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.
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.
This year, many organizations have had to rethink the strategies and methods they leverage to source and recruit talent. As the year ends and good news regarding vaccines brings us all new hope, you might be wondering what talent acquisition success looks like post-2020?
One of the first steps in preparing for the changes ahead in the talent landscape is to establish an efficient method of sourcing talent. Building a global talent pipeline strategy is an effective way to source and recruit the talent you need.
I recently had the opportunity to join Hiretual for their webinar Sourcing Beyond 2020: Building Global Pipelines for Adaptive Work. During the live Q&A, I discussed how to tap into the global talent pool, ways to attract talent faster during the Great Rehire and how to go about engaging with candidates for current or future roles.
In follow up to the webinar, I wanted to provide some additional insights, observations and takeaways from the current talent sourcing landscape and provide you with actionable advice to help you source talent in 2020 and beyond. You can also watch the recorded webinar on the Hiretual website.
My Three Biggest Sourcing Takeaways from 2020
Maximize Your Investments
At the onset of the pandemic, many organizations had to make hard personnel decisions. As a result, teams are lean, but sourcing systems and contracts are still in place, so companies are looking for ways to use what they have. When you have a lean team, it is really important to invest in sourcing tools that allow them to produce more with fewer people. And, if your team is in a position to have any downtime, they can use it to get the most out of the current systems, processes and plans they have today.
It is becoming more important to reach out to passive job seekers who possess the skills you need, as relying on those actively applying cannot be your only channel. At PeopleScout we have invested heavily in technology and sourcing tools with our proprietary Affinix™ platform. Specifically, it has AI sourcing to find passive candidates through various online channels and match skills against your internal databases as well. This augments your existing team and frees up people to handle the most important tasks.
Many of our clients are sophisticated technology buyers and they are also investing in some best in breed AI sourcing tools. In fact, many of them use Hiretual and so our recruiting teams have had access to use that as well, augmenting our strategy and providing the lift needed as we prepare for continued increases in hiring (The Great Rehire).
Get Ahead Where You Can
Focus on best practice building of consistent, authentic and meaningful communication, identifying talent locations and managing to keep former employees, alumni and prospects engaged. Use the sourcing tools you have, maximize your CRM potential, and keep the conversation going. This will ensure that when you are ready to hire candidates are aware of you and open to talk. On the call, Stockpiling was mentioned. Take a page from Executive search firms – research, map and have your ‘first 50’ calls or communication candidates ready to be engaged. Start with drip marketing on the ones you can.
Push relevant, authentic content to them around the company, its future, plans and opportunities. Make it engaging and not just ‘here’s a job.’ Talk about the company, it’s vision, plans for recovery or success. Looking for a job is a lot like looking for a home – when you decide it’s on, it’s on. It’s not often a constant search. Something triggers it and companies want to be top of mind when it does. Drip marketing and candidate engagement go a long way when the pipeline becomes hiring.
Be Flexible in Your Approach
With uncertainty in the talent market due to COVID-19, recovery efforts and just general unease after a big life-changing event – recruitment has become more unpredictable.
Most companies aren’t providing guidance on revenue and hiring initiatives because of this. Company goals are going to change, and so will hiring efforts to meet those goals. Your sourcing engine needs to be adaptable and ready to go as quickly as you can, but also be nimble enough to flex.
Using automation tools (like those for AI sourcing or lead generation) as well as easy to update marketing and drip marketing campaigns can take the weight off of your sourcers, who can focus on strategy and research for future needs and on how to go to market for these candidates.
How Should Enterprise Hiring Teams Structure Their Global Sourcing Process?
Processes will need to be nimble and teams will need to be tuned in closely to hiring needs. Just like sales teams need clear goals and a plan to execute successfully, the closer talent acquisition is to an organization’s strategic objectives, the ‘tip of the spear’ sourcing team can be ready and focused on building early talent communication and networking.
Now, with the pandemic upending a lot of the traditional norms of work – physical locations, workplace flexibility from home, less commute, and a broader candidate pool for most industries, sourcing has to shift from their traditional method of ‘going where they know’ to rethinking where great candidates are and how to adapt and qualify them. Having more candidates doesn’t make sourcing easier; while it sure helps, it also presents new challenges for teams and organizations.
