Blogs & Articles - Page 11 of 14

9 August 2021 — Without question, the biggest headline in technology right now is the talent shortage. The pandemic forced businesses to accelerate their digital transformations by three to four years, according to a McKinsey survey, and IT leaders desperately need talent to execute on aggressive strategies. TechServe Alliance research shows another uptick in IT employment, yet a deceleration of growth attributed to the talent shortage.

Can digital transformation initiatives withstand the wave of resignations headed this way? IT leaders need to take a closer look at what they're doing to keep employees - and better manage employee needs.

But is the talent shortage really the biggest challenge ahead? What most IT executives fail to realize is that employee attrition is equally if not more detrimental to their businesses than the inability to bring talent in.

The shift from who’s coming to who’s leaving

New Monster.com findings validate what’s been coined the Great Resignation. Nearly all workers - 95% - are considering changing jobs, and the mass exodus is already underway. According to the Labor Department’s JOLTS report, almost 4 million US workers quit their jobs in April, followed by 3.6 million in May.

What’s behind the trend? Burnout, for one. The pressure on IT talent over these last 18 months to both facilitate 100% remote work and digitize complex business processes has been unrelenting. Many feel overwhelmed, unappreciated, and at their breaking point.

Generally speaking, employees are also re-evaluating their careers against the backdrop of shifting priorities. Employees are looking for new opportunities that allow them to improve their mental health, work/life balance, and other personal aspects of their lives. This holds true for IT talent, too.

As businesses continue to develop their go-forward plans for how and where employees will work in this COVID era of work, IT talent is deciding whether those plans fit into theirs. If not, they have lots of other options.

Treating employees like candidates

Why should your IT talent stay? Why isn’t the grass greener on the other side? It’s time for the employee value proposition (EVP), a term understood largely only within HR circles, to make its way to IT.

The EVP is essentially the value a company offers to its employees in exchange for their commitment. It goes beyond compensation, benefits, and perks to explain what makes the experience unique for employees. The EVP captures the essence of a company’s culture, the “why” of an organization.

The biggest missed opportunity when it comes to a company’s EVP? It’s used only as a way to attract new employees instead of retaining existing ones. If IT leaders operate under the assumption that 95% of the workforce is considering leaving, then everyone should be treated as candidates. Operating under this new mindset means that all managers should care about the EVP, not just recruiters.

Unless a company is a huge technology brand, attracting and retaining talent based on name alone won’t work. Big-name brands in other industries, like banking or retail, might have the upper hand with candidates in certain disciplines like sales or marketing, but IT talent prioritizes projects and technologies over logos.

So, what makes the EVP stand out or fall short? Like most, IT talent wants more flexibility in how and where they work, more opportunities to work on projects that help them grow as professionals, and access to upskilling programs to boost their resumes and value. IT leaders need to fully understand the EVP for their companies, and more specifically, within the IT department - and ensure it’s resonating with current and prospective employees alike.

Preparing for the inevitable

Undoubtedly, all companies will lose some talent during the Great Resignation. But when employees leave, IT leaders can gain something incredibly important: perspective.

Many IT leaders have a very insular view of their worlds, especially given the pace and urgency of digital initiatives right now. All energy is thrust into the needs of the business, and when an employee leaves, their focus immediately shifts to who can take their place. It is critical, now more than ever, for leaders to conduct meaningful exit interviews with outgoing employees to gain insight on the IT working environment. This is typically handled entirely by HR - an oversight companies can’t afford to make. IT leadership must be involved in this process.

What are other businesses offering to be competitive? And, just as importantly, what causes employees to leave? Exit interviews can help IT leaders uncover what might be broken from a culture perspective within their departments. From a broader view, they can also help leaders identify trends in how and where people want to work, and what value they’re looking to gain from an employer. Most importantly, this enables the company to adjust strategies and take action to make improvements.

The Great Resignation isn’t a scare tactic. It’s a very real, very possible reaction to an unprecedented environment where talent calls the shots. IT leaders who take the time to understand the true value they offer to employees and work to ensure it meets the needs and demands of their workforce will weather this storm far better than those who ignore the warning signs.

Originally published 29 July 2021 in InformationWeek

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6 August 2021 — Diversity, Equality & Inclusion (DEI) has always been important; however, it has emerged as a singularly significant business imperative over the past year as movements for justice and equality have pushed momentum toward building more inclusive organisations. The business case is, of course, compelling – embracing and promoting DEI is linked to increased organisational performance and employee engagement.

Keeping up the momentum on DEI

Research has shown that the vast majority of organisations have accelerated their commitment to DEI since a period of protest erupted around the world following the murder of George Floyd.

However, despite the new impetus, we are still falling short. According to a recent survey by PwC, a lack of holding leaders accountable is a key reason. They found that although three-quarters of organisations (76%) say DEI is a priority for them, only a quarter (26%) have DEI goals for their leaders.

Then there is the intense focus on getting the diversity “mix” right—meaning increasing the number of underrepresented hires and employees at all levels. While this is vitally important as companies, strive to embrace innovation and have employee populations more reflective of the communities they operate in and the consumers they serve, setting and meeting diversity targets is not the cure to all problems.

