Tag: talent acquisition

The New Talent Journey

 

The way that talent is attracted, hired, on-boarded, developed and retained is evolving. New technologies, changing attitudes to work and employment (from both employers and workers), heightened expectations and a growing transparency around how businesses operate have led to a re-imagining of the talent journey.

What was once a series of events is now an ongoing process, that begins before there is even an identified hiring need, and continues beyond the lifespan of an individual’s working involvement with an organisation.

First lets redefine what we mean by talent. This is probably one of the most overused, misused and misleading words in the modern labour market. Often used by HR and recruitment professionals to imply a high skilled, high potential candidate who is in some way special. This narrow definition leads to poor recruitment practice, with recruiters trying to chase the mythical candidate who ticks all their boxes and is ready made for their vacancy. These people rarely exist, and they are rarely needed.

We now have new jobs are being created, needing skills that haven’t been hired before. People grow in different ways, using initiative and developing their capabilities in line with what interests them and what they believe they would enjoy and be good at. If their jobs are under threat, they will often find new ways to use their talents. The most successful hires will be people who grow into a role, mould it around their capabilities. Growth mindsets and cultures of innovation require curiosity, courage and a restless spirit. These can be found in many people if they are afforded the right tools, a collaborative culture and time.

And of course there are many roles that might seem mundane and repetitive. Yet the people who do them are skilled. Talent is about the people who are right for the role, and right for the business, irrespective of background and trajectory. Talent is also about the hiring business itself, its vision, values, purpose and dynamics. Its offer to its employees, whether they are employed or provide their skills on a freelance or temporary basis.

And it is also about the way in which new people, and new capabilities, are bought into a business.

The new talent journey is an ongoing process incorporating many stages:

Attention – What is known about the business and the potential new hire. Information available. Reputation judged from online interactions and engagements. Before there is even a connection there is a perception over what a business is like, and how it treats its people and customers. And there is also an impression of the candidate.

Attraction – How you hire, what information you make available, how the role is marketed and what is offered. How you develop relationships and conversations with potential employees and collaborators.

Acquisition – Your recruitment process. Application, interviews, assessment, selection. How you communicate, the quality of feedback, when you offer, and the experience you give. This doesn’t sit in isolation but seamlessly evolves from attraction and forms the basis for…

On-boarding – Still waiting for a new hire’s first day before you give them the tools they need for the new role? Think again. The best companies are on-boarding people form the very start of the hiring process, giving them a seamless transition into the business. Paperwork? Already done online before they start. Induction? Its also happening online, probably through a portal, often from the time they accept the offer. First day experience? It’s a gift, a meeting, time with a senior leader. It’s not a few days’ wait for a new laptop and a login, sitting with a team who didn’t know you were starting.

Development – Lateral progression and opportunities for skill and capability enhancement, across teams, functions, divisions and borders. Performance evaluation is ongoing and coaching led. New hires don’t wait for a probation review after 3 months and an appraisal after a year, they want real time, constructive feedback on how they are performing and how they can improve.

Retention – Mutual attraction, the outcome of treating people well and giving them the tools and framework to succeed, develop and enjoy what they do. And if they want to move on – then retain their loyalty and advocacy, because they will be your best referrers of new people and customers, and they may well return in some capacity.

Attracting, acquiring, on-boarding, developing, engaging and retaining your people is an evolving, interlocking process that renews, reviews, reinvents and repurposes. It’s the way that the people you need connect and work with you, grow and develop, create and innovate, make their mark, laugh and collaborate, and its the solid bond you put in their hearts, keeping them very much part of your network of connectors, referrers and influencers.

Its the new talent journey.

(My book Exceptional Talent has recently been published by Kogan Page. In the book myself and co-author Matt Alder explore how changes in technology, communication, and employee preferences are impacting the talent journey. We offer practical advice on how to build •effective recruitment and talent management strategies to meet the needs of today, while also helping businesses plan and prepare for the challenges of the future.)

 

 

We’re All Recruiters Now…

The recruitment landscape has evolved rapidly in recent years. The process of attracting and hiring the talent that business needs has become ever more complex and multi-layered. Digital tools have enabled quicker and simpler applications – no longer dependant on time or location – and greatly increased the number of connections every job seeker has, putting them closer to recruiters and target companies. This raises applicant expectations for the recruitment process with new tools and technology speeding up the matching and selection.

Organisations can now be bolder and more targeted with their recruitment marketing, whilst the greater reach and visibility of information has created more transparency around the recruitment process. A company’s culture is exposed and this is becoming a selling point for potential employees. We now have access to a wider and more relevant range of data that helps to drive many hiring decisions. Many more recruiters work in-house, either as part of a broader HR team or closely aligned with it. Their major targets are to reduce both the time to hire and cost per hire which, given the increase in application numbers and selection tools, could help to create an instantaneous ‘swipe right, swipe left’ culture for CV matching.

So how has this impacted talent acquisition and what are the implications for the future?