On the flip side of this coin – companies that cannot have virtual employees – face a different type of challenge. First, combating the notion that work from home is for everyone and sourcing candidates that will want to work onsite. Second, the competition for these individuals will intensify as the ‘Great Rehire’ kicks into full steam. Getting ahead of this and doing everything you can to map that talent and build rapport early will go a long way to getting ahead of a rapid upswing in hiring volumes.
Both scenarios also present a unique opportunity for recruitment and sourcing teams. Often, we source where we know – we look for carbon copies of the person we are replacing or the last people we hired (which is a lot to unpack for another time – diversity, inclusion and attraction anyone?) but with this, there will be large talent groups displaced that have skills and abilities but will not return to their previous roles.
An example of this is Flight Attendants. All major airlines, worldwide, have reduced their staff by enormous numbers. There are hundreds of thousands of candidates looking for work in a new area. For the savviest of sourcing and recruiting teams, there’s a huge opportunity here to bring a new candidate type to the table for roles. Knowing where to find them, how to engage them and how to bring them to the table for your hiring community will be extremely important and a massive opportunity for them.
How Enterprise Recruiters Can Set Themselves Apart from the Competition
We’re all on the edge of what’s being called the ‘Great Rehire.’ We know that an average of 70% of the workforce has and will continue to work uninterrupted both virtually and in the office. That leaves a large, displaced group of candidates that will either return to their current careers or new ones. When that happens is anyone’s guess.
What teams can do now is a lot of the above – optimise your recruitment channels, build compelling drip marketing and attraction packages, leverage smart scouring tools, and start your research now to be sure you are ready when the hiring begins. To the TA leadership, if you aren’t already involved in future planning, get ahead of it now. This has the potential to be a massive rehire, at least we all hope, and we don’t have a precedent in modern hiring to compare. Be ready to be nimble.
Choosing the Right Scouring Tools and Technology
There has been a lot of debate in sourcing about how technology will either eliminate the need for sourcing (just like it will eliminate the need to interview) or will it augment. I’m firmly in the camp that technology, for the near to mid-future, will be an augmentation of human efforts.
So, now is the time to look at your sourcing tools and tech stack and eliminate waste and optimize your process and efforts. Take your sourcing tools and position them for the future, look at your organization and your needs and choose the tools that will help accelerate your hiring teams through the process.
We have to assume, as we always do in recruiting, that hiring will come faster than we can prepare for. Choose and implement tools that maximize your sourcing ability and help the team be faster, better and smarter. Tools have the ability to augment your team, integrate with your CRM to ensure you can automate attraction and marketing, and report back on the success rate of your efforts.
Look at your reporting state now – can you measure each key piece of the process to see where you can tweak, adjust, or shift to get better results? Best in class TA teams have learned to measure the entire funnel – not just for speed of process but also for efficiency or ‘friction.’ The faster you can get to market, identify and/or attract, and bring that candidate through an impactful experience will help you both hire and retain great people. To do that, you need to focus on the holistic view of your process and be sure you can measure it effectively.
Planning Your Future Workforce and Building Robust Talent Pipelines
At PeopleScout, we see it across our client base and I’m hearing it from friends and former colleagues; we know we need to prepare; we know we need to get ahead, but how? What are we hiring for? When does it start?
The best practices we’ve seen and some of the lessons we learned after the Great Recession in 2008 was that the closer recruiting is to sales and to executive planning, the better we can be prepared to not just find candidates but to strategise on what roles are needed to help the business rebuild, and then where to find them and how to engage them.
Planning ahead will be critical but I would say more importantly, given resource constraints, cost constraints and the level of uncertainty, sourcing will need to ensure they have a clear understanding beyond just the number of hires and what’s in your funnel. This is a time for talent acquisition as a whole to show how strategic we really are. We have been solving company problems for a long time, and this will be a huge opportunity to get in the mix of future state analysis, building the plan for what type of candidate is both needed and available and then delivering on that plan.
Building future proof talent pipelines requires both a plan and sourcing tools to help you source, track and communicate with your Great Rehire talent. Starting earlier will be well worth it when it begins. It won’t be as simple as knowing where the right talent is when you need them. You will need to be sure you track and build rapport consistently given the uncertainty of the market.
