In an unprecedented development, the number of open positions now exceeds the number of people looking for work in many parts of the world. In the U.S., job openings numbered at over 11 million in February 2022—five million more vacancies than available workers. It’s a similar situation in the UK, with vacancies outnumbering unemployed people for the first time ever. In the face of these labour shortages, it’s imperative for employers to tap into new talent pools to fill their vacancies and remain competitive.
As employees seek greater workplace flexibility and opportunities to work from home are in greater demand, organisations can now access a new talent pool. Geographic borders are blurred, and many organisations are expanding their recruitment reach by engaging with globally dispersed talent. Enterprises still using a siloed, regional approach to talent acquisition will struggle to reach their recruitment goals in today’s talent landscape. A global talent acquisition strategy will not only help you to compete locally but also win to top talent on a global scale.
Embracing Global Workforce Planning as a Talent Acquisition Strategy
In the U.S., 60% of employees say they enjoy working remotely. In fact, between January 2020 and March 2022, U.S. job postings for remote work went up 319%, with searches exceeding that 458%. Meanwhile, in the UK, remote job postings have increased by 329%, whilst the number of searches has skyrocketed by 790%. So clearly, candidates seeking remote work outweigh the remote opportunities offered.
Some enterprises have been embracing a borderless workforce for many years. Yet, many are still resisting remote employees even though it offers them a number of opportunities, including expanding access to talent, boosting diversity, and increasing brand presence in new markets.
By embracing a location-flexible approach to your workforce planning, you give yourself a greater chance of winning the competition for talent. For example, before the rise of remote work, you may have been looking for 30 roles in your offices in France and Belgium. But now, if you think about it as simply 30 French-speaking roles, you can widen your search area (i.e., French ex-pats living in the UK) and access new remote talent you didn’t consider before. In today’s ultra-competitive talent landscape, dropping geographic limits means reduced time-to-fill, cost-to-fill and ultimately, productivity loss from positions remaining open.
Plus, it can also eliminate the need to open a legal entity in new countries to remain compliant. In our French-speakers example, rather than going through the effort and expense to open an office in France or Belgium to gain French language skills, you could look for French speakers in the countries where you’re already established.
Where Talent Acquisition Strategies Fall Short
Traditionally, companies recruiting in numerous countries or continents have multiple talent acquisition teams, each focused on particular geographies. Even if an organisation is leveraging recruitment process outsourcing (RPO), this typically means using multiple vendors to achieve global coverage. For example, they may use one RPO provider in North America and a different one in Europe.
Whether through different regional talent acquisition teams or regional RPO providers, these disparate teams can lead to disjointed processes, candidate experiences and technology systems—and a lack of visibility into your recruitment program across countries or regions. As the pandemic recovery accelerates and talent continues to become more decentralised, a siloed recruitment model won’t keep up with the future of work and an increasingly geographically disparate workforce that is unattached to traditional offices.
How a Talent Acquisition Program Benefits from the Global RPO Model
According to Everest Group, a growing number of multi-national companies are embracing a global recruitment process outsourcing model, in which one RPO partner takes responsibility for fulfilling positions—or augments your in-house teams—in any country where the company has multiple openings. This helps organisations to gain better insight and control, obtain the best talent at the global level and achieve efficiencies that come from standardisation and centralisation.
Often organisations are unprepared for global recruitment. In fact, 30% of business leaders say their organisation’s top management team lack knowledge of hiring for international markets. Global RPO partners can help you create a recruitment process that is consistent but can still be flexed to account for the cultures and candidate expectations in each market. Leading RPO providers offer global delivery centres that help you expand your geographic reach and hours. Plus, some even offer proprietary technology to support virtual interviews for remote candidates.
A single global RPO partner can boost your talent acquisition strategy by:
Giving you more agility and allowing you to scale up or down as your hiring needs and market conditions fluctuate.
Expanding your hiring capacity through on- and offshore recruitment teams
Providing a wide variety of language capabilities
Helping you navigate compliance issues and cultural nuances in all countries where you’re hiring
Consolidating under a single RPO partner gives you more control over your global talent acquisition outcomes by eliminating the need for multiple relationships, raising the quality of your hires while saving time and money. The economies of scale gained through a global RPO model can help you achieve your recruitment goals in all your locations. Plus, with work-from-home models becoming more popular, a global talent acquisition program provides an opportunity for organisations to expand across borders to access new skilled talent to accelerate recovery and growth.
To learn more about how global RPO can help your organisation tap into new talent, check out our ebook, The Definitive Guide to RPO.
Shrinking talent pools, widening skills gaps and high turnover rates are driving companies across industries to look for new ways to boost their global talent acquisition program—including recruitment process outsourcing (RPO).
Whether your organisation is thinking of outsourcing some, most or all parts of your recruitment, an RPO partner can help. It’s not just about outsourcing your recruiting, it’s important to find the best partner to help manage the people, process, technology and strategy behind your talent acquisition function, which touches every employee, team and department within your business.
So, how do you know if RPO is the right choice for your organisation? In this article, we’ll cover three questions to ask to understand how your company can benefit from RPO.
Why RPO?
RPO is a cost-effective and scalable talent acquisition solution. Whether you’re looking for a regional solution or a multi-country partnership, RPO has been proven to boost the ability to hire at speed, manage the employer brand, streamline the candidate experience and maximise economies of scale across geographies.
Here are just a few of the benefits of RPO:
Improved Candidate Quality
Your RPO partner can help you boost your number of qualified candidates and the quality of hires. In fact, according to Aberdeen Group, 81% of best-in-class organisations say RPO helps to fill their skills gaps. This keeps hiring managers happy and helps your organisation achieve its goals while also boosting retention.
Better Candidate Experience
You want your recruitment process to leave every applicant, regardless of whether they get the role, with a positive experience. Your RPO team will provide consistent and honest feedback throughout the recruitment process, so they know exactly where they stand and what comes next.
Improved Hiring Manager Experience
Your RPO team reduces the administrative burden on your hiring managers by taking over résumé and CV screening, candidate assessment administration, initial interview steps, candidate communication and feedback tasks. RPO partners prepare hiring managers for interviews, provide them with feedback and identify any candidates at risk of dropping from the process so managers can make informed decisions.