Monitoring your metrics can give you important data-driven insights on which to act; this is key for businesses to process change. However, simply hitting a target—for a moment in time—won’t result in sustainable change unless organisational cultures adapt to fully include the diverse perspectives that come along with their new employees. The inclusive behaviours needed to instigate far-reaching change have to be modelled from the top.

Reverse mentoring explained

So, what can organisations do to achieve better DEI results? A practice that is working well within AMS and several of our clients’ organisations is reverse mentoring. This equips leaders with inclusive leadership skills and cultural awareness by having junior employees from underrepresented groups guide leaders rather than the other way round.

This isn’t just about young, tech-savvy employees teaching older business veterans the ropes of something like social media (though this could be beneficial, too!) Reverse mentoring helps leaders better understand cultural differences and challenges and the unique value-added insights that can come from listening to diverse perspectives.

But with reverse mentoring being a relatively new concept for some, how can you make it really work? Here are some points to consider:

1. Have a flexible structure

For any mentorship programme to be effective, you must have a plan of action. A kick-off meeting where all participants gather is a great way to get everyone more comfortable in each other’s company. Establish a timeline, including frequency, duration, objectives, and potential topics to be discussed so that all individuals know what to expect.

This also fosters a sense of commitment to each party’s growth. It will also make the junior mentor feel that their voice is being heard, which increases a sense of belonging; this can result in them feeling that they are working for an organisation they want to be a part of for the long term. A word of caution, though, don’t be too rigid – as a reverse mentor to our own CEO, David Leigh, once said, “We liked having the freedom of being able to talk about what’s relevant for us now.”

2. Treat it as two-way development

It is worth remembering that any mentoring exercise is a two-way interaction; it’s professional development for both mentor and mentee, who will learn in abundance from each other. Given that the junior staff member could feel uncomfortable with the hierarchical difference, this should be mentioned at the outset so that they don’t feel too much pressure always to assume the ‘teacher’ role.

As the relationship grows, so too will trust. The mentor will be able to open up more about any issue they wish to discuss while also taking the opportunity to ask for advice from their more experienced colleague. This should facilitate a very natural and free-flowing conversation from which both parties learn. The relationships often last well beyond the formal programme and provide mutual benefits to both parties.

3. Share personal stories

Perhaps the most rewarding part of the process is that it provides a platform for the mentor and mentee to talk about their personal life and experiences. They can mention their family upbringing and their challenges growing up in their community and school, what it taught them, and how it shaped their character and outlook on life. The two parties may have also been affected by current events in different ways. The process allows them to describe their reactions and feelings on important subjects of the time.

For a mentee, listening can really help them gain a deeper understanding of a person’s outlook from a different cultural group than their own, including their motivations and unique challenges, as well as how and what makes them tick. They may also find that they share common interests and passions, which will only cement that bond.

4. Keep on track

Whether using an external person or an internal leader, make sure that you have someone responsible for the programme and ensures that momentum is maintained. They may have to step in and assist where needed; for example, there is the possibility that the mentor and mentee might not be a perfect match, in which case you can look to pair them with different people.

It is also important to attribute an end date so that there is no feeling of obligation to continue once the official mentoring period is over. Both parties can continue to meet or keep in touch informally, should they wish to do so.

Final thoughts

For any DEI strategy to be truly effective, it needs the buy-in of senior management and a change in leadership behaviours.

Reverse mentoring will help leaders significantly increase their understanding, awareness, and appreciation of differences and the importance of creating more inclusive cultures where everyone can fulfil their potential. It will improve talent retention and attraction efforts, which can benefit your business’s overall performance.

Perhaps more importantly, though, it will help build a more inclusive culture where mutual understanding thrives.

To gain further insight on this topic, register for DiversityQ’s Rethinking Inclusive Mentorship event on 24th June.

Originally published 12 May 2021 in DiversityQ

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6 August 2021 — As uncertainty persists and market demands continue to shift, the people we hire today may very well need to be reallocated or reskilled tomorrow. This was certainly the reality that emerged during the pandemic. In order to meet changing customer needs, companies across all industries adjusted their talent strategies to accommodate business change — from enabling new operating models to addressing compliance and safety concerns to reassigning people to new business units or regions.

While the initial global shock of the pandemic is behind us, we’re still operating in an environment of uncertainty where change is the norm. Businesses are now recognizing that they need a talent strategy that allows them to harness and capitalize on change for growth. This starts with analyzing your existing workforce from a different perspective to make hiring decisions that allow you not only to operate in a state of fluidity — but fully embrace it. Discover our Contingent Workforce Solutions for more information.

For many companies, a mindset shift is in order. Instead of seeing your workforce as a static group of people assigned to specific roles, it’s important to view it as a collective mix of skills, perspective, experiences, and technologies that work together to drive your business.

Minding the gaps

What does headcount tell you about how equipped you are to handle business challenges? Not much. The truth is it doesn’t matter how many employees you have; what counts is what they bring to the table.

You need visibility into what matters. Analyzing the attributes of your total workforce allows you to identify strengths, such as where you have an abundance of expertise, and weaknesses — that is, where you have gaps.

This is especially critical in a change environment. When executives change course, HR