In this episode of Talking Talent, we’re going deep on an issue that is top of mind for so many employers: diversity, equity and inclusion (DE&I). We’ve seen a tremendous amount of work done in this area, but there is always more to do. And we know that every organisation is at a different point on its DE&I journey.
This episode specifically focuses on building an employer brand and a recruitment process that is equitable and inclusive of candidates from underrepresented backgrounds. What are the best strategies? How can you build a process that takes things like intersectionality and social mobility into account? And finally, how do you get the buy-in within your organisation to make changes—especially in a challenging hiring environment?
Joining us to talk about these issues is Paula Simmons, our Director of Employer Brand & Communications Strategy. Paula’s background is a combination of PR and corporate communications, recruitment and employer branding. Her role at PeopleScout UK enables Paula to do what she enjoys most: delivering actionable insights and consultancy to clients across a range of industry sectors, nationally and internationally. In essence, helping them to understand, articulate and measure what makes them unique places to work. Alongside this, she also leads our work to help clients better understand and engage audiences from underrepresented groups.
In this conversation, Paula explains the traditional ways that talent acquisition professionals have recruited candidates from underrepresented groups and then explains a new way forward. She explains how intersectionality and social mobility should factor into DE&I programmes and provides a pathway for talent leaders to get buy-in and balance long-term goals with immediate needs.
In our competitive labour market, many organisations are looking for support as they struggle to attract and hire the talent they need to remain productive and competitive. There are a lot of staffing service providers out there, and it can be difficult to understand which model best aligns with your recruitment goals to ensure you get the results you need. Two options that many organisations choose between are recruitment process outsourcing (RPO) or a traditional recruitment or staffing agency model.
So, what is the difference between a staffing agency and an RPO solutions provider? In this, article we’ll cover the major differences between RPO and direct-hire staffing agencies and how to know what’s best for your global talent acquisition programme.
RPO vs Staffing Agencies: Which Recruitment Model is Right for You?
Recruitment process outsourcing (RPO) is a type of business process outsourcing in which an employer transfers delivery of some or all portions of the recruitment process to an external service provider. RPO is a long-term partnership that helps you evolve your talent acquisition strategy to attract and retain high-quality talent to meet your business goals. Outsourcing through an RPO lets you scale up or down during high and low volume periods. RPO recruitment could cover everything from high-volume hiring to niche roles and can be regional or cover your global hiring requirements.
Staffing agencies focus on finding candidates for a specific vacancy. They can be a good option for when in-house teams need a bit of support, especially for low-volume recruitment or one-off staffing for roles. Some staffing agencies may also specialise in temporary, temp-to-hire or contract roles.
Main Differences Between RPO and Recruitment Agency Staffing Process
1. Partnership
Your RPO team acts as an extension of your in-house team and your strategic partner in creating a talent acquisition programme. RPO recruiters may sit on-site, work remotely, work offshore or a combination, and they’ll usually take on your company name and email domain in their communications. An RPO partner will come to understand your business deeply, which means they are best suited to help you evolve your talent acquisition programme to meet your needs now and scale into the future. By accumulating knowledge of your organisation over time, an RPO partner develops efficient processes and brings a strong, consistent representation of your employer brand to all the markets where you’re hiring.
Agency recruiters typically act as a finder—sourcing, pre-screening and introducing candidates to the client (often the hiring manager) who takes it from there. Agency recruiters keep their own company email and brand when interacting with candidates.
2. Staffing Process Improvements
An RPO partner will look at your current recruitment processes across all regions, identify efficiencies and make recommendations based on best practice. Not only does this reduce time-to-fill, but it also improves the candidate experience as candidates increasingly crave timely feedback and clear next steps. A process evaluation will also include your talent technology. Your RPO partner will assess for any gaps, make recommendations for new solutions and support the implementation process.
For a staffing agency, the hire-by-hire nature of their work means they’re often not looking for ways to improve your overall staffing processes.
3. Talent Pooling
One huge advantage of the long-term relationship you build with an RPO partner is taking advantage of their ability to create talent pools. Having a pool of active and passive candidates speeds up time-to-hire by giving you access to a pool of qualified candidates when a new vacancy opens.
Agencies focus on finding candidates for a specific vacancy. It tends to be a reactive model, in which they work from requisition to requisition. Agency recruiters maintain a pool of candidates, but these candidates are not necessarily found with your company in mind.
4. Quality of Hire
Both a staffing agency and RPO will vet candidates—including screening résumés or CVs and conducting initial screenings or first round interviews—before involving your hiring manager.
Leading RPO providers also offer talent assessment solutions to ensure you identify high-performing candidates with the right skills and experience for the role. An assessment solution includes the design and administration of the assessments, which is done in a bias-free way, so only the best, most diverse candidates pass to the interview stage.
With a staffing agency, you’ll use the assessments you already have in place. They generally won’t be responsible for administering them or advise on how to improve them.
5. Talent Advisory Consulting
RPO partners bring added value through their expertise in talent advisory, including employer branding, recruitment marketing, candidate communications, assessment services, labor market insights, workforce planning and talent acquisition strategy. These capabilities are vital for positioning your organization to efficiently attract, recruit and retain top talent in today’s competitive hiring landscape.
Staffing agencies usually post job ads and promote your vacancies under their own employer brand and use their own recruitment marketing tools and techniques. In addition, most lack the expertise to provide talent advisory consulting.
6. Technology Consulting
RPO partners increasingly offer tech consulting and can show you how emerging technologies like artificial intelligence, machine learning and predictive analytics can boost your ability to attract top talent. Some RPO providers offer some kind of recruitment technology component, whether it’s a propriety system or expertise in a variety of talent technology systems. They’ll be comfortable working with your existing systems and can consult on the right tools to help you meet your recruitment goals.
Agencies likely won’t offer technology consulting. Since many of these engagements are short-term in nature, most employers aren’t comfortable giving access to their recruitment technology, and these activities remain in the hands of in-house teams and hiring managers.
7. Reporting and Analytics
As a result of taking over your talent acquisition programme, your RPO partner will assume responsibility for your recruitment results. They’ll work with you to define metrics, KPIs and SLAs, and report on them quarterly. This could include time-to-hire, cost-per-hire, source-of-hire, candidate or hiring manager satisfaction and retention levels.
Forward-thinking RPO providers leverage tech-enabled dashboards that show open requisitions, time-in-step metrics and more. Plus, these interactive reports let you slice and dice the data by recruiter, location, role, candidate NPS, etc. You can also break down your DE&I metrics to understand more about your candidates and those who receive offers.
In addition, leading RPO partners are well-versed in labour market analytics which can help you understand the available talent pool in the locations in which you’re hiring and recommendations on how to adjust your strategy.
Agencies generally won’t supply reporting since their responsibility is to fill individual positions.
Blending RPO and Staffing Agencies with Total Workforce Solutions
While RPO offers many great benefits for permanent recruitment, it may still make sense to use staffing agencies in some cases, especially if you have a need for contingency workers. Moving to an RPO recruitment model doesn’t mean you have to give up agencies altogether. Many RPO providers offer total workforce solutions (TWS) that combine RPO and managed service provider (MSP) solutions.
In an MSP programme, your partner will take responsibility for sourcing and engaging your contingent workforce. They’ll also manage the programme administration, including supplying a Vendor Management System (VMS), reporting on contingent worker spend, managing agencies, invoicing, executing compliance checks and more.
Integrating talent acquisition for permanent and contingent workforces under one delivery team through TWS not only helps reduce your agency spend, but it also ensures a consistent experience throughout for hiring managers, HR, procurement, staffing suppliers and candidates alike.