Reduced Time-to-Fill
The longer a position goes unfilled, the more likely your business is to experience productivity loss—and loss of revenue. RPO teams are able to find candidates and fill roles faster by building and maintaining talent pipeline, providing quick access to qualified talent. By streamlining and optimising recruitment processes, improving the time-to-hire and retention rates, RPO providers can increase your recruiting return on investment and deliver real cost savings to your bottom line.
Improved Diversity, Equity and Inclusion
In their global Diversity Wins report, McKinsey revealed organisations in the top quartile for ethnic and cultural diversity outperformed laggards by 36% in terms of profitability. So, it’s imperative that recruitment is an element of your DE&I journey. RPO teams are knowledgeable about different talent attraction options and can expand to new job boards, social media groups, online forums and events to engage more diverse candidates. Plus, RPOs understand the regional nuances of DE&I issues. For example, in some countries like Poland, it is not legal to ask candidates their ethnicity, gender, etc.
Is RPO Right for Me?
So, how do you know if RPO is right for your business? Here are some questions to ask yourself:
Is your talent acquisition approach slow and clunky or failing to meet your organization’s talent needs?
Do you lack the ability to scale your recruitment efforts up or down quickly as your business needs change?
Are you seeing high candidate dropout rates or low offer acceptance rates, which could indicate a bad candidate experience?
Are low conversion rates more pronounced for candidates from diverse backgrounds?
Are you hearing complaints from hiring managers about the quality of candidates?
Are new employees leaving your organization less than a year after joining?
Do your assessments and other selection tools need to be updated?
Do your in-house teams lack the cultural literacy to support recruitment in all regions?
Are your hiring costs going up?
Is the time it takes to fill positions getting longer?
Is your usage of talent acquisition technology immature or out-of-date?
Do you lack access to the right data to make workforce planning decisions?
If you answered “yes” to even a few of these questions, RPO can help you meet your talent acquisition goals.
If you’ve decided to that RPO will be a good for your organisation, you may be wondering how you go about choosing the best provider. Below are just three things to consider in order to make RPO a truly transformational model for your business.
Partnership
If there’s one thing we’ve learned in 30 years of developing talent acquisition programs, it’s that no two organisations are the same. That’s why it’s important to look for an RPO partner that is collaborative, that will listen to your ideas and take the time to truly understand your business and pain points.
We hear a lot from clients who have worked with other providers who tried to squeeze them into their standard program, and it just doesn’t work. RPO creates efficiencies and improvements to the candidate experience through repeatable processes, but these processes should be adapted to your unique needs and challenges. Look for an RPO partner who understands the balance between consistency and customisation.
Talent Advisory
The success of your recruitment program starts with your employer brand. Many RPO providers offer talent advisory solutions that help you to develop and improve your employer brand, EVP, recruitment marketing approaches, candidate assessments and more.
So often we see companies who have agencies that execute recruitment marketing campaigns separate from their RPO program. However, with this siloed approach, the agency is less likely to be held accountable for their campaigns leading to high quality candidates entering later candidate journey stages like interviews and assessments. On the other side, the RPO partner has limited means to provide feedback on the campaigns and the impact the ads have on recruitment outcomes. By having both functions under one partnership, you get a holistic program that not only attracts candidates—but truly delivers against your hiring goals.
Look for a partner with in-house resources (not one who outsources to an agency) who takes a consultative approach to maximising the effectiveness of your whole talent acquisition program, beyond just filling vacancies.
Technology
Digital transformation has hit HR and recruitment, bringing an influx of new solutions to the market that offer a range of benefits. 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 partners have proprietary technology, like PeopleScout’s Affinix™, while some offer expertise in well-known platforms. Look for a modular approach that can integrate with your existing systems, so you can continue to benefit from existing investments and grow your recruitment tech stack as your needs change. Any technology you implement must comply with data privacy regulations in all regions where you’re recruiting, including any rules about where data can be stored. A SOC 2 certification is a great way to tell that a vendor takes information security seriously.
In this era of tight competition for talent, augmenting your recruiting capacity and ability with an RPO provider could be a crucial step for the future of your business. When it comes to RPO, there is no single best option, only the option that best aligns with your organisational needs. By understanding your current recruitment challenges and requirements, you can find an RPO partner with right capabilities to support your global recruiting goals.
We’re all aware of the recruitment challenges facing NHS Trusts across the UK with 40,000 registered nursing vacancies across the NHS in England alone. This is compounded by a sharp rise in people leaving the profession. According to the Nursing & Midwifery Council, 14,000 people left the register last year—up 27% on previous year.
And whilst sharper marketing and investment in building a more distinctive employer brand will certainly help increase the pipeline of quality healthcare job candidates, Trusts can look closer to home for some quick wins.
Optimising Your Healthcare Recruitment Strategy
Talking to HR leaders in Trusts across the UK, it’s clear that for many, recruitment is still a linear, administrative model, designed to move applicants through a process.
Compare that to a more commercial model where recruitment business partners work closely with stakeholders to understand current and future needs. These recruiters provide an agile, high-touch approach, which keeps candidates engaged throughout the process.
At PeopleScout we are working with one Trust to understand where high impact interventions can be made which improve candidate experience and ensure a higher number of permanent hires. This has been carefully balanced against a reduction in spend to ensure zero additional cost.
Healthcare Candidate Experience Diagnostic
My final piece of advice? ‘Mystery shop’ your own recruitment process through the eyes of a candidate by applying for a job. I guarantee it’ll be an illuminating experience.
Diversity sourcing is a top priority in talent acquisition. A recent PwC survey found that 57% of CFOs planned to invest in diversity and inclusion initiatives in the next year. But, with investment comes accountability; you can’t track and report your progress without the proper technology tools. So, as employers continue to prioritise diversity, equality and inclusion, talent leaders need the proper tools to understand the progress they’re making toward reaching their DE&I goals.
Additionally, despite the progress made throughout the last few years, employers still have a long way to go. In fact, according to a survey by Boston Consulting Group, only 25% of employees from underrepresented backgrounds said that they had benefited from their company’s diversity and inclusion programs—despite the fact that most companies have these programs in place.
