’ leadership experience in

Kiren Asad Deloitte

Michael Labriola Wilson Sonsini

“Whether you’re selling, buying or building, there’s never an excuse to take your eye off growth and you need to constantly ensure you’re on top of every metric that has an impact on it,” he explained. “The single most important goal is value creation. You need to explain to investors what that means and your plan for it and be sure that whoever eventually invests in your business will back that plan.”

For HR tech firms looking to grow through acquisition, Jim’s advice was to invest in thorough preparation, planning and process. “We have done five acquisitions in the last two years and we plan for day one, day 100, day 365,” he explained. “We buy the management team into that process and plans can differ, whether it’s investment or synergy with the organisations we acquire. Transparency, communication, planning and ownership of the delivery of the plan are vital for success alongside cookie-cutter elements of process and integration.”

The management team is crucial to successful integration and growth, so how do you manage the risks associated with different motivations and skill sets?

“You have to be able to spot people who are going to be part of the plan going forward, who will step up and do more, so you need to inspire, develop and retain those people,” Jim concluded.

“The right people take on bigger roles in the organisation, but you have to go through a

TALiNT International May / Jun 2021

40 PointSix - HR & Talent Tech Investor Summit “Nothing will kill growth more than poor recruitment. It impacts culture, productivity, revenue and morale. A lot of tech companies have 30%-plus attrition rates; you can’t even afford to be half of that to grow effectively.”

Jeremy Duggan, President, Multiverse

recruitment process with the management team and be very transparent about who has to raise their game.”

TALENT AND TECH The role of recruitment in scaling was one of several key points made by Jeremy Duggan, President of Multiverse (formerly WhiteHat) and a scale-up expert who has helped to take four start-ups to multibillion valuations while holding executive positions. Asked to distil 20 years of experience into a 10-minute presentation, Jeremy talked about his three ‘R’s of scaling a company: recruitment, retention and results.

“Nothing will kill growth more than poor recruitment,” he explained. “It impacts culture, productivity, revenue and morale. A lot of tech companies have 30%-plus attrition rates; you can’t even afford to be half of that to grow effectively. In every board meeting I’ve ever had with start-ups, they always say they’re looking for ‘A players’ but when I ask what that means specifically people rarely have an evidencebased and specific answer.

“You have to define what your great is and make sure all of your hiring managers know what that is otherwise only the CEO or board will be able to inspect great candidates, which is not a scalable process. Great in the most successful tech start-ups I have seen is people with four main characteristics: intelligence, character, coachability and experience, so these qualities must be built into the interview and hiring process. Look for special people who have done special things: those with high levels of attainment, who have made good career choices, have had longevity to make an impact in their organisations, and can confidently show the results they achieved. Be wary of people who have jumped from job to job too often.”

Retention of top talent starts with the recruitment process and the career journey you sell them. “The best are always in high demand so you need to know how to sell the opportunity

TALiNT International May / Jun 2021

Jim Darragh Totalmobile

Jeremy Duggan Multiverse

to them,” Jeremy added. “In my experience, the best want to be inspired and developed. They want to be inspired by the mission, with clear goals, recognition for their success and real pride in the business. They want to learn and have career growth, so you need to be able to demonstrate a culture of continual coaching and development plans.”

To get the ROI you should expect from these A players, you need clear metrics and accountability to drive results. “It’s important as a leader to understand the facts behind results,” concluded Jeremy. “So, for example, if every salesperson is doing 10 new business meetings a quarter, eight customer meetings every week, two proof of values per quarter and two deals in forecast and upside over a certain amount, then those are proven indicators of success. This ‘data that drives results’ approach is trackable so you can develop people if they’re not performing in a certain area and it’s based on facts, not opinions. It allows a course correction before there’s a problem.”

HR tech firms that have mastered the three Rs will have great foundations for growth and good preparation will put them in the best position to capitalise on opportunities for investment or acquisition. The priority that underpins all of this is ensuring that their technology solves the right problems; so have these changed in a post-Covid market?

“Having proved that a remote and dispersed workforce can work, the view of employers is changing, which opens up a range of possibilities,” said Bruce Trewhella. “The talent pool that you’re fishing in is suddenly a lot bigger, so solutions that cater for the dispersed workforce will be in increasing demand, whether it’s digital learning, video interviewing or career development.”

Those best able to capitalise on the accelerated adoption of technology in HR and recruitment will go from strength to strength.

Sometimes things aren’t always quite what they seem

We understand that developing a compliant PSL is no small challenge. Distinguishing between organisations that pay lip-service to compliance and those that are fully committed is complex, costly and time-consuming. Getting it wrong can have serious implications on your business.

That’s why we have done the checks for you.

Every FCSA Accredited Member has already undergone the most stringent testing in the industry, at no cost to your agency.