Conclusion
RPO and recruitment agency models serve different needs. By understanding your recruitment objectives now and into the future, you’ll have a clearer understanding of which model is the right choice for your business. You may find that RPO is a perfect option, but that you’ll still engage with agencies for specialist skill sets, contingency workers or certain geographic locations. Total workforce solutions may offer you a holistic approach that combines RPO recruitment and management of your agencies and contingent workforce hiring.
PeopleScout is proud to sponsor this latest installment of HRO Today Flash Reports.
Recruiting in EMEA in 2021 looks radically different than it did at the start of 2020. Download this report, HR’s 2021 Response Defines Employer Brand in EMEA, to learn how candidate experience measurement and employer brand practices have been impacted by COVID-19.
In this report, you’ll learn:
Where EMEA employers are dropping the ball on measuring the candidate experience
Why investment in employer branding is way up
How the role of DE&I in employer branding has changed over the last 12 months
Digital transformation has hit HR, and the world of recruitment has rapidly evolved with the growth of mobile apps, big data, artificial intelligence (AI) and analytics. Candidates now expect a tech-enabled recruitment experience, and building a talent acquisition tech stack has gone from a nice-to-have to a critical part of a global recruitment strategy for any enterprise. However, with the influx of new talent acquisition technology—from foundational platforms like an ATS to point solutions for sourcing, interviewing or recruitment marketing—it can be hard to navigate the recruitment technology ecosystem and know where to invest your budget.
In this article, we’ll help you make sense of all the available talent tech and how each recruitment system can benefit your business. You’ll learn some important things to keep in mind as you build your tech stack. Plus, we’ll provide some details on what features to look for as you evaluate solutions.
Working with a Tech Capable RPO Partner
One of the biggest value-adds that RPO brings is experience with the latest talent technology innovations. In fact, in 2021 PeopleScout saw new RPO engagements with technology included increase from 40% to 67%. An RPO partner can help you assess talent acquisition software to address all aspects of your recruiting process, from identifying talent to creating a more efficient candidate experience. Your provider can show you how emerging technologies like AI, machine learning and predictive analytics can boost your ability to attract top talent.
In addition to consulting, some RPO providers are investing in proprietary technology solutions including application tracking systems (ATS), candidate relationship management (CRM) tools, analytics platforms and automation tools. This can come in the form of a single platform or as a set of integrated systems, providing a modular approach that lets you add and remove solutions from your tech stack as your needs change.
Integrate Recruitment Technology for Seamless Operations
Any new recruitment tool you consider should integrate with your current talent acquisition and HR systems. Not only does integration let you benefit from existing investments and grow as your needs change, but it also helps you streamline operations by eliminating the need for manual data entry—saving time and effort.
When evaluating any solution, ask about built in integrations. If one doesn’t exist for one of your existing systems, evaluate the vendor’s ability to support you through an API. An application programming interface, or API, is a connection between pieces of software. Open APIs let you build a custom solution by connecting your talent acquisition technology systems with each other and with your other HR systems—boosting the flow of data and improving operational and cost efficiencies.
A Word on Security
Any technology you do add to your talent tech stack must comply with data privacy regulations in all regions where you’re recruiting. Pay attention to any rules about where data can be stored, like those stipulated by the GDPR. Look for tools that are SOC 2 certified, which shows they maintain a high level of information security.
Building Your Recruitment Tech Stack
Now that we’ve covered some important things to keep in mind when evaluating software, here are some tech solutions to consider when building your talent acquisition tech stack.
Applicant Tracking System (ATS)
An ATS is the foundation upon which you will build your tech stack. This platform acts as the system of record for your talent acquisition programme. As a repository for applicants, it helps you manage the hiring process for all your requisitions and satisfies compliance requirements for record keeping.
Some ATS systems let you create branded career sites and landing pages where candidates can learn more about your company, search jobs openings and even apply for a role. Look for a platform with a “quick apply” feature that lets candidates apply in a few clicks even via mobile devices—which has been proven to increase application conversion rates. ATS platforms may also support the candidate selection process through AI-powered keyword scanning and other automated features like approval workflows, candidate and hiring manager notifications, offer letter generation and more—all with the benefit of reducing time-to-fill and streamlining the candidate experience.
AI Sourcing Tool
AI-powered sourcing tools review, sort and rank talent on the open web using sourcing criteria you’ve previously specified like current or past job titles, companies, diversity attributes, industry experience and more. Algorithms crawl resumes, social media profiles and other sources of data to find candidates that match your job requirements. This increases your potential applicants while speeding up your search and reducing the manual repetitive tasks for recruiters.
AI sourcing can also help reduce bias as it only looks for what you’ve specified and disregards other factors like race, gender or age. It can also be applied to internal candidates by screening the existing employee profiles within an organisation to find strong matches for current open positions.
When designed correctly, AI can help you create a better candidate experience. However, there are dos and don’ts when it comes to automation. Proper testing at each stage coupled with human oversight will go a long way to catching biases or negative hiring experiences, so you can pause and reconfigure your strategy.
Candidate Relationship Management (CRM) Software
Many analysts believe that 70-80% of the recruiting process could be handled by the CRM, so it’s worth looking into complementing your ATS with a candidate relationship management (CRM) system. This recruitment marketing platform helps recruiters create talent pools based on geographies, level of interest and skills. With a CRM, you can differentiate your organisation by nurturing these candidates through automated recruitment emails, SMS messages and more—whether to keep them informed during an active application process or to keep them warm until a suitable position opens up. Communications can be personalised to the candidate for a more engaging experience.
A whopping 89% of candidates think mobile devices play a critical role in the job-hunting process. So, meet your candidates where they are, and look for solutions that are mobile-first and create a consumer-like experience your employer brand deserves. Other features to consider are custom landing pages and careers sites as well as event management tools to support specific recruiting goals.
Recruiting Chatbot
Consider adding a chatbot to your careers site or investing in an ATS that offers this functionality to modernise your candidate experience. As a conversational interface, chatbots leverage natural language processing to screen candidates, answer candidate queries and schedule interviews. Some even offer candidates the ability to check the status of their application. This reduces the burden on recruiters and hiring managers by taking on some frequently asked questions from candidates, freeing them to focus on other things.
In addition to process efficiencies, chatbots can also be a great way to bring your employer brand to life. We implemented a chatbot for The AA, a UK-based motoring association offering roadside breakdown assistance, as part of their reimagined careers site. Candidates could ask AAbot questions and were served with information tailored to their interests. Not satisfied with a run-of-the-mill experience, we gave AAbot a big personality, reflecting the organisation’s playful employer brand. As a result, we boosted career site traffic by 60% year-over-year and applications by 275%. We even used AAbot in recruitment marketing campaigns and social media posts.
Virtual Interview Management System
A Gartner HR Survey revealed that 86% of organisations conducted virtual interviews during the course of the coronavirus pandemic, and this isn’t likely to decline as businesses recover. A dedicated virtual hiring solution can help you quickly hire the essential talent you need, no matter where they live or how the demand for remote working changes.
Modern candidates expect a hiring experience to be personal, quick and convenient. Rather than just leverage video meeting tools, look for dedicated virtual interview tools that offer multiple options for virtual interviews, including on-demand phone interviews, text interviews as well as live and pre-recorded video interviews. Additional features, like self-scheduling tools and automated candidate advancement tools, help dramatically reduce time-to-hire and enhance the candidate experience.
Virtual Assessment Tool
Speed up the candidate review process by investing in virtual pre-employment assessment tools. Modern options include AI that can evaluate writing samples, phone and video interviews and skills test responses. Digital assessment solutions examine the candidate’s aptitude, personality and skills using predictive analytics and machine learning, ensuring you hire the highest quality talent. This also has the added benefit of reducing bias, as the AI focuses on the content of the responses not the candidate or what they look like.
Platforms range from those providing code evaluations for software development roles to language aptitude tests. Make sure you look at the assessment experience from both the candidate and hiring manager experience before committing to a tool.