The shift toward global expansion is top of mind in many of today’s organisations, and for good reason: going global brings opportunities that may otherwise go untapped – such as new revenue sources, cultural diversification, economies of scale and greater access to talent. So, as your talent programme grows, you may be considering expanding beyond your current borders.
Similar to traveling internationally, there are many steps to taking your business’ talent acquisition programme global. As you plan for a trip abroad, you may make a packing checklist, get your passport and prepare accommodations. There’s anticipation as you near your trip date, and even some nerves as you take flight. You don’t quite know what to expect, but you’re excited about the possibilities of what you’ll discover. After an invigorating visit, you recount your trip and replay all you’ve experienced – good and bad. Global talent acquisition deployments are similar, and in this article, we’ll outline factors to consider throughout the different stages of implementation.
Choosing Your Global Talent Acquisition Deployment Type
The first item on any
traveler’s checklist is determining where to go. When it comes to global implementations,
get a good handle on the location or locations you’ll be expanding into before
taking off. After considering talent supply, cultural nuances and how easy (or
difficult!) it is to do business in a certain location, selecting a deployment
type should be straightforward.
There are two main types of global talent acquisition deployments:
“Big Bang” Approach: If you opt for this method, you’ll be launching all operations at one time on a singular date. This might be the choice for you if the main goal is compliance with global policies and procedures that align with a specific set of dates and standards.
Phased Approach: This type of deployment type favors a slower rollout of operations over time – which might be helpful for first-generation managed service provider (MSP), recruitment process outsourcing (RPO) or total workforce solutions programmes that you want your organisation to ease into.
Factors to Consider
After choosing a travel destination, you’ll start looking into the details of the location you’re visiting. What’s the weather like? What language do people speak? Where are the best food spots in town? In essence, seemingly small aspects tend to have large effects on the success of your trip. Likewise, once you’ve taken all of the initial expansion considerations into account, you’re better equipped to further assess pivotal factors that will greatly influence the success of the overall deployment, including the following significant global and local influencers.
Key Stakeholder Identification & Support Capacity
It’s crucial to align organisational expansion plans with regional cultural norms and any specific local nuances. For example, when initially organising the details, are there any types of communication styles that are considered rude or offensive? This is crucial to ascertain for positive programme adoption from the start. Also, be sure to frame that local focus to stakeholders, as opposed to communicating a message that essentially states that a new programme will be laid over local operations. Stress the fact that you’ll be interweaving existing operations with new features and benefits to ensure maximum success for the programme and all involved.
Additionally, focus on ensuring that all voices are heard – from local teams to individual hiring managers – to avoid any passive resistance; you’ll want to fully understand how people work in that particular location and what day-to-day norms mean to ensure the success of the programme. Try putting yourself in the shoes of the end-user; a seemingly simple concept like shadowing can go a long way in showing the local constituency that you’re invested in the success of the programme at their specific location.
Availability of Talent
We’re currently seeing low
unemployment rates paired with skills shortages across the globe– a trend we haven’t seen consistently
in the past. Because of this, consider shifting your focus to soft skills when it comes to assessing the talent
landscape in a given region. This means concentrating on skills like critical
thinking, problem solving and adaptability to new environments. No matter whether
you’re introducing a new industry to the area, carefully decipher what the
competition for talent looks like. From there, you can start developing a well-thought-out
sourcing plan to align the resources necessary for a successful deployment.
Change Management and Global Talent Acquisition
When done right, change management can have the greatest effect on deployment success. A critical component of managing change in global talent acquisition implementations is gaining buy-in from key, local stakeholders. Then, you can depend on these stakeholders to translate (literally and figuratively), the feedback needed to take into consideration.
Another vital part of
managing change is ensuring the right amount of frequency to ensure consistent
alignment. Rather than one initial message followed by
months of silence leading up to the “go-live” communication, consider a layering approach. Keep communications frequent, consistent and to the point to get
people excited about what’s coming and interested in what the changes mean for
them.
And, as important as it is to keep communication consistent as you prepare for launch, it’s just as critical post-launch. Reinforce the benefits people should be seeing, ensuring everyone is comfortable with the changes and collecting feedback around any training or functionality that may need revisiting. A high level of communication and comfort translates into successful programme adoption.