We are all connected. Whether its through social networks, business relationships or previous interactions, there’s a likelihood that every business is already connected in some way to everyone they may ever need to hire. They have the networks and connections of current employees, alumni (a significant source of hire in the US) and their networks, suppliers and collaborators and their networks. There are also customers and clients, fans of the company Facebook page and followers of the company Twitter account. Previous job applicants who weren’t
 the right fit at the time may now have gained the necessary skills and experience.

The key is to understand these connections – where they are, their strength and relevance – how best to manage and leverage them, and assess cultural fit. This will require content to be produced – market intelligence and insights, product developments, ways to showcase the employee experience – and used by a recruitment team that understands marketing and the importance of culture.

The power of referrals is now better understood by organisations. There are platforms to help employees manage and keep in touch with their wider connections. Professional services firms offer large cash bonuses to their employees who can attract top talent to the firm from their own networks, whilst also finding ways to reward their internal influencers. For connections and networks to deliver real value then reputation and trust need to become part of the currency of recruiting, a form of ‘peer capital’. This will include recommendations from trusted sources and, for those who worked flexibly or across companies, a validated portfolio of projects and achievements.

Certification and validation have long been part of the service offering from third-party recruiters who, by using judgment and intuition, have selected the talent most suitable for the needs of their clients. However the make-up of the talent supply chain is fast changing as technology finds a new area to disrupt. For example, there are now apps connecting those looking for flexible work with companies who have on-demand staffing needs shaped by seasonal peaks and troughs. By matching on skills, availability and location this kind of hiring removes the need for interviewing – especially as the workers are pre-screened and checked. Meanwhile in Australia KPMG have a portal matching staff that have downtime between assignments with clients who need short term or interim accountancy help.

If talent is coming from a variety of sources, it is also being engaged in different ways. Whether as freelancers, flexible workers, or assignment and project collaborators, the talent pool is no longer just about current and future permanent employees, but reflects the wide range of skills, knowledge and expertise that can be called on at any time to supplement the capabilities of the current workforce. Many potential recruits coming across the radar of hiring companies may well have had a rich and varied mix of projects and assignments, not always gained from a permanent role.

Again it will be reputation and credible recommendations that recruiters will look for. Roles are evolving faster than many companies can develop their people – many of the positions to be filled in 2020 almost certainly don’t exist at present – so the ability to call on specialist skills at any time will be a crucial part of the recruiter’s toolkit for coping with urgent requirements. And in the evolving talent ecosystem that I’ve described the connections and knowledge networks of collaborators and freelancers are as important as everyone else’s. They are likely to be moving in and out of different organisations, building their capabilities, and will have worked with a wide range of talent.

Most of these shifts require a different approach to talent management so it’s no surprise to find that HR process is already evolving. Responsibility for personal, skill and career development now rests firmly with the individual employee and not the company or HR department. Performance and career management are no longer dealt with in annual appraisals nor based on school report style ratings; instead the current approach is for continuous dialogue between employee and manager, with flexible and transparent goals. At the same time development increasingly comes laterally through a range of projects and secondments, rather than through linear promotion. For staffing in 2020 this is likely to have created a blend of honed and skilled sector specialists alongside a broader range of multi-industry generalists.

In the future we will all be recruiters, and all be part of the solution. 
Our networks and spheres of influence will help attract new people 
and go some way to defining our importance to the organisation. The employment experience will be visible to outsiders through our personal experiences and how we share them. The organisation may ‘loan us’ to clients or collaborators who need short term help. And ultimately, we will be the ones responsible for developing our skills, increasing our knowledge base and acquiring and building on new experiences.

(This post was originally featured in a 2015 White Paper jointly produced by HR Zone and Cornerstone On Demand titled ‘Talent 2020 – What is the Future Talent Landscape’. You can download it here and read the other contributions from Rob Briner, Doug Shaw and Dr Tom Calvard)

Screen Shot 2016-01-18 at 22.44.04

The 4 Trends Driving the Future of Recruitment

Every attempt to try and understand what’s on the agenda for CEOs, HRDs and businesses in general will arrive at the conclusion that finding and keeping people is our main priority. The way we attract and retain, engage and develop, reward and recognise are the key differentiators for businesses of all sizes and in all sectors.

As someone who has spent most of their career around recruitment and HR this comes as no surprise. It has always been like this. The goals may remain similar but the way we achieve them changes through a mix of technology, aspiration and economic and commercial pressures. Whilst most companies outwardly seem to be going about their recruitment and attraction as if it was business as usual, under the surface there are new factors driving the way they do it.

Connections

Our networks grow and grow. Every business is probably connected in some way to their next hire. Employees, contractors, alumni, previously unsuccessful applicants, clients, customers, collaborators, suppliers, Facebook fans and brand advocates all have networks. The answer to that hard-to-find skill may already be within the organisation. Everyone is a recruiter. From the barista brewing your coffee to the uber driver who got you home, everyone you interact with could lead to the next hire for wherever you work. The skills you need are in these extended networks somewhere, though most corporate recruiters will struggle to find them. Technology may eventually help as the strength of connections and reach of network become more visible and quantifiable, enabling more creative ways to target and reach out with the right message to the right people at the right time.