Recruitment Analytics
With data flowing across your integrated systems, investing in a recruitment analytics platform offers you a single source of truth for understanding your end-to-end recruitment process. Whether you’re hoping to track time-to-fill, DE&I efforts or overall talent acquisition performance, these tools will satisfy your C-suite’s hunger for insights into your recruitment programme.
Look for a tool with interactive dashboards that make it easy to visually monitor trends and slice and dice the data to identify areas of opportunity—and gain the full value of your recruitment data. Modern analytics tools leverage artificial intelligence and machine learning to highlight insights, anomalies and predictions so you have the data you need to drive informed decisions.
New analytics advancements mean cutting edge tools can now provide the ability to query your data via natural language processing. For example, our Ask Affinix feature, powered by Amazon’s QuickSight Q, lets you ask questions of your data in plain language and receive accurate answers with relevant visualisations in seconds.
Onboarding Tool
The new employee onboarding process is an essential element of creating a positive employee experience. Not only should it get new hires up-to-speed on your company and their role, there’s also crucial paperwork steps for payroll, taxes, benefits and more. Consider implementing an onboarding software to automate and support the onboarding process—especially if you’re doing a lot of remote hiring. Checklist features guide your candidates and hiring managers through the first days on the job, so they don’t miss any important steps. Self-service tools let new hires work through all those first tasks and training modules at their own pace. They won’t miss any crucial policies or compliance training, and you’ll have a record of when they completed it in the event of an audit.
Look for tools that let your new hires upload documents online like signed employment contracts, tax forms and right-to-work documents to speed up your payroll procedures. It’s also imperative that this integrates with your ATS and HRIS platforms to keep your employment records up-to-date and eliminate any manual steps which are prone to human error.
Internal Mobility Software
It’s no secret how important career pathing and development are for retaining employees and saving on sourcing costs. In fact, a study of LinkedIn users showed that employees who were promoted within three years of being hired have a 70% chance of staying with the company and those who made a lateral move have a 62% chance. Meanwhile, those who didn’t make an internal move only have 45% chance of staying.
An internal mobility platform lets you share vacancies internally first and help you identify existing employees who may have the skills and experience to move laterally or vertically into a new role. Look for a tool that offers a seamless experience by letting you post to internal and public job boards and view internal and external candidates together in one place, with internal candidates uniquely identified. The system should feature automation like automated invitation emails to qualified internal candidates to speed up time-to-fill and reduce administrative burden.
Conclusion
The recruitment technology landscape is complicated, with new solutions being added all the time. It can be confusing to plan a talent acquisition tech stack but selecting the right tools can boost access to data and help you create both operational and cost efficiencies. Employers should work with a talent partner who can help them customise a technology ecosystem that meets their needs now and prepares them for what’s next.
Talent attraction means grabbing a candidate’s attention and in this day and age that is not an easy task. Every day, we’re bombarded with between 4,000 and 10,000 ads. Naturally, we don’t give every one of them our full attention; our brains screen out the majority that they consider irrelevant, so we don’t get overwhelmed. Recruitment messages—designed to grow awareness and excitement around job opportunities—are just one subset of ads fighting for our attention in this intense daily contest.
In such a ruthless environment, talent attraction techniques have evolved and adapted. Modern recruitment marketing now draws heavily on consumer marketing practices and technology to ensure that recruiting organisations create clear space between themselves and their competitors. This optimises the likelihood that their messages will receive the attention of the right candidates and fuel growth in healthy pipelines for future vacancies.
This article will walk you through four strategic pillars to succeed in this hugely competitive space for top talent.
Talent Attraction Pillar One: Establishing Your Brand Narrative as a North Star
To attract top talent, you need to tell a vivid story about your unique employer value proposition, or EVP. This proposition should clearly communicate the compelling elements of your employment offer, as well as the behaviors and values you expect of candidates in return.
This narrative allows candidates to make an informed decision about whether your organisation is somewhere they aspire to work and somewhere they can have an influence. But, it also ensures that the people who do go on to apply are in tune with your company values; are motivated to be a part of your team’s mission; and are ready to take on the particular challenges associated with their role.
Recruitment marketing is the task of telling that story—why talent should want to work for you. Specifically, it’s about telling it:
To the right people, at the right time
Consistently, with targeted content and experiences that develop a candidate’s understanding of—and trust in—your company
In exciting and unexpected ways to stand out from the competition
Changing jobs is a significant life event fueled by a complex and highly emotional decision-making process. More than ever, candidates are searching for an employer that exhibits a shared set of values and work that they find meaningful. This is even more apparent in the Millennial and Gen Z members of the workforce. As such, a well-articulated employee value proposition can provoke an emotive response from candidates; give them a first glimpse into your company culture; and differentiate you from your competitors for talent. Without a clearly defined employer brand story, the guiding North Star of your strategy is missing.
Talent Attraction Pillar Two: Build Authenticity & Trust with Your Employees’ Voice
When considering whether to apply for a role, candidates will evaluate the authenticity of your brand claims and develop perceptions of what it’s really like to work for you. Therefore, when it comes to the credibility of your messages, the sources that deliver them are all important. Appetite for glossy corporate advertising is low; candidates are looking for trusted spokespeople to reveal the real story.
According to Edelman’s brand trust report, nearly seven in 10 people globally use one or more advertising avoidance strategy.
Personal experience, earned media, and peer-to-peer conversations are far more influential than owned media and paid advertising in the battle for brand trust.
Industry experts and regular employees are seen as significantly more credible spokespeople for a brand than the company’s CEO.
Similarly, candidates are savvy to corporate clichés and empty promises. Alternatively, they will use resources like Glassdoor and Indeed to seek out the opinions of existing employees who have previously road-tested an employee experience.
Of course, you can’t control everything that’s written about your brand online, but you can empower your most engaged employees to be the voice of your brand by sharing their own experiences. Plus, personal stories will provide you with credible evidence to support your employer value proposition and build credibility amongst your external brand audiences. It can be easy to overcomplicate advocacy; the key is to make it a fun and celebratory process. For instance:
Make sharing simple. There are many content amplification tools that will allow employees to access your employer brand content and repost it to their own social channels in seconds.
Introduce a little competition. Award points to employees for sharing their own stories and reposting those of their colleagues.
Make advocacy rewarding. What do your advocates get in return for being active brand ambassadors? Social media training? Networking opportunities?
But, don’t just expect employees to go off and create great content; you’ll need to offer support. So, consider setting content creation challenges with detailed guidelines to keep them energised and engaged.
Talent Attraction Pillar Three: Connect to Talent with Data-Driven Insights
Top talent doesn’t need to actively look for new opportunities because, like in the consumer world, offers have already started coming to them. Nowadays, passive and active candidate status is no longer clear cut. Whilst some people are actively looking for jobs, it would be incorrect to label everyone else passive and disinterested in new opportunities.
In fact, candidates expect to be approached with new opportunities. A whopping 70% of candidates are passive—open to new opportunities but not actively seeking them out. In such a competitive market, you need to engage your future workforce before the demand to hire them exists.
So, instead of playing the numbers game and hoping that the right person is out there somewhere, wouldn’t it be better to have an existing relationship with the people we think would be perfect for the job? And, better still, to know exactly their level of interest in new opportunities so that, when we do approach them, we know it’s a welcome advance? Fortunately, this is all made possible if we build high-quality, data-driven talent pipelines that provide recruiters with live insights into candidate interest levels and improve their efficiency. Below are three steps you can take to start building talent pipelines.
Pillar Four: Differentiate Your Brand Through Human Experiences
Let’s reimagine the marketing funnel as the journey of a single candidate. Armed with your compelling employer value proposition, the task throughout this journey is to bring the promises of that proposition to life for candidates and reinforce your brand messages so that they build a preference for your organisation.