In this article, we’ll discuss how the right technology tools can help measure and improve diversity, equality and inclusion in your recruitment process.
Optimising Diversity Sourcing
DE&I hiring efforts start at the beginning with diversity sourcing; you can’t hire diverse candidates without a diverse pipeline. And, to build a diverse candidate pipeline, you need to track who your candidates are and which of your sourcing channels and campaigns bring them into the recruitment process.
To further understand who your candidates are, it’s essential to capture their demographic information in your applicant tracking system (ATS) through self-identification via the employment application. However, because some candidates from underrepresented groups may feel uncomfortable disclosing this information in an application, it’s best practice to also ask for self-identification after you extend an offer or when a new employee goes through the onboarding process.
Then, track the sourcing channel through your candidate relationship management (CRM) software, which is critically important to track your recruitment marketing campaigns, as well as sources. Simply tracking that a candidate came to your careers site through LinkedIn isn’t enough; you need to know if a specific campaign on LinkedIn influenced their decision to apply.
Often, these data points are stored in different systems. But, a reporting tool can help synthesise your data and visualise trends. Specifically, with PeopleScout’s Affinix™ Analytics diversity dashboards, you can track how diverse candidates are entering your pipeline in real time. Then, by tracking how candidates progress through your funnel, you can determine which sources and campaigns bring in the highest-quality candidates from underrepresented groups. From there, you can then adjust your sourcing spend to maximise the channels and promotions that bring in the most and highest-quality candidates.
For instance, you may find that a recruitment marketing campaign you’re running on LinkedIn that features diverse faces and real employee stories is bringing in far more diverse candidates than the same campaign on Facebook. You could then shift budget from the Facebook campaign to the LinkedIn campaign, thereby optimising your channels. Additionally, you could compare the LinkedIn campaign featuring diverse employees to a different LinkedIn campaign featuring your office space and benefits package to see which type of content resonates best with candidates.
As an example, when one PeopleScout industrial client wanted to add more women to its primarily male workforce, we partnered with the company to build out a recruitment marketing initiative featuring the organisation’s female employees. In tracking the results of the campaign, our client was able to see a marked increase in female applicants and hires tied directly to the recruitment marketing initiative.
Identifying Barriers in Your Process
Building a more diverse, equitable and inclusive process doesn’t stop with sourcing; if you’re bringing a robust slate of diverse candidates into your pipeline, but very few candidates from underrepresented groups are actually hired, you may have a barrier somewhere else in your process: This could be an assessment with an unintentional bias; a recruiter or hiring manager who could benefit from more training; or an issue with your employment offers. In this situation, the right data can help determine exactly where the issue is occurring in your process and whether changes would result in a more equitable recruitment process.
data accurately. Then, in your reporting tool, you’ll be able to identify if a particular step in your process precipitates a drop in candidate diversity.
For instance, your reporting may show that a recently added video interview step resulted in more candidates from diverse backgrounds dropping out of your funnel. In this case, you could try converting the video interview to a phone or on-demand audio interview to see if it improves results. Similarly, your reporting could show that you have one recruiter or hiring manager with a higher percentage of diverse candidates falling out, which could lead to an opportunity to implement more training. Or, you could see that candidates from diverse backgrounds are successful throughout your recruitment process, but then turn down your employment offers. If that’s the case, then you may want to look at your benefits, offer process or employer value proposition.
Using Surveys to Improve Inclusion
Our first examples focused on improving diversity sourcing and equity in the recruitment funnel, but you can also use data to measure and improve inclusion. Your goal is to understand how candidates feel about your hiring process, as well as how new employees feel about your onboarding process and company culture—and the best way to measure this is to simply ask them.
In fact, you can and should survey candidates at different stages of your recruitment funnel. Fortunately, there are a variety of candidate survey tools that you can integrate into your ATS to automatically ask candidates for feedback about their experiences, which can then provide critical insights about points where you may be alienating certain candidates. Yet, very few employers regularly ask candidates for feedback about the recruitment process: According to a survey by PeopleScout and HRO Today, only 29% of employers in North America regularly ask for candidate feedback, while 33% never do so. In Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA), the data is somewhat better, with 42% of recruiters reporting that they regularly request candidate feedback, whereas 24% say that they never do.
Essentially, there are two different ways you can gather and gauge the results of your surveys, and it all comes down to the questions that you ask. A strong survey will have a mixture of both scored questions and open text responses; the scores help you identify trends over time, while the text responses help you drill into specifics.
Surveys can also help measure your success and identify problem areas—especially when coupled with your recruiting data. For example, if you ask candidates how they feel about the interview process and those scores start to trend downward, you can review your recruiting data to see if you notice any changing trends. Likewise, if you see more candidates from underrepresented backgrounds dropping out just before or after an interview, you can evaluate and determine why your interview process is negatively affecting candidates—especially if you also have text responses that provide specific feedback.
Going a step further, you can also survey new hires to measure inclusion in your onboarding process. A Gartner study featured in the Harvard Business Review identified seven factors that can provide a holistic view of inclusion within your organisation:
Fair treatment: Employees at my organisation who help the organisation achieve its strategic objectives are rewarded and recognised fairly.
Integrating differences: Employees at my organisation respect and value each other’s opinions.
Decision-making: Members of my team fairly consider ideas and suggestions offered by other team members.
Psychological safety: I feel welcome to express my true feelings at work.
Trust: Communication we receive from the organisation is honest and open.
Belonging: People in my organisation care about me.
Diversity: Managers at my organisation are as diverse as the broader workforce.
Then, if your survey finds that new hires from underrepresented backgrounds feel less of a sense of belonging or less safe expressing their true feelings at work, you can evaluate and improve your onboarding process and, through further surveys, measure the influence of any changes you make.
As employers continue to work to improve diversity sourcing, equity and inclusion within their organisations, it’s critical to have the right tools in place to identify opportunities for improvement and measure success. Talent acquisition leaders play an important role in achieving those goals, and a trusted RPO and technology partner can provide valuable insights and market trends. To learn more about what talent leaders can do, download our ebook, Progress in Action: Moving Toward a Globally Diverse and Inclusive Workplace.