FCSA Accredited Members: Adhere to rigorous standards.

Are assessed against a published Code of Compliance.

Are independently tested by regulated accountants and solicitors.

Prove their compliance annually.

Recognised as the industry’s compliance gold standard for umbrella employers, contractor accountants and CIS payroll providers; agencies can reduce risk by committing to a PSL comprising exclusively of fully compliant and transparent FCSA Accredited Members.

Take a closer look at your PSL. Check they’re an

Accredited Member

info@fcsa.org.uk | www.fcsa.org.uk

42 TALiNT Talk

The merry-go-round

As we emerge from lockdown, employers will be left spinning by the rising rate of drop outs, the reluctance of workers to return to offices and an exodus of talent The employment merry-go-round is about to hit record speed. Generally, I am very sceptical about employment sentiment surveys that tell us X% of employees are planning to leave (and ‘X’ is always a very large number).

I don’t know about you, but I often plan to do lots of things – reach my target weight, read more, learn to dance – and very rarely do I, so I approached Beamery’s latest survey with my normal healthy cynicism. And there it was, the headline proclaiming the mass exodus of 48% of employees this year.

All of this revolves around the basic notion of ‘fairness’. Employers who are perceived in this way will have a massive advantage in their ability to attract and keep the people they need.

Ken Brotherston, Managing Director, TALiNT Partners

But here’s the thing; just because these surveys are almost never right doesn’t mean they’re always wrong. I happen to believe Beamery may well be onto something.

The massive spike in employees backing out from roles they accepted or, worse, just not showing up, suggests both a lingering level of hesitancy but also a willingness to gather multiple offers and make a decision at the last minute.

I say this because there are so many other indicators to support this hypothesis. Here are just three:

To be fair, a lot of the underlying causes of employee dissatisfaction are not new: lack of communication, perceptions of poor leadership, not enough opportunities for career development, and so on. However, the pandemic has heightened employees’ expectations and accelerated their demand for change and the best employers are running hard to catch up.

1. Companies are as desperate for talent as they have ever been. In the UK at least, the economic rebound from the pandemic has been far faster than anyone expected, and employers are having to hire at speed.

The expected move to employers being able to pick and choose great candidates simply didn’t happen, and the much-vaunted ability of employers to hire candidates from anywhere in the world has yet to have any meaningful impact on the labour market.

2. There has been a seismic shift in employee expectations. Hybrid and flexible working is the most obvious manifestation of this, but it is by no means the only issue. Wellbeing, mental health, reskilling and upskilling, as well as how employers have responded to social issues such as George Floyd and climate change are more important than ever.

TALiNT International May / Jun 2021

3. Candidates playing catch up. In any crisis or economic shock, employees become more riskaverse. By the time things get back to some form of normality, the pandemic will have lasted the best part of 18 months, so it’s basic arithmetic that there will be a backlog of candidates who wanted to move last year but just decided to keep their heads down.

All of this is great news for the staffing sector and, especially, talent solutions providers, which have seen significant spikes in project RPO work as inhouse TA teams struggle to deal with a higher workload than ever, often with reduced resources themselves.

To find out more about how TALiNT Advantage can help TA teams, please contact debra@talint.co.uk.

It therefore seems pretty clear that the employment market is in for some short- or even medium-term turbulence before the long-term, structural effects of the pandemic and the ongoing rise of AI have a more subduing impact.

As ever, there will be winners and losers, but you can’t say you haven’t been warned.

8 seconds. That’s all you’ve got.

Can you attract the best?

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

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

And become the No 1 destination for their job applications.

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

2020 has seen the World change. The technology needed to find the best people has changed too.

“The Global economy has been significantly impacted over the last year and this has profound effects on how we find and hire the right people to survive and thrive in the future. Larger numbers looking for work, smaller resourcing teams, a turbulent economy and a major shift to virtual collaboration have changed the employment market beyond all recognition. To be successful in 2021 and beyond requires a new set of tools and a fresh approach to resourcing.”

Andy Randall, CEO of eArcu.

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

• Are they the right people?

PREBOARDING

• Are they invested in your organisation?

GOOGLE & JOB BOARDS

• Will they make a difference?

OFFERS, CONTRACTS & eSIGNATURES

• Or even stick around?

CAREERS SITES & SPECIALIST PORTALS

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

candidate communities.

eArcu is the market leading Talent

YOUR ONE-STOP SHOP FOR CANDIDATE CARE

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

SJTs ASSESSMENTS & TESTS CRM, EVENTS & TALENT POOLS

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

CHATBOTS & LIVE CHAT

APPLICATION FORMS

JOB ADVERTS

Is it time to upgrade your Resourcing Technology?

Find out about our more-for-less offer, visit www.earcu.com

Joining the dots of the talent ecosystem...

...to help employers find and keep the people they need talint.co.uk