In other words, rather than just telling candidates why you should be their preferred choice of employer, show them at every touchpoint.
Remember when we referred to your employer brand as your North Star? This is exactly what we meant by that: Use your employer brand and value proposition as a guiding force when crafting all of your recruitment communications and experiences. The more consistently and distinctively your value proposition is expressed throughout the candidate journey (and beyond into the employee lifecycle), the more your brand reputation will align to the identity that you want to portray.
As an example, if you claim to be an employer that cares about employee wellbeing, show candidates from the start by supporting them through the recruitment process with deep empathy. Likewise, if you claim to be an employer that fosters innovation, ensure that your communications are fresh and different.
The way that candidates experience your organisation throughout the candidate journey will show them everything they need to know about how your company treats customers and colleagues. That perception, once created, is hard to shift. If you treat candidates with dignity and show them how their time is valued, most will walk away from the recruitment process feeling positive about the brand you represent—whether they were successful or not. This means that you’re more likely to be the beneficiary of positive word-of-mouth advertising from that individual, as well as ensure that they’re more likely to reengage with you in the future should another, more appropriate, opportunity arise. That could be next week, next month or next year. The long game matters. A human-centric approach is different and will certainly stand out amongst the numerous companies that still facilitate an impersonal hiring process.
Making The Right Match
When these four strategic pillars work cohesively together, they allow you to seek out top talent and start conversations with potential employees wherever they prefer to consume content. Then, you can convert candidates to the next stage of the recruitment process by delivering content that responds to behavioural triggers and underlying candidate motivations. Finally, you can differentiate your organisation from your competitors with human experiences that bring your employer brand to life in unexpected and exciting ways.
When people of different backgrounds with different experiences come together, they drive innovation—both in the workplace and in the world at large. In fact, there’s substantial research that DE&I initiatives bring many advantages to the workplace, including increased profitability and creativity; greater productivity; and better problem-solving, amongst others.
Employees with diverse backgrounds also bring their own perspectives, ideas and experiences, which help to create organisations that are resilient and effective and that outperform organisations that do not invest in diversity.
Yet, despite the obvious benefits of increased diversity and inclusion in the workplace, the reality still leaves much to be desired. Research from Glassdoor shows that whilst 75% of UK employees say their company employs a diverse workforce, over half (54%) believe their company should do more to improve diversity, equity and inclusion (DE&I), including more than two-thirds (62%) of Millennial and Gen Z (ages 18 – 34) employees.
Clearly, employers must do more, and the responsibility for diversity, equity and inclusion (DE&I) belongs to the entire organisation—including talent acquisition and HR leaders. So, in this article, we’ll cover the different areas of the business that contribute to DE&I; how you can determine your DE&I programme maturity; and areas where talent acquisition leaders can have the greatest influence.
So, Who’s Responsible for DE&I Initiatives?
For years, talent acquisition teams have led diversity efforts within organisations. In some cases, employers hire a chief diversity officer (CDO) and provide a budget for DE&I initiatives. However, the responsibility for DE&I initiatives is much broader, and everyone from senior leaders to entry-level employees in everything from marketing to IT has a role in creating an inclusive workplace. Here, we outline the roles that different areas of the business play in DE&I efforts.
The number of senior leaders as executive sponsors promoting DE&I has increased from 33% in 2018 to 44% in 2021. But, leadership must play a role in the DE&I initiatives at all organisations. In fact, having a C-suite member as the diversity and inclusion programme leader is one of the biggest differentiators between organisations in which diversity is not considered a barrier to progression versus ones where it is, according to PwC’s data.
However, to be successful champions of diversity, leadership needs to be fully engaged—because an inclusive and equitable culture must be present from the top down. Notably, if time and other responsibilities that accompany their jobs make it difficult for executives to be fully engaged, organisations may want to reconsider having their C-suite remain heavily involved in their diversity efforts. In this case, you might consider appointing another individual (or individuals) who is more able to focus on the work and, as a result, bring about more change.
Diversity Committees
Not every organisation has the resources to support a full-time diversity role. In fact, the larger the employer, the more likely it is to have dedicated diversity staff. However, as SHRM found, smaller organisations may be able to aid diversity and inclusion programmes by taking a cue from the 17% of employers that have an advisory group/committee comprised of volunteer staff members. This can actually be quite an effective approach, as employee sponsorship corresponds with lower levels of reported bias within an organisation.
Identifying Gaps in the Maturity of Your DE&I Initiatives and Programmes
When it comes to really progressing your organisation’s DE&I programme, the best place to start is by asking yourself where your organisation stands today. That way, you can best identify where to place your initial efforts in order to create the greatest influence. Below, we outline the different stages of DE&I programme maturity. Note that your organisation may be at different levels in different areas.
Beginner: Generally, employers at the beginner level of maturity tend to be more reactive rather than proactive; they may narrowly define workplace diversity, and leaders usually have limited involvement in driving DE&I forward within the organisation.
Intermediate: Employers at the intermediate level typically focus on more purpose-driven DE&I initiatives, with leadership assuming a greater role in progressing DE&I in the workplace. At this level, the definition of diversity expands to include less-visible characteristics, like disability, religion, class, age, regionalism, sexual orientation and more. Additionally, at this stage, an employer may employ a dedicated staff and provide a budget for DE&I.
Advanced: Employers at the advanced stage focus on multi-dimensionality and intersectionality when thinking about diversity. In this situation, leaders practice inclusive leadership skills and are held accountable for creating a diverse and inclusive workplace. They also often have DE&I resources and budgets distributed throughout the organisation to ensure organisation-wide diversity.
Leading: Employers at this level take a sustainable approach to DE&I, in which leaders are expected to lead holistically and inclusively; be key DE&I initiatives change agents; and hold the organisation accountable. In addition to their internal resources, they often have external DE&I advisory boards that guide them on leading practices.
Identifying your organisation’s DE&I maturity level allows you to better measure your progress on key areas of workforce diversity, including communication, employee education, company culture, resource investment and the involvement of leadership. This will help guide your next steps toward creating a more diverse, equitable and inclusive workforce, as well as allow your organisation to focus on interventions that are targeted and specific. Plus, in organisational environments facing a multiplicity of DE&I issues at once, the ability to pinpoint current state, plot out the desired state and craft the roadmap to get there is critical.
The Role of Talent Acquisition
While the responsibility for DE&I is spread across an organisation, talent acquisition still plays a major role. Recruiters, sourcers, hiring managers and HR leaders are powerhouse roles that must work together to find the right candidate for the job, while also demonstrating an organisation’s commitment to DE&I from the company’s first interactions with employees.
As talent acquisition leaders, you also play a key role in bringing to life diversity and inclusion as values that are deeply embedded in an organisation. More precisely, your team plays a particularly critical role by sourcing, engaging and eventually hiring candidates from underrepresented groups.
Does your organisation have a talent pool of diverse candidates? Do your interviewing practices reduce unconscious bias? Do you have a strong reputation for being a diverse workplace? These are some of the critical questions that you and your teams should attempt to answer to deliver on the organisation’s diversity agenda.
By understanding your role and performing it effectively, talent acquisition teams can work with leaders in other areas of the business to build a truly holistic DE&I programme. Here, we discuss some of the tactics that talent acquisition can adopt to overcome diversity sourcing, selection and hiring challenges.
Championing Diversity
Once your talent acquisition team establishes awareness and accountability, members should become champions of diversity hiring; you have a tremendous opportunity to drive the diversity agenda by reinforcing the case for diversity hiring. For instance, engaged recruiters can champion diversity and make it an everyday dialogue with hiring managers. That’s because recruiters are responsible for ensuring that all candidates are treated fairly and equally in a process that removes bias. They’re also the first step in demonstrating how the organisation appreciates and celebrates its diverse employees.
Diversity Sourcing
To ensure that your talent pool is representative of diverse candidates, source your candidates from a variety of talent channels. Clearly, you can’t rely on the same sources repeatedly when seeking out new candidates; focusing only on the sources that you know best can result in a talent pool of similar candidates and a lack of diversity.
Instead, seek out opportunities to source candidates from underrepresented backgrounds. For example, there are many online and offline groups dedicated to women in technology. This could be a great opportunity to meet and connect with high-calibre, female candidates directly—instead of waiting for them to find you through platforms like Indeed. And, the more initiative you take to find these channels, the more likely it is that your talent pools will be diverse.
What’s more, if you’re struggling to find diverse talent, reach out to employees from diverse backgrounds and encourage them to share your job ads with their networks; then, give them the tools they need to promote open roles within your organisation. As a result, your employees and candidates will both feel that your company values their opinions and contributions, which is fantastic for team morale and engagement.
DE&I Initiatives: Building Inclusivity
Building an inclusive workplace is central to creating a workplace environment in which every employee feels valued. Granted, every organisation is different, so the content and structure of an inclusion programme needs to meet the conditions of your organisation. To get you started, SHRM offers an inclusivity checklist for HR that provides a good place to start:
Make sure that company leaders understand that inclusion is about ensuring that everyone’s voice is heard, opinions are considered, and value to the team is evident.
Train managers to show that inclusivity is a core competency—and hold them accountable.
Form an inclusion council with genuine influence and power.
Value differences and create an environment in which people can feel comfortable bringing their authentic selves to work.
Identify the needs of underrepresented groups, and give them the necessary support and resources.
Provide workers with a safe space to voice their concerns.
Benchmark key aspects of your organisation’s culture and understand the employee experience before making changes to promote inclusivity.
Remember that daily interactions are the most telling sign of whether your company has an inclusive culture.
Unconscious Bias & Candidate Selection
One of the key reasons companies lose out on diverse talent is unconscious bias, which can have detrimental effects on the diversity hiring process. The concept of unconscious bias or implicit bias was first introduced in 2006 as “the new science of unconscious mental processes that has a substantial bearing on discrimination law”. This challenged the longstanding idea that people are guided only by explicit beliefs and conscious intentions.
One example of unconscious bias is that a candidate’s surname—which implies their ethnic background—can adversely affect their chances of landing a job. Unfortunately, studies by Ghent University show that the surname appearing on a candidate’s résumé or CV can reduce the possibility of receiving a call back by 25% in Germany; 29% in Sweden and the UK; and 50% in the U.S. Accordingly, to address unconscious biases, some companies mask candidate demographics while presenting them to the hiring team in order to shift the focus from ethnicity to experience and skills.
Diversity at Work: Converting Candidates From Underrepresented Groups Into Employees
However, winning over diverse candidates goes beyond just locating them and ensuring that they’re treated fairly during the hiring process. Rather, to win diverse talent, organisations should demonstrate the authenticity of their commitment to DE&I by leveraging their employer brand through career sites and social media channels, as well as by showing how diverse and inclusive they are through their employees and leadership.
Furthermore, talent acquisition can also play a role in reinforcing these messages by:
Adding a link to diversity and inclusion policies and practices in job advertisements and recruiters’ email signatures.
Minimising adverse effects of recruitment discrimination by complementing recruiters with talent acquisition technologies like PeopleScout’s AffinixTM.
Ensuring job-related information is accessible to all groups. (For example, ensure your career site is accessible to those with visual impairments through design, alt text and screen readers; and ensure presentations and videos include subtitles or sign language.)
Scheduling interviews in locations that are accessible and convenient for all candidates, such as parking for people with disabilities; Braille script on elevators and signage; and female, male and gender-neutral restrooms.
Sharing relevant stories about a diverse set of employees in the organisation and involving diverse employees and senior leaders in the interviewing process.
Respecting candidates’ gender identity. Because gender identity is internal, a person’s gender identity is not necessarily visible to others, so asking candidates what pronoun(s) they prefer to use in interviews and other communications can make a difference.
DE&I Initiatives: Talent Technology
The right talent acquisition technology can be a powerful tool for reaching your DE&I initiatives and goals. And, as you begin to recognise and fix disparities in hiring processes and work environments, data can be an important tool in determining the effectiveness of those efforts. No DE&I initiative can be successful unless it can be measured.
To that end, diversity dashboards—like those available in PeopleScout’s Affinix Analytics—can break down your hires by gender and ethnicity. Then, with that information, you can identify where the most diverse hires have been found. From there, you can focus on which recruitment strategies are most effective in bringing in candidates form underrepresented groups. And, once those initiatives are in place, you can track your success over time.
The goal of diversity, equity and inclusion in the workplace should be a central pillar in any organisation’s journey. Embracing a multitude of viewpoints and cultures drives innovation; improves decision-making; increases employee productivity and retention; and leads to better-served employees—and, by extension, customers. While responsibility for diversity, equity and inclusion is shared across an organisation, talent acquisition leaders have a significant influence.
It’s no secret that the pandemic greatly impacted the labour market. Now, employers face a new challenge: Too many job openings and too few workers.
Amid the dual challenges of COVID-19 and Brexit, job openings are at an all-time high—the result of millions of prime-age workers leaving the UK labour market or transitioning to part-time employment. Employers in industries like leisure and hospitality, healthcare, manufacturing and more are struggling to fill open positions with qualified talent.
So, with all these vacancies, how can employers stand out above the competition to attract the next generation of top talent? It starts with focusing on key candidate touch points—from your employer value proposition (EVP) and employer brand to your recruitment marketing strategy, careers site and application process.
In this article, we’ll take you along the candidate journey and touch on each aspect you should address to make your open roles stand out in a sea of job openings.
Create an EVP and Employer Brand that Speaks to Your Ideal Candidate
Your EVP and employer brand carry a lot of weight for the next generation of top talent, because they serve as differentiators between your brand and competitors and allow you to align your organisation’s purpose with your candidates’ passions. It is important to do your research and be aware of what candidates hold in high regard, such as the opportunity for growth personally and professionally or the importance of diversity, equity and inclusion in the workplace. Learn what drives your ideal candidate, identify what drives your organisation’s mission and values, and establish an EVP and employer brand that speaks to both.
Building an Employer Brand for the Lawyer of the Future
The Situation: Linklaters approached us with a talent problem for the ages. They needed an entirely new type of lawyer. The profile Linklaters recruited for in the past would no longer bring them the ideal candidates necessary to secure and expand on their position as a heavyweight global law firm.
The Research: We conducted one-on-one interviews and focus groups with hundreds of professionals in 20 Linklaters offices across Europe, North America and Asia-Pacific. The output of these interviews gave us everything we needed to create the EVP and the framework of the brand on which to build our global advertising campaign.
The Solution: We created an employer value proposition that was a combination of big picture philosophical and a Linklaters-specific selling point.
GREAT CHANGE IS HERE
Message: Change is healthy and exciting, as well as unavoidable. Join this modern, international, hugely diverse cohort and you’ll have a truly influential voice that redefines the legal sector and sets you up for an ever-evolving career.
The Results: Glassdoor scores for Linklaters have risen by 8% in the last two years and, importantly, applications from female lawyers—which was a key objective—have increased since the EVP launch.
How to Communicate Your Employer Brand through Recruitment Marketing
After evaluating your organisation’s EVP and employer brand, it’s time to showcase both in your recruitment marketing strategies. Digital recruitment marketing is a way for employers to source and attract potential candidates. It can include social media, email marketing, display advertising and more. Consider these three stages when building your recruitment marketing strategy:
Stage One: Increase Awareness
When it comes to increasing awareness with recruitment marketing, you want to reach ideal candidates and promote your organisation. To ensure you are marketing yourself properly, it can help to create content that drives a potential candidate to come back to your site, even if they aren’t actively looking for a job.
For example, acknowledging company accolades and awards can spark interest in your organisation for both active and passive candidates, like this Instagram post from HubSpot. However, content at this stage does not need to be directly correlated to your organisation to be effective. Content regarding professional development and motivation can also lead ideal candidates to inquire further on your website, such as these resume tips from Nestle.
Stage Two: Generate Interest
Now that you have increased awareness, the next step is to generate interest. You have succeeded in showcasing your organisation’s knowledge and place in the industry, now it’s time to show what it is like to work at your company. This is where you stress your employer brand—especially via social media—to give potential candidates an inside look as to what it’s like to work for your company.
Social media is a powerful tool that not only generates interest but can also increase applicants for vital roles. For example, PeopleScout helped a manufacturing client increase the number of female applicants and hires in a male-dominated industry through the use of employee spotlights, videos and stories on their social media channels. These posts showcased how women are integrated into the company culture and integral to the organisation’s success, and the client was able to increase female hiring by 3% annually from 2018 to 2021.
Stage Three: Nurture the Decision
After increasing awareness and generating interest in your company, it is now time to promote open positions and the benefits, perks and compensation that will come with these roles. The promotion of open roles within your organisation will lead the candidate to your careers site, which plays a pivotal role in the candidate’s journey toward employment with your organisation. Here, it is important to do research on your competitors to see what they are offering for similar open roles. If a competitor is offering better pay, benefits or perks, that can be a deciding factor for an ideal candidate to choose them over your organisation, despite your strong recruitment marketing strategy.
Build a Careers Site that Stands Out
At this point in the candidate journey, the potential applicant has made their way to your organisation’s careers site. It’s important to remember that this is not only an area for job postings, but it is also home to many opportunities to stand out above competitors. For example, your careers site is a great place to reiterate the employer value proposition to ensure that the message is carried through every step of the candidate journey. Your careers site should include everything a potential candidate would like to know about working for your organisation. Consider these key areas of opportunity when refreshing your careers site:
Ensure Accessibility
In the digital age, it is important to make sure your careers site is user-friendly for those on a computer or a smart phone. This is especially important because 89% of candidates think mobile devices play a critical role in the job hunting process. Unfortunately, if a candidate struggles to navigate your careers site, chances are they won’t be staying on that site for long.
It is also important to make sure your careers site is accessible for those with disabilities. Here are some suggestions from SHRM on how to make your careers site accessible for all:
Screen reader compatibility
Alternative text for images
Color contrast
Keyboard accessibility
Controls for moving content
Captions
Controls for timed content
Labeled forms
Accessible downloadable files
Plain language
Search Engine Optimisation
It is important to utilise search engine optimisation on your careers site. This can play a pivotal role in the likelihood of your careers site showing up first over a competitor on major search engines. The usage of keywords and traditional, highly-searched titles will play an important part in helping your roles stand out above your competition. Plus, researching popular keywords can boost your place amongst major search engines, leading potential candidates to your careers site first. Google Analytics and UTM tracking codes are important tools to utilise in your SEO journey to track and report where your clicks are coming from.
Provide a Personal Touch
On your career site, adding a personal touch, such as a welcome video, can go a long way. It can help the candidate see the human side of your business; offer an inside look of the facility; and showcase where applicants may fit in within the structure of the organisation.
This is a great chance to sell the applicant on working for your company and really showcase your company culture. Offer insights, quotes or firsthand experiences from senior leaders to newly brought on employees. Highlight opportunities for growth—both personally and professionally—and provide examples of success stories from your existing employees.
Let Applicants Know What to Expect
If the process to apply and interview is not well explained or discussed at all, many applicants may believe their application will get lost amongst others. Be upfront and transparent about what the application and interview process is like and then offer timelines for the applicants.
Streamline the Application and Interview Process
Although the candidate has made it this far, you’re not done yet. After all, 80% of the time, candidates don’t finish filling out job applications, according to Glassdoor. To ensure candidates complete your application and interview process, focus on these key aspects to help you stand out:
Mobile-friendly application
Quick response time
Virtual interviews
Automated chat and scheduling
Consider how technology can help streamline your process in each of the categories listed above. A mobile-friendly application, easy interview scheduling and quick response times can all be enhanced by AI and automation and provide a superior candidate experience.
Standing Out Beyond the Application
Despite having a well-built EVP and employer brand, recruitment marketing strategy, careers site and application, the deciding factor for an ideal candidate to choose your organisation will often come down to a strong employment offer. It’s important to keep in mind that if your compensation, perks and benefits (like flexible work options) don’t match up to competitors, ideal candidates in today’s market have the ability to choose to work elsewhere.
That said, by creating ways to stand out and showcase your EVP and employer brand at each stage of the candidate journey as outlined above, you will be one step closer to securing the top talent your organisation needs.
At the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, employers across all industries faced difficult personnel decisions as organisations were forced to reduce their workforces. Now, as a sense of normalcy and stability returns, employers find themselves facing a new challenge: The Great Resignation.
So, how can employers mitigate talent turnover and start building their workforces for the economic recovery? In this article, we’ll explain the Great Resignation, take an in-depth look at what candidates want from employers and provide retention strategies for navigating the current talent landscape.
What is the Great Resignation?
In the wake of the pandemic, workers expect more from their employers. In particular, they want employers to alleviate—or at least acknowledge—their concerns, needs and special circumstances. Notably, organisations that failed to do so have suffered.
Whilst every sector is experiencing an increase in resignations, the healthcare, retail, hospitality and restaurant industries have been hit the hardest. For some workers in these industries, it’s because these jobs have extensive interaction with the public and employees are worried about the risk to their health. Meanwhile, others—especially those in lower-wage jobs—are pivoting to new careers that promise better pay, benefits or rewards.
The Great Resignation is a term coined by researcher Anthony Klotz of Texas A&M University. It refers to the massive, economy-wide increase in job turnover that is expected to accompany the end of COVID-era regulations, business closures and work-from-home mandates. According to Klotz, there is no single factor responsible for the Great Resignation. Rather, numerous motivators are inspiring employees to consider changing jobs.
For instance:
Many employees who would have otherwise already quit their jobs stuck with their positions for the duration of the pandemic. And, now that job security is less important, people in this group are preparing to finally make the change they’ve been postponing.
The stress of the pandemic contributed to higher levels of employee burnout, which is associated with higher turnover rates.
Time away from the workplace has led some people to consider rebalancing their priorities to focus more on their families or hobbies. Others are reevaluating how their careers align with their values and interests.
Millions of employees experienced the flexibility and convenience of remote work for the first time during the pandemic. As a result, many do not want to return to the office.
Research from McKinsey, based on surveys of both employers and employees in Australia, Canada, Singapore, the United Kingdom, and the United States, shows that employers don’t understand what’s motivating employees to leave. Whilst employers cited compensation, work-life balance and health issues, employees revealed their reasons for leaving were to do with their relationship with the business. In fact, the top three factors for employees who quit were that they didn’t feel valued by the organisation (54%) or their manager (52%) or that they didn’t feel a sense of belonging at work (51%).
Whilst workers have always cared about their work environments, now there’s an increased willingness to leave a role if dissatisfied.
Retaining Talent During the Great Resignation
With so much riding on successfully retaining talent, it’s particularly important for employers to get it right. As such, employers need to better understand what drives and sustains career satisfaction amongst their employees. Below, we outline strategies for gaining insights into your workforce that can help you better retain talent amid the Great Resignation.
Professional Development & Advancement Opportunities
Well-thought-out professional development and internal mobility programs can provide your employees with opportunities and clear direction on how to increase their skills and advance their careers within your organisation.
“Career management continues to be a top driver of attraction, talent retention and sustainable engagement for most employees,” wrote Laurie Bienstock of Willis Towers Watson in an article published by HR Dive. “Effective career management at many organisations remains elusive. That’s one of the main reasons so many of today’s employees feel they need to leave to advance their careers.”
Fortunately, investing in expanding your employees’ skill sets will not only help them feel more empowered, but they’ll also have more tools to help your organisation—a win-win scenario.
When starting a professional development programme, leverage the expertise you have within your organisation. For instance, senior employees can serve as mentors and help mentees sharpen both their soft skills and technical skills; gain practical knowledge, institutional insights and hands-on guidance; and become more valuable and versatile employees.
Reinforce Your Workplace Culture
As employers transition toward a hybrid work model to address the challenges presented by the pandemic, fostering a workplace culture that is consistent both online and in-person has become more challenging. So, consider what matters most to the employees in your organisation.
If diversity and inclusion is a priority, remote work can provide the opportunity to bring in hires from around the world who otherwise would not be available. Similarly, if professional development and mentorship are most important, think about how online tools can be used to foster these types of relationships.
Employee Benefits & Well-Being
The right employee benefits can be influential when workers are considering resignation. According to research by insurer Drewberry, 51% of workers said they’d like their company to introduce benefits that help them manage their health and well-being.
In the past, benefits have include insurance, equipment allowances or childcare, but now they increasingly cover things like gym memberships or weekly coffee allowances. Benefits focused on employee well-being—such as providing access to counselling, employee assistance programmes or additional annual leave or family leave—can go a long way to engender greater loyalty in your workforce
Conduct Stay Interviews
In some ways, “stay” interviews are similar to exit interviews; they’re both used to identify reasons employees like or dislike their job. They can also uncover concerns or issues that an employer may be unaware of.
However, stay interviews can actually be more valuable than exit interviews because they provide insights that employers can leverage to motivate and retain employees before they decide to leave. Questions to ask during a stay interview include:
What keeps you working here?
What do you enjoy about your job?
What would cause you to leave the company?
What would you like to change about your job, team or department?
If you could change one thing about the company, what would it be?
Have you ever thought about leaving the organisation?
What motivates you at work?
Do you feel appreciated in your role?
Where do you see yourself in five years?
Employers can use the information gleaned from stay interviews to guide company policy; make improvements in corporate culture; and keep talent engaged and wanting to stay. COVID-19 has profoundly changed what employees expect from employers, and attributing record-high resignations simply to salary concerns misses the bigger trends in growing the workplace.
The pandemic has changed the way employees work and how they view their employer. Now, many workers are reflecting on what a quality workplace feels like—and many are willing to quit to find a better one. As a result, reversing the tide of resignations in your organisation requires leaders who care; who engage their teams honestly; and who give workers a sense of purpose, inspiration and motivation to perform.
Whether that is achieved through flexible work policies, improving benefits, sharing common values or unique career opportunities, it’s essential that you listen to your employees’ needs, keep checking in on them, and work together to create a workplace that is not only able to serve you both, but one that can also make you both happy, as well.
Now more than ever, an organisation’s hiring strategy should adaptable. Throughout the last two years, many employers have had to reimagine their recruitment processes. Due to the pandemic, organisations rapidly moved recruiting processes to virtual models, shifting in-person interviews to digital and transitioning traditional office roles to remote.
Today, as businesses bounce back and job vacancies are at record highs, employers need to hire top talent—and fast. And, just as a hybrid approach to in-person and remote work for employees has become the norm, so, too, will the need for a blended recruiting strategy that will optimise the candidate experience by keeping the advantages of in-person hiring, while also continuing to leverage the benefits of virtual.
In this article, we’ll walk through what a hybrid hiring strategy is, discuss the benefits of in-person versus virtual techniques and provide tips for how to create a hybrid hiring strategy that works for your organisation.
What is a Hybrid Hiring Strategy?
Hybrid hiring—or hybrid recruiting—is a strategy that allows organisations to maximise the benefits of both in-person and virtual hiring techniques. Specifically, a hybrid approach allows employers to leverage the advantages of virtual recruiting when it makes sense, while simultaneously using strategic, in-person methods to add value to the candidate experience along the way.
A hybrid approach to hiring isn’t new. Many organisations employed a mix of virtual and in-person techniques prior to 2020. However, COVID-19 rapidly accelerated the need for safe, efficient hiring models, thereby leading to greater adoption of virtual strategies. Now, because employers have seen the advantages of virtual recruiting, the benefits of a hybrid model have become clear—regardless of social distancing rules. Depending on the type of role you’re hiring for, having a strong hybrid hiring model in place makes it easy to recruit staff 100% virtually when needed, or to use a blended approach.
Leveraging a hybrid hiring strategy means you get the best of both worlds. But, what does that entail? Here are some of the biggest benefits of both virtual and in-person hiring techniques—and how they’ll play out post-pandemic.
Benefits of Virtual Hiring Techniques
Reduced Cost & Greater Efficiency
When you remove the physical component of recruiting, you see a greatly improved speed-to-hire and an overall reduction in costs. Plus, expenses that would normally be spent on hosting recruiting events—such as travel costs, venue fees and printed materials—suddenly drop to zero. Additionally, your employees save time by hosting events remotely and also reap the benefit of having more candidates in attendance.
Expanded Reach & Reduced Bias
With travel out of the equation and with remote job options in place, employers can then expand the geographies from which they source talent. This offers greater opportunities for candidates and opens up your candidate pool to top talent who may not have been on your radar previously.
Virtual hiring also reduces the amount of hiring bias experienced during in-person interviews. As humans, we judge people on many things (unconsciously or not), including how a candidate may look. But, with virtual interviews, recruiters are able to focus less on a candidate’s appearance and more on what they have to say.
Research from CV Library reveals that a staggering 79% of Brits think that your physical appearance can affect your chances of landing a job.
Overall Convenience
Virtual interviews and other virtual recruiting tactics are convenient for both candidates and recruiters alike. For example, candidates can schedule on-demand interviews at a time that is most convenient for them, and recruiters can watch those recordings at their own convenience. What’s more, through the use of artificial intelligence (AI) and automation, candidates can also self-schedule follow-up interviews, ask questions and receive real-time responses that would have previously taken much longer without the technology that has come from the rise of virtual.
Benefits of In-Person Hiring Techniques
Showcase Your Company Culture
One challenge of virtual recruiting is the ability to effectively showcase your company’s culture. Whilst there are certainly ways to do so, nothing quite compares to experiencing how individuals in an organisation interact with one another in-person. Especially for roles that are required to work in an in-person or office setting, providing a time to come in for an in-person interview or assessment can be a great way to show your candidate what it would really be like to work for your company on a day-to-day basis.
Human Touch
Whilst AI and automated tools help with efficiency, improve candidate experience, and speed up the overall time-to-hire, today’s talent pool can also find benefits from a blended model. A phone call and video interview can get the candidate in the door, but an in-person conversation can seal the deal. This is especially true for senior talent who appreciate being brought in for the final stages of the interview process.
Added Value
Furthermore, utilising in-person techniques can also add value to the candidate experience overall. From office tours to final interviews, it’s difficult to recreate the human touch and employer brand when completely virtual. To that end, where it makes sense, in-person meetings can help sell a candidate on why they should work for your organisation, as opposed to the competition.
How to Recruit People Now: Balancing Your Post-Pandemic Hybrid Hiring Strategy
Your hybrid hiring strategy will likely depend on your organisation’s needs and what your workforce will look like on the other side of the pandemic.
For example, if some or all of your teams will work entirely remotely, it would make more sense to complete the entire recruiting process virtually. Inevitably, bringing the candidate in for an in-person interview or office tour would waste time and money, and would likely confuse the candidate, leading to a poor candidate experience. Instead, recruiting for remote roles with virtual tools—providing opportunities for human interaction and culture along the way can help candidates know what it will be like to work remotely for your company.
“How do we show candidates our company culture when we can’t invite them to the office? We send personalised, handwritten cards to candidates before their start date (as well as some swag!). We want to give them a feeling of being really welcomed into the company—which is what we’re really about.”
Ewa Zajac, Recruiting Operations Manager at Zendesk
On the other hand, if some of your teams will be working both from home and from the office, a hybrid hiring approach would be the best fit. Virtual options save a lot of time and money in the beginning stages of sourcing, screening and interviewing. Plus, candidates will want the flexibility to complete those initial interviews and assessments from the comfort and convenience of their own homes.
Then, when it comes to final interviews, an in-person interview is a great final step before extending an offer. The candidate will appreciate the time you’re investing to bring them in, and they’ll get a taste of what it will be like to work in-person. This will be especially important for roles that will be primarily in the office or for which relocation is necessary.
In the end, hybrid hiring won’t be a one-size-fits-all strategy. Whether your organisation opts to keep recruiting fully virtual or leverages in-person connection, the candidate experience must remain at the forefront of any model. Think about what candidates want and the recruiting model that makes the most sense for the role you’re trying to fill.
Expanding your talent pool amid turbulent times can be difficult. As businesses navigate reopening and hiring amid the surge of the Delta variant of COVID-19, many are struggling to fill their open roles with the talent they need. Combined with the shortage of overseas workers due to Brexit, research from accountancy and advisory firm BDO shows that UK businesses are experiencing disruption to productivity.
Notably, an HGV driver shortage resulted in nationwide fuel shortage. Plus, companies in the healthcare, retail and hospitality sectors are suffering from staff absences, with workers isolating due to COVID-19 infections.
At the same time, millions of workers are also planning to change careers: Data released by Aviva showed that 87% of workers surveyed said they were re-evaluating their careers, whilst nearly one in 10 said they intended to start a new career.
In this article, we’ll explain why people are choosing to change careers, share common skills you should look out for in your talent pool expansion, and provide suggestions for how to create a reskilling programme that will work for your organisation.
How the Talent Pool is Evolving: Why Are Workers Changing Careers?
As a result of the pandemic and the tragic losses that came with it, people were faced with a reminder that every day is not guaranteed. This realisation caused many to rethink their life choices and shift to prioritise their health, loved ones, hobbies and the things they truly enjoy. For many, this included rethinking their career path and goals—including exploring job opportunities that align with their passions.
Source: Prudential
As an employer, you can capitalise on this migration by offering competitive employment packages complete with work/life balance and promoting those benefits via recruitment marketing techniques. More precisely, beyond compensation and flexible work arrangements, show candidates how you will challenge them and help them grow in their career.
Building a Talent Pool: Identifying Transferable Skills in Workers Changing Careers
When searching for talent, you might not consider looking in certain industries or job types because you’re unsure whether the skills developed in those roles will match up with what you need for your business. However, 57% of UK workers are willing to retrain, with mid-career workers (aged 31-40) showing the most willingness at 64%.
Fortunately, you don’t need to start from scratch when hiring people who have chosen to change career paths. Instead, focus on attracting candidates who have strong transferable skills across industries.
Transferable skills, also known as “portable skills,” are those that can carry from one job to another. Transferable skills can be used to position your past experience when applying for a new job—especially if it’s in a different industry. (Source: Indeed)
Because many transferable skills are soft skills, candidates from other industries are often highly collaborative and integrate well into new roles. In particular, they’re well-rounded and more productive from the beginning. As a result, your training time can be focused on knowledge specific to your organisation and the role.
Consider looking for these common transferable skills when expanding your talent pool beyond your industry:
Problem-Solving
Workers who can demonstrate strong problem-solving skills in their previous roles will likely be able to apply that same mentality on the job at your organisation. Specifically, employees with problem-solving skills will be able to identify issues, find out what is causing them and seek out potential solutions—without you having to nudge them.
Teamwork
If the role you’re hiring for requires a lot of collaboration between team members, look for candidates who have experience working toward a common goal with others. Teamwork also encompasses several other skills, such as empathy, active listening and communication.
Communication
Communication is perhaps the most common transferable skill across all industries and job types, because it’s required in almost every role. Workers with effective communication skills are able to clearly share ideas and information both verbally and in writing; know when to ask questions; read body language; and communicate with others in a wide range of settings.
Leadership
Whilst leadership skills are especially vital for management positions and above, they’re important for people to possess at all levels of the organisation. That’s because leadership skills contribute to an employee’s ability to rise to a challenge, get a team on the same page, delegate when needed and see a project through to completion.
Adaptability
Workers who are adaptable and flexible are able to adjust as deadlines, teams or processes change. They can pivot and learn new skills when needed, whilst also maintaining a positive attitude and ensuring goals are still met.
Technology Literacy
If you don’t want to teach your next hire the basics, look for candidates who have experience working with common business tools and technologies that will easily integrate into your business function. Similarly, if your organisation is embracing more digital tools, it’s also important that your candidate is comfortable learning new technology and software to improve efficiency and evolve with your organisation.
Whilst the list above highlights some key transferable skills, there are numerous others that might fit into your organisation and the roles you’re looking to fill. Check out this list from FlexJobs for more.
Building a Reskilling Programme for Workers Changing Careers
Attracting and hiring candidates with transferable skills allows you to skip basic training on soft skills. However, because many of these hires will be coming from different industries, you’ll likely still need to provide an onboarding programme for the first 90 days that includes some reskilling training for non-transferable skills to help them adjust to the new role.
Plus, employees expect training to come from employers. According to McKinsey, skills training is the number-one choice of prospective employees when choosing what makes a great employer. Plus, 94% of employees said they would stay longer with a company that invested in their skills development.
But, what type of training will work for your organisation? Well, that depends on what types of roles you’re looking to fill. According to a report by CompTIA, candidates have different preferences regarding training methods based on the type of job they’re seeking.
Consider these three steps to help you build an effective reskilling programme:
1. Identify Skills Gaps
When hiring candidates from different industries, there’s no doubt that they’ll require some additional training to be able to be successful in the new role. So, identify what those key skills are so you can build your training around them lets you focus on skills unique to the job and your organisation.
2. Develop Specific Skills Trainings
Once you’ve identified the key areas that will need to be covered, develop trainings specific to those needs. These trainings should encompass a variety of reskilling methods to fit the individual needs of your new hires, including:
a. On-the-job training:Employees can take on small projects and learn from real-world experience.
b. Online learning: Virtual courses can be taken at any time and are a great way to speed up the learning process. They provide a lot of content in a digestible form that anyone can complete at their own pace.
c. Blended learning: Combine online courses with in-person training to maximise the benefits of both. Employees can engage with instructors in person and come equipped with knowledge and questions from online training.
d. Peer learning: Employees can learn from one another through collaboration and job shadowing. By observing what someone’s day looks like, employees get a good sense of what will be expected of them day-to-day.
3. Measure Success
Leverage surveys, discussions, post-training assessments and candid feedback from trainees regarding the value they found from the reskilling trainings. Do they feel like they’ve learned something new? Do they have the knowledge to put new skills to use? Are they implementing what they’ve learned on the job? Once you find out, reevaluate and improve your training programme regularly based on the strengths and weaknesses that employees identify.
Marketing Your Reskilling Programme to Your Expanded Talent Pool
Now that you’ve assessed the transferable skills to watch for and developed a reskilling programme for workers who are changing careers, it’s important to make that programme known to potential candidates. Utilise recruitment marketing techniques on social media to promote your roles and share that your organisation is offering reskilling to employees from a variety of industries. In job ads, highlight the fact that hires will be provided with reskilling training to ensure they’re successful in their new role. This—in conjunction with a strong employment offer and benefits—will help your business stand out above others in the competitive search for top talent.