Relationships

Connections are nothing without relationships. You may know people or have access to them, but will they reciprocate in a two way conversation? We need to get good at rejecting those who show interest in working for us and at exiting those who do work for us. We’re careful about the experiences we give customers and clients and the same must follow for applicants, candidates and alumni if we are to benefit from their referrals and connections. Remember that as roles evolve, and we hire for positions that didn’t exist a couple of years ago, then those we reject because they’re not right may increasingly be not right, right now. Workers will dip in and out of businesses, specialisations and projects so we may be hiring less for long term fit and more for contribution, adaptability and future potential. Recruiters, and some employees, will be judged by the strength and reach of their relationships, not by their number of connections. Recruiters will need to show influence in a competitive labour market.

Reputation

Are you a good place to work? Are employees able to develop their careers and skills with you? Two questions uppermost in the mind of jobseekers as more information becomes publicly available about the type of employer you are. Your HR processes, the way you manage, lead, encourage, reward and recognise employees and contract workers is no longer a closed book. The salaries you pay and the opportunities you offer are now on sites like Glassdoor. We’re increasingly in a ratings economy with many more opportunities around the corner for businesses and their employees and flexible workers to be rated and ranked. Buying decisions are now based on reputation and the experiences of others, and employment decisions will follow.

Much advice and guidance is given to managers and leaders about making bad hiring decisions, with less going the other way – helping jobseekers to avoid making bad offer acceptances. The increasing visibility of the employment experience is an important development in redressing this balance.

Culture

Reputation is important and culture plays a big part in how it grows . Most poor employment experiences come from expectations not met and promises not materialising. The whole concept of organisational culture and employer brand has gained much traction but its not a marketing campaign nor a glossy brochure. Whatever the purpose, values or guiding principles of the organisation, the people who are thinking of working in or with the business want to know them. Not only the ‘way we do things round here’ but the why and how we do them that way. For recruiters this is becoming a key driver – whether job seekers ask about it or not its the culture they want to know about. Salary and rewards are important and in a tight market can be a differentiator, but without a culture that will help them and support them in doing their best work and being happy, enable them to grow and develop, then rewards will no longer be enough.

Talent attraction, attention and acquisition is changing. Are you ready?

4 Questions About Talent and Technology

It’s nearly time for the HRTechEurope Spring Conference & Expo. I’ll be heading in to London on March 27th joining HR and Recruitment professionals, tech specialists and fellow bloggers to try and find out what’s old and what’s new, what we need and what we don’t.

It’s currently tough out there in the world of HR when it comes to talent acquisition. On a daily basis we’re fighting wars, covering skill shortages, putting a sticking plaster over long term people development and tearing our hair out over how to create the workforces our businesses need to face a future of growth and accelerating technological development.

Or so it seems. Rarely a day goes by without another report, white paper, survey or opinion piece on the huge challenges of creating the future workforce. They need to be highly skilled and motivated, locationally and contractually flexible, and ready to hit the ground running.

But this isn’t a perfect world, and people aren’t disposable goods to be chopped and changed. Instead of the constant and seemingly frenetic rush to get the best right now let’s look at some longer term issues that short term talent acquisition strategies may be covering up…

Are You Looking Everywhere?

By everywhere I mean everywhere. As I recently wrote for Monster, there’s a lot of talent right under your nose that you’re probably overlooking. Most probably…

  • Current employees who have skills and strengths that you haven’t recognised and can adapt to new challenges
  • Alumni who have moved on, had different experiences, gained knowledge and progressed
  • Candidates who have applied before and were not a good match then, and are now probably nestling in a black hole in your ATS hiding their very relevant talents
  • And remember, all the above have friends, collaborators and alumni who may be right

Is Your On-Boarding Good Enough?

We all know that if something’s going to go wrong then it will more than likely happen in the first 2/3 months so are your on-boarding and induction processes up to scratch? Is talent seeping away from the business because you’re not making the most of it when it first arrives? Think back to good people who just didn’t seem to work out with you and look at why. There may be a recurring theme.

Are You Growing From Within?

The people you’ve already invested in should be the first choice for new roles. My first job was within a medium-sized accountancy firm and we had PAs to Partner who had started as filing clerks (OK, you don’t get many of them any more) and accounting assistants who had originally joined in a clerical or admin role. The partners constantly tried to invest in developing the good, loyal people they had rather than demotivate and lose them by going outside. Do your people really feel that they have a future with you?

Have You Created the Right Environment?

To nurture talent you need a nurturing environment. One where people aren’t afraid to try and fail as part of the learning experience, and aren’t rewarded purely on achieving KPIs that preclude the opportunity to collaborate, innovate, share and provide feedback.

If the solution to filling new positions is always to go external and throw money at someone who’s performing at a competitor then this will become a self fulfilling modus operandi which will be difficult to break. And dangerous too as top achievers in a business usually benefit from a support structure and culture that enables them to do their best; there’s never a guarantee that they would achieve the same results in a different environment that offered a very different structure and culture.

There will probably be a lot of technology at HRTechEurope that can help enable this, but first it needs a mindset. A commitment to doing something fresh, an openness to new ideas and approaches.

Because to keep fighting the same mythical wars and keep moaning about shortages and expect to get different results would be insanity. Right?

(Image via SAP.info)