Reducing the Time Investment From Hiring Managers by 80% for the Legal Ombudsman
The Legal Ombudsman were finding it difficult to attract the volume and quality of candidates for legal investigators in a highly competitive candidate market. Plus, a time intensive recruitment process meant their hiring managers were spending hundreds of hours on recruiting rather than their daily work tasks. They turned to PeopleScout for expert candidate management and branding and attraction help.
80%Reduction in Time Investment by Hiring Managers
87%Satisfaction Rate Amongst Surveyed Candidates
5Stars from Hiring Managers
Scope & Scale
The Legal Ombudsman (LeO) is a regulatory organisation that holds the UK’s legal profession to the highest standards by resolving consumers complaints about legal services providers. The organisation was growing and turned to PeopleScout for a candidate attraction campaign and partial-cycle recruitment process outsourcing (RPO) to fill approximately 40 complaints investigator roles.
Situation
The organisation was struggling to get engagement with their target audience and attract the volume and calibre of investigator candidates they needed. The market was highly competitive, with multiple organisations recruiting for similar roles. This put the LeO behind their hiring target by approximately 20%.
In addition, the recruitment process required the LeO team to invest significant time—400 operational hours per campaign—which was taking them away from their important work supporting consumers.
Solution
PeopleScout and our in-house creative agency, TMP, built a recruitment marketing campaign and followed this by sifting candidates, scheduling assessment days and supporting an assessment centre.
Attracting the Right Candidates
Our team started by doing a deep dive into the roles and existing employees who were successful as legal investigators. This helped us understand the kinds of candidates we should target and their needs and motivations. Armed with this information, we developed messaging and content that resonated with key audiences and stood out in a highly competitive market. This was used in digital advertising through job boards, search engine ads and social media campaigns which pointed to a bespoke landing page.
Supporting a Streamlined Recruitment Process
With a focus on improving the candidate experience and creating efficiencies in the process, we built a bespoke application form which connected to the Legal Ombudsman’s existing application tracking system (ATS). Upon our suggestion, the LeO added a written exercise to the application process which helped them assess writing competency and assist with the sift process.
PeopleScout completed the first sift. In fact, the attraction campaign generated so many applicants that we extended the time allotted for sifting to accommodate them. We also advised the client to adjust the scoring after the first round of sifting, because candidate quality was so high.
Upon passing the sift, our RPO team scheduled candidates for a virtual interview with the Legal Ombudsman team. From there, candidates participated in a virtual assessment centre. We supplied 15 trained assessors to support LeO interviewers in conducting a role play for 104 candidates. The role play mimicked the type of calls and inquiries investigators field in their daily work and gave both the organisation and the candidate a sense of how they’d perform in the position. The assessors’ involvement let the LeO representatives engage more with candidates without having to worry about taking notes or keeping an eye on the clock.
“Every assessor I was partnered with was welcoming, easy to talk to and genuinely cared about the candidate experience.”
– LeO Hiring Manager
We handed back a cohort of candidates that were successful in the selection and assessment process and were ready for LeO to extend offers to. The offer and onboarding process was handled by the LeO HR team and supported by our recruitment delivery team.
Results
The client was so happy with the quality of the applicants they received that they increased the number of hires from 30 to 40. In the end, a total of 42 offers were accepted as a result of this campaign.
In feedback surveys, candidates gave a satisfaction rating of 87% for the recruitment process. Many said they enjoyed the assessment centre, which can often be stressful for candidates.
“Different by actually enjoyable.”
“Very professional and informative. Enjoyable experience even though it was an assessment. Positive day with some very good staff.”
Legal Ombudsman staff gave the process 4.9 out of 5 stars. They particularly appreciated that the assessment was a true-to-life reflection of the skills required for the role. By streamlining and taking over parts of the recruitment process, we were able to reduce the number hours LeO staff were putting into recruiting by approximately 80%.
AT A GLANCE
COMPANY Legal Ombudsman
PEOPLESCOUT SOLUTIONS Recruitment Process Outsourcing, Talent Advisory
ABOUT THE LEGAL OMBUDSMAN The Legal Ombudsman (LeO) is a regulatory organisation that holds the UK’s legal profession to the highest standards by resolving consumers complaints about legal services providers.
As organisations continue to adjust to changes caused by the pandemic, access to skilled talent remains a key factor preventing them from accelerated recovery and growth. However, with work-from-home and hybrid models becoming the new norm, organisations have the unique opportunity to expand their talent network across borders. And, for workers looking to relocate for greater job prospects, crossing borders for work is becoming easier than ever for both employees and employers: According to Harvard Business Review, “Many countries have now put the legal framework in place to hire and relocate global talent at a cost and speed that is broadly comparable with hiring domestically.”
Furthermore, in a 2021 survey by Boston Consulting Group and The Network, about 50% of respondents were either already working abroad or willing to move abroad for work. Moreover, 57% of respondents said they were willing to work remotely for an employer that didn’t have a physical presence in their home country.
In this article, we’ll share the benefits of a global talent programme; highlight considerations to keep in mind; and offer strategies for attracting and recruiting talent around the world.
Benefits of Globally Dispersed Talent
The global talent pool is growing and ready to work—regardless of location—and it’s up to employers to seize the moment. Consider the benefits of leveraging globally dispersed talent:
Expanded Talent Pool
Many organisations have been struggling to fill open roles because they’re unable to find the talent they need in local searches. But, by expanding your search across borders, you can expand your search for the skills the role requires in a larger talent pool. Plus, you can also start these workers out in remote and contract roles to test whether they would be a good fit.
Greater Diversity
It’s no secret that having a diverse team yields better business results due to high levels of creativity and innovation. Consequently, by hiring people from different geographies, you can tap into the knowledge of people from different backgrounds, cultures, educations and more.
Increased Reach
When operating in different regions, you have greater access to new markets, as your dispersed team can help build your brand recognition and reputation with new customer bases in their respective locations. Additionally, having teams across various regions may also enable you to expand your business hours so you can improve productivity and be available to customers no matter where they’re located.
Cost Savings
Labour costs vary across countries, so it’s often cost-effective to move certain business operations to countries with lower labour costs. For example, many companies offshore manufacturing, call centre and IT operations to places like Mexico, India and the Philippines. Doing so lowers the cost of operations and, therefore, lowers the cost of products for the consumer.
And, because commercial real estate policies and prices vary from country to country, you can also reduce costs by implementing a remote work programme in other countries before deciding whether a physical office space will be necessary in a given region.
Considerations for a Global Talent Management Programme
Before diving into a global recruitment programme, it’s important to consider the key differences between recruiting in different countries. For instance, cultural nuances, policies and legislation will likely be different from your organisation’s primary country and can make or break the success of your global recruitment and employment strategy. Consider the following examples:
Workforce Planning
As you plan your hiring in new geographies, it’s important to be aware of the length of the statutory notice period, as requirements vary widely from country to country and can make hiring timelines longer (up to three to six months, in some cases). For example, in the U.S., there’s no legal requirement to provide notice, but it’s customary for employees to give a two-week notice to aid in the transition. Conversely, in Japan, there’s a fixed notice period of 30 days—regardless of the employee’s years of service or seniority. In other countries, an employee’s notice period depends on the terms of their employment contract and may be connected to the number of years of service to the company.
In places that require longer notice periods, candidate communications are even more essential in order to keep those candidates engaged and to set expectations on next steps. For this reason, incorporating transition timelines into your workforce planning is crucial so you don’t reduce productivity while waiting for your new hire to start in their role.
Recruitment Marketing
Notably, if you’re using the same recruitment marketing tactics in every country, you’re missing a trick. Take social media, for example: Different networks work better in different markets. While LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter are popular in the U.S., WeChat (a mobile app that focuses on messaging, social media and mobile payments) is heavily used in China. Similarly, XING and Viadeo are popular alternatives for career-oriented networking in Germany and France, respectively. So, understanding social media preferences in each country will help you promote your job ads in a more effective manner.
Granted, social media and digital advertising may not be the best fit for all roles in all places. In fact, even within a single country, there are nuances to consider. For instance, PeopleScout leveraged physical advertisements at bus stops in the smaller European cities where an RPO client in the manufacturing sector was hiring because we knew that it was less likely that blue-collar candidates in these areas would have internet access at home.
And, localisation is key—not just in digital channel usage, but also in language and imagery. For example, while an image of a blonde-haired, blue-eyed worker would resonate in North America, the same type of image would not be as well-received by candidates in Asia. In addition, candidates in Europe are more likely to be multilingual, so testing recruitment marketing techniques in a few different languages might prove to be useful when recruiting in that geography.
Regardless of where they are in the world, your potential candidates are looking and applying for jobs via their mobile phones. So, consider how your recruitment tech stack supports a mobile-friendly application process to future-proof your global talent acquisition programme.
Regulations & Compliance
Due to varying laws and regulations, recruitment processes can’t be the same in every country, and it can be difficult for enterprises to navigate the requirements in each market. For example, in Sweden, you don’t need to establish a legal entity to hire employees in the country, whereas you do in Singapore. Furthermore, statutory requirements for notice periods, probationary periods and permitted pre-employment checks all vary from country to country. In fact, in 22 countries, it’s mandatory to organise a medical exam prior to hiring someone. In any case, it’s imperative that you understand employment law in each country you’re hiring in so you don’t violate your new employees’ rights.
Granted, the employment law landscape is constantly changing, making it increasingly difficult for multinational companies to stay compliant and avoid damages to the organisation’s finances and reputation. Fortunately, a global RPO partner can support you with global and local expertise to ensure you stay on top of regulations in each country you’re hiring in.
Strategies for Recruiting Globally Dispersed Talent
So, how can you overcome these challenges to realise the benefits of expanding your recruitment programme to globally dispersed talent? Here are some actionable ideas to help you adjust your recruitment strategies:
Map Each Labour Market
Before you start recruiting in a new market, it’s important to understand the lay of land. Specifically, delving into the talent landscape and competition in each area—not just your direct competitors, but any organisation hiring for the roles or skill sets you’re seeking—can inform your recruitment strategy and compensation packages. In this way, investing the time to map the labour market upfront is invaluable for creating a competitive advantage, especially when it comes to new geographies or remote workers. Then, armed with this data, you can create offers that reflect rates in the new hire’s area and boost your acceptance rates in the meantime.
As an example, PeopleScout recently helped a manufacturing client recruit engineers in an area in the north of the Czech Republic, where the available talent pool for the skills they needed was low, but the competition was high. After completing a labour market analysis, we advised the team to expand their search area across the border to Poland (where the talent supply was larger) to find talent that would be willing to commute or relocate. By doing so, we were able to fill business-critical automation engineer roles that saved their productivity levels.
Adapt Your EVP to Your Audience
Your employer brand—an individual’s perceptions and lived experiences of what it’s like to work for your organisation—helps you attract and retain the right people to help your organisation succeed. According to Gartner, organisations that effectively deliver on their employer value proposition (EVP) can decrease annual employee turnover by 69%. And, in today’s ultra-competitive, candidate-driven market, a strong employer brand can also help you stand out in a sea of job openings.
Specifically, companies that attract top talent will be those that have invested in developing messaging pillars that allow their employer brand to flex and resonate with talent audiences across the globe. For example, PeopleScout helped global law firm Linklaters revamp and tailor its employer brand to support hiring across 20 offices in Europe, North America and Asia-Pacific, while simultaneously boosting its Glassdoor scores and increasing global applications from female lawyers.
So, to truly understand your ideal candidate, do your homework for every position type in each market and adapt your brand messaging and attraction strategies accordingly. In particular, a candidate persona profile is a great way to capture each position’s requirements, motivations and expectations so you can design your recruitment marketing content around messages that will truly resonate.
Invest in Your Recruitment Tech Stack
Investing in standardising your recruitment technology across geographies offers a litany of ways not only to streamline the candidate experience, but also your internal programme management efforts and reporting, as well.
Plus, nowadays, candidates expect a tech-enabled recruitment experience that enables them to search for jobs on the go—and a whopping 89% of candidates think mobile devices play a critical role in the job-hunting process. Therefore, looking for ways to make your application process more mobile-friendly—including leveraging “quick apply” features in your ATS—will pay off in application volumes.
What’s more, hiring in new geographies or for remote workers will almost certainly involve virtual interviews. Thus, investing in a virtual hiring solution can help you hire the talent you need quickly and with a seamless candidate experience. Unlike typical video meeting tools, modern virtual interview tools offer options like on-demand phone interviews and text/SMS interviews, as well as live and pre-recorded video interviews.
However, one consideration to keep in mind when selecting technology for global recruitment is where the data will be stored and processed. Regulations (such as GDPR in Europe) limit the amount of data that can be processed in the U.S. So, look for tools that are SOC 2-certified, and assess any vendor’s information on security policies, procedures and practices.
Put Your Global Talent Programme in Action
If your organisation is new to global talent acquisition or if you haven’t expanded business operations very far, the considerations and strategies highlighted above can seem daunting. But, the good news is that a global RPO partner can be a valuable partner to help guide you through your global talent acquisition challenges. Moreover, with a wealth of knowledge and experience gained through working with clients spanning a variety of industries and countries, an RPO partner can also help you navigate the complex compliance and cultural issues that accompany a multi-country recruitment programme.
So, what should you look for in a global RPO partner? Well, you’ll see the greatest benefit from a provider that is able to offer a customisable solution that’s flexible enough to support everything from your niche hires and short-term needs to your high-volume roles and full-cycle recruitment processes.
However, as a result of the Great Resignation, we’re beginning to see an alternative talent pool emerge: Boomerang employees—workers who voluntarily resign from your company and later rejoin. In this article, we’ll explain who boomerang employees are; the benefits and considerations of hiring them; and how to attract this unique group of talent.
Who Are Boomerang Employees?
Before you consider rehiring an employee who previously left your organisation, it’s important to understand the key differentiators that separate potential boomerang employees from permanent alumni.
As the term suggests, permanent alumni will remain just that—permanently separated from an organisation. These individuals likely stayed at the company for many years and had a good grasp of the organisation’s overall culture and values. However, at a certain point, these individuals decided that the company was not the right fit for them; this could be due to dissatisfaction with company culture, the need for a career change or any number of other work-related issues. Note here that a key factor in any of these reasons for leaving is an internal desire to resign.
Conversely, boomerang employees are more likely to have left a company quickly due to external factors, such as a sudden family emergency or an unexpected competing job offer that was too good to decline. So, while permanent alumni chose to leave because they were unsatisfied with the company in some way, boomerang employees are more likely to consider rejoining because they left for other reasons—none of which implied that they had an issue with the company in the first place.
“Five years ago, I chose to take a career break to raise my family. When the boys started school, I was ready to pick up my career again. As chance would have it, PeopleScout had identified a role working on a project supporting two big clients, and I was excited about the prospect of this new challenge. The company had changed a lot in the time I was away, so I was grateful for the in-depth introduction process and support from management and colleagues upon my return. The flexible working arrangement that PeopleScout offers means that I’m able to achieve the balance between working and looking after my family, which is fantastic. I’m happy to be back and am looking forward to developing my career over the coming years.”
Shelley Romero, Media Solutions Manager PeopleScout UK
Meanwhile, some people may leave to pursue new opportunities because they’re unsatisfied in some way and are hopeful that the “grass will be greener” elsewhere. Then, if they find that isn’t the case, they may also be inclined to return to a previous company with a newfound appreciation.
“Due to business changes during the pandemic, I was assigned to a new client account and, after much time and consideration, I knew it just wasn’t the right fit for me. Though I did not want to leave, it was in my best interest to resign at that time. However, I stayed in contact with my previous manager and colleagues, and when an opening arose, they asked me, ‘Are you ready to come back home?’ It was never a matter of if, but when I was coming back. Everything needed to align—the right position, team and leadership. I was hesitant to return after my last experience that caused me to resign, but I knew what ‘home’ felt like, and I couldn’t be happier in my current position at PeopleScout!”
Alison Thompson, Senior Recruiter PeopleScout
During the pandemic, the world was reminded how quickly life can change. Whether employees left your organisation to pursue other opportunities or to prioritise caring for their family, these types of employees create a whole new pool of talent that could be the perfect fit for your organisation. After some time has passed, many of these people could be on the job hunt again—and your organisation could serve as the right choice at the right time.
Benefits of Hiring Boomerang Employees
Rehiring former employees can present a variety of benefits for employers. Here are some of the biggest reasons to consider looking back at your previous hires:
Save Time & Money
Hiring a former employee reduces the hiring timeline and cuts down on overall recruiting costs. And, because these employees have previous experience working at your company, they will require less time and fewer resources to onboard and get up to speed to hit the ground running.
Eliminate Second-Guessing
Additionally, when you hire a former employee, you won’t have to wonder whether they’ll be a cultural fit; you already know how they fit in with the company and how they work with various people in the organisation—something that always remains a slight unknown when hiring someone completely new.
Gain Fresh Perspective
Former employees are unique in the fact that they have had some time to step away and see the organisation from the outside. Often, employees may have left to advance their career at another company and gain valuable skills. Then, when they return, they’ll be equipped with increased knowledge and experience to bring new ideas and insight into your organisation.
Boost Employer Brand
Rehiring employees also sends a positive message to existing employees and can improve an organisation’s employer brand overall. Specifically, by giving employees a second chance, it shows that the company is willing to bring people back and help them reach their potential—even if they previously left on their own accord. Furthermore, to existing employees (perhaps some of whom were considering leaving themselves), it shows that the company is worth coming back to, thereby leading to improved retention and employee satisfaction. Moreover, it demonstrates that leaving doesn’t have to burn bridges—especially when the company sees the value of the whole person.
Make Employees Happy
Plus, employees who left a job during the pandemic may now realise that they miss some aspects of their old company. Returning to a previous employer with new skills and a fresh perspective can mean higher pay, more growth opportunities and, in some cases, the ability to work from anywhere, which may not have been an option pre-pandemic. Consequently, these employees will likely be happy with their decision to return—leading to improved productivity for your organisation.
Questions to Ask Before Hiring Boomerang Employees
While there are many reasons to hire previous employees, that doesn’t always mean you should. So, before you decide whether turning back to a former employee is the right move for your organisation, keep these considerations in mind:
How Much Time Has Passed?
Account for how much time has passed since the employee initially left the company. For instance, an employee who left less than a year ago due to a personal emergency is more likely to be able to jump back in and get started than someone who left several years ago and has to learn new processes and technology.
Are They Adaptable?
Nowadays, change within an organisation can happen fast, and if the employee has been away from the company for a while, it can be helpful to consider their level of adaptability: Are they willing to learn new systems and procedures? Or, will they be stuck in old habits from their first tenure?
Are They the Best?
Amid a labour shortage, it can be tempting to settle for the easiest, quickest option to fill an open role. However, it’s important to think long-term: While this employee will cost less to hire and is a good cultural fit, are they truly the best person for the job? Consider whether this employee performed well in their previous tenure with the company, which is a good indicator of how they will fare the second time around.
Were They Missed?
While an employee’s individual performance may have been stellar, it’s important to understand their influence on the team. In particular, did they get along well with colleagues, or was it a relief for people when they left? When bringing back an employee, ensure that their return will have a positive effect on the productivity of the team as a whole.
Why Do They Want to Return?
Find out what made the employee choose to leave in the first place. Is that reason still going to be an obstacle moving forward? It’s important to ask what has changed since the time when they initially left. While familial or personal reasons would likely be resolved, you might have a bigger issue on your hands if they left because the company was not a good fit the first time. So, ask the former employee why they want to return. Then, if you’re looking for long-term talent, try to get a grasp of whether they’re ready to commit to your company for the foreseeable future. If they aren’t, you may have a permanent alumnus on your hands.
How to Keep the Door Open to Boomerang Employees
As the past two years have shown us, things happen—often unexpectedly. For one reason or another, people might be pulled in another direction and have no choice but to leave your company a little too soon. When this happens, it’s important to understand why they’re leaving and if there’s anything the organisation could have done to encourage them to stay. If not, perform exit interviews and get an idea of what is working and what can be improved upon in your organisation.
While some employees may choose to reapply to your company in the future, many former employees may never consider rejoining or even know it’s an option without first hearing from a former colleague or manager. In this situation, what’s the best way to reach out to these former employees?
To start, be sure to part on good terms. If the employee is one whom you would be eager to welcome back to your team again, make sure they know that when they leave. In today’s world that’s driven by social media, it’s easier than ever to stay connected across job changes. So, keep in touch with high-performing employees after they leave and proactively check-in with them when you’re ready to bring them back.
“Having former employees return to my team has been a true privilege. There is something about a second chance to help someone grow and develop and to be entrusted to help them achieve their career goals that is very special. I have the honour of having three boomerang employees on my current team. I am grateful that they rejoined and for the incredible know-how, passion and commitment that they bring to our team. I will continue to do all I can to support their success so that they can see their future here.”
In addition, consider these three strategies for re-recruiting former employees:
1. Existing Employees
If you have an opening on your team and some of your existing employees still maintain relationships with former staff, your current team can be helpful in re-recruiting this talent. Let your current employees know you’d like to consider a former employee for the role and, if they’re willing, they can bring the idea up with the former colleague and encourage them to apply.
2. Direct Manager Outreach
For a former employee, it can be extremely powerful to hear directly from a former leader that the company and team wants them back. And, by hearing directly from a manager, the former employee is likely to take the offer seriously and understand that they are specifically who the team and leader want.
“I had the opportunity to work for our sister company Staff Management | SMX before leaving for another position outside of TrueBlue that allowed me to get specific experience in a different facet of marketing. After gaining valuable experience for a period of time with a different organisation, my former leader at Staff Management | SMX reached out to me to discuss an opportunity to join PeopleScout in a new role. I was thrilled to be able to rejoin TrueBlue and put to use the experience I gained outside of the company. Rejoining TrueBlue and joining PeopleScout was an easy decision due to the positive experience that I had during my original time with the organisation, as well as due to the ability to work directly for my former leader once again.”
Sarah Katz Candelario, Vice President of Marketing and Communications PeopleScout
3. Email Campaign
If your company is looking to fill multiple roles at once, a larger campaign might make the most sense. This can include a list of all high-performing employees who left in the last year and serve as a check-in to see where they are in their career now and whether they’d be interested in taking on a new role in the company.
Beyond the Boomerang Employee
While looking to former employees serves as a strong new talent pool, it’s just one part of an organisation’s larger rehiring and retention strategy.
For example, in addition to traditional boomerang employees, the pandemic has also introduced an alternative group of potential employees—those who were furloughed. While these employees didn’t leave voluntarily, they can still be considered for boomerang status and serve as yet another talent pool to reach out to when needs arise.
But, in order for people to be willing to come back, organisations must ensure that their company is one that people want to return to (or, ideally, one they won’t want to leave at all). This means fostering a welcoming and empowering culture, as well as placing strong emphasis on growth and development of all employees.
In summary, when people feel valued, included and invested in, they’re less likely to leave your company for another. Then, even when human factors cause them to be pulled away, they’ll be willing and ready to return when the time is right.
I recently read an article on the CIPS website about Thales, an aerospace company. In the piece, Roque Carmona, Group Chief Procurement Officer at Thales, explained that ‘66% of innovation for Thales customers come from their suppliers’. As a completely customer-focused organisation, Thales has not only seen the value in ‘two heads are better than one’, but they are prepared to speak up about it.
I’m a firm believer that the best business results come from a collaborative approach, where your solutions acquire exponential value as the insights, experience, and resources from supplier organisations feed into your customer-centric strategy.
Of course, RPO was initially developed to outsource hiring during critical business growth phases. But now it has become so much more.
By working across companies, industries, and regions the value of RPO is finally being recognised; not as a quick-fix to hiring, but for the expertise, knowledge and experience that only a global leader with many SMEs in resourcing can provide.
It’s a critical time for HR. The teams that saw us through the pandemic, the people who ensured we could work effectively from home, the leaders who took on-board our well-being during isolation, and then managed redundancies at the start, followed by filling the gaps on our return to the offices—have been burning the midnight oil. And now to fan the HR fire, recession is on the horizon.