When it comes to talent technology, several different factors need to be considered. For an MSP programme, the main component is the vendor management system (VMS). Along the same lines, with an RPO program, you’ll be focused on the applicant tracking system (ATS) and any other systems that may need to be integrated for either or both. Similar systems may be utilised across an organisation with varying local versions, so it’s important to understand what consistencies exist, as well as gaps that need to be addressed.
Ensure the pros and cons are carefully weighed across the systems the technology will interface with, then try to choose one as a “source of truth” for compliance, data validation, and data integrity. In doing so, you’ll see consistency across the talent technology, giving you a true, holistic view of the workforce when it comes to analytics and reporting.
Finance & Tax
What’s important here – and heavily dependent upon the workforce population at hand – is ensuring that there are clear visibility and guidance around cross-border implications, such as supplier and provider payments, global and statutory requirements, or arrangements in which a hiring manager sits in a different location than the resource. This becomes especially important when there is an integration with an invoicing system and effects on back-office operations.
The Stages of a Global Talent Acquisition Launch
After months of preparation,
you’re finally leaving for your much-anticipated trip. You just have to check
in to your flight, print your boarding pass and you’re on your way! After a
two-week experience you’ll never forget, you return home to tell your friends
and family every detail of your getaway (even down to the hotel mishap on night
three). Your global deployment will go through similar stages, as outlined
below.
Pre-launch
At the pre-launch stage,
all stakeholders should have a good working knowledge of what’s coming and
when, and you should have a good sense of how everyone is feeling. Are people
comfortable with what’s coming? Are they ready for it? What needs to be
adjusted now based on the feedback collected?
Ensure that all technology components are operating as planned, and that enough time has been dedicated to testing different scenarios that will be realised upon launch. The quickest way to do this is by running through predetermined scripts and observing how the technology responds. If time allows, some organisations also subscribe to a “break the system” approach by trying out every possible or one-off scenario – including erroneous field data – to assess the outcome. While this takes more time, it also tends to be the most thorough, especially if multiple technologies are at play.
Successful Launch
When it comes to executing a successful launch, the biggest components are represented above. As you progress in the implementation, it’s wise to consistently refine change management, calibrate resource alignment and pivot as needed, so as not to lose momentum as progress is made. Remember to share successes along the way, and not to lose sight of the overall goals of the programme.
Furthermore, whether you’re evolving your programme or expanding into additional locations, consider the overall maturity of the labor market and generation of the programme you’re launching. For instance, if this is a second-generation programme, what do you need to consider from the first launch and potentially change? It’s also important to communicate the fact that unexpected issues may arise and, if they do, it’s critical to address these obstacles transparently.
Post Launch
Once the programme expansion has launched, consider the following recommendations:
Dedicate time to complete a thorough audit: Assess how well the goals were met, taking into account that they may have changed over time.
Schedule a “lessons learned” meeting: Identify and capitalise on best practices acquired throughout the launch.
Check in at all levels of the operation: Work to understand what is and isn’t working.
As data starts coming in regularly, analyse for trends that may not have been visible before to determine any adjustments that need to be made related to resources, processes or technology.
After any trip, you spend some time at home reliving the experience and getting reassimilated with your day-to-day life. You think about what you did and didn’t like, go over what you learned, and naturally, decide whether you want to take another trip. Maybe the destination was so great that you want to go back, or perhaps you’re ready for something new. Global talent acquisition implementations are similar, and whether you’ve met your needs with one deployment or are planning for further expansion, the right talent partner can help take you there.
Finding the Right
Partner
Choosing a partner to help you through your global talent acquisition deployment is like choosing an airline. Are they reputable? Dependable? Can they get you where you need to be? Most important, can you trust them with your bags? When you’re looking into viable partners to work with for your implementation, ask yourself:
Do they align with our business needs?
Will they deliver value across every level of the organisation?
Are they flexible?
Do they have any proven standards?
Do they have the ability and experience to tailor operations as needed?
Don’t be shy about asking your potential talent partner to prove their value. Request case studies and demonstrated expertise that illustrates that they have the experience you’re looking for. Finding a partner that is a good fit for your organisation is a huge undertaking and you want to make sure you get it right. You’ll likely be working with them for a long period of time, and the success of your implementation will depend on the strength of your relationship and the trust you have in your partner.