In this environment, it’s more critical than ever to collaborate on innovation with your suppliers; to learn from each other, to build better value into solutions and find future-proof processes to ensure that our businesses grow.
Rick Betori’s role as PeopleScout’s managing director of the Americas has a few similarities with a previous leadership position he held as coach of his children’s baseball teams.
“The ball is always going to roll in between someone’s legs,” he told me from his home in the Chicago suburbs. “And, it’s not about the fact that it went through their legs; it’s what they do after and how they respond when things don’t go according to plan. That’s one of the most important things I can do in my role as a leader.”
Rick thrives when there’s a challenge to tackle, when there’s a problem to solve and when there’s the opportunity to connect the right person with the right job in a difficult labour market. It’s an important quality as employers face a talent landscape that has been transformed by the pandemic.
Although Rick joined PeopleScout in 2021, he has been a part of the TrueBlue organisation since 2011, most recently leading delivery operations at PeopleReady, where he helped spearhead the company’s digital transformation. As such, he understands how technology, combined with human expertise, can solve the toughest talent problems. We talked to him about the role of talent technology in 2022.
You’re not new to TrueBlue, but you are a relatively new face here at PeopleScout. What makes you really excited about talent acquisition right now?
I’m excited because I believe that we can truly help companies that are facing some of their largest hiring challenges in their histories. Talent acquisition teams need creative partners to help them succeed, and I’m thrilled to be a part of finding those solutions.
I’m also passionate about our talent technology platform, Affinix™, and what it does to help candidates seamlessly move through the application process. Candidates have so many choices today; when they’re searching for a new role, they expect a great experience, and they want it to be fast. I also think that now more than ever, data and analytics will be key in helping employers stay ahead of their competition in a difficult talent market.
And finally, I’ve been a part of the TrueBlue family since 2011, so I’ve been able to witness the passion and energy of the PeopleScout team working to put our clients first. It’s been great to dig in with the team in these last few months. They bring this infectious energy to do what’s right for our clients and their applicants. I’m proud to be a part of this organisation moving forward.
Throughout the last couple of years, we’ve seen a lot of employers add technology to their recruitment process out of need. For talent acquisition leaders, where do you think their relationship with talent technology stands today?
I hate to start the answer to a question with “it depends,” but it really does vary. We have seen many employers add technology solutions to deal with increased workload, compliance concerns, and to eliminate or simplify administrative tasks.
More recently, employers feel the pressures of attracting top talent, so they’re taking the next step, focusing on easing and improving the process for candidates. More companies are starting to leverage technology to reduce friction for candidates in the application process and at the same time, building a stronger employer brand.
Finally, we’re seeing leaders stepping back and asking, “How can technology, data and analytics inform our decision-making from a talent standpoint?” These leaders want more information around changes in roles; how the market is responding in their specific area; and how factors like the rise of the gig economy and the COVID-19 pandemic have influenced their prospective talent pools.
The right technology can really make the recruitment process feel even more personal and enhance an organisation’s employer brand. How can you make that happen?
It’s about more than the right technology; it’s about the right technology at the right time. Employers can make the greatest impact by targeting specific points in the candidate’s journey.
For example, we know that candidates want to feel a sense of control in the process, and they want to feel as though things are moving forward. That means employers need to keep candidates feeling engaged and empowered. So, the right technology intervention could be implementing a pre-screen that candidates can complete by text or adding an interview self-scheduling tool. These give candidates the ability to feel like they’re taking the next step in the process, rather than waiting to hear back from someone.
Employers should also evaluate specific tools to ensure they fit with their brand. For example, candidates applying to a technology company would expect the process to include more advanced technology, more automation and a more cutting-edge approach to the recruitment process. On the other hand, candidates for positions where the work is focused on manual tasks or face-to-face interactions may expect a different experience. It’s not one size fits all.
In the current market, talent acquisition teams need to move faster than ever to identify and secure talent. The days of long recruitment processes, multiple interviews and multiple steps are over.
Candidates have so many opportunities facing them today…and it’s not just different employers. Think about the impact of virtual work. It used to be that companies simply competed with other organisations in their area, but now, they compete for top talent with companies across the globe.
Add that to that the fact that many employers are reporting a record numbers of job openings and they can’t ramp up their internal teams fast enough to keep up with the number of requisitions they’ve got to fill. The right tools, and the right partner, can make the process easier and even provide them a competitive advantage.
Adding new technology to an established process can be scary. What advice do you have for talent leaders to help them gain buy-in in their organisations?
First off, I’d say, if there wasn’t any fear, I’d be surprised. It’s human nature. But that’s not a reason not to automate.
It starts with having a good, strong, proactive communication plan around the process—explaining what they’re doing and why they’re doing it. It should be transparent and easy to understand. The plan should clearly demonstrate the benefits for the team, and then, it’s important to gather feedback. There must be open lines of communication. It’s about letting people weigh in as you fine-tune the process. Finally, it’s great to recognise and celebrate the early adopters. We’ve seen a lot of success in highlighting the employees who engage and really embrace the change early on.
With internal buy-in, it’s tough, and you can’t underestimate the challenge. However, a good, solid plan executed by leadership goes a long way.
Are there any final thoughts you’d like to leave us with?
I want to put an exclamation point on something I said earlier about the importance of speed in the current talent market. I know the types of pressures that talent leaders are under right now. I don’t have a crystal ball to tell you how long it will last, but I can say that when you find the right partner, they can help you start this process in a way that feels manageable, and that can also help you prepare for whatever challenge lies ahead.
Tables have turned. The roles have revolved. For the first time in decades, candidates rather than employers have the upper hand in controlling their fate.
Those involved in recruiting new staff, whether it’s the hiring manager or the professionals working in talent acquisition and HR, are facing candidates in the driving seat: prospective hires who are able to command more negotiating power when it comes to not only salary, but the entire package.
In the era of hybrid working, your next hire may also want to dictate where they work and when.
This Personnel Today webinar, in association with RPO specialist PeopleScout, will provide insights into how you can succeed in the current candidates’ market. Watch now, on-demand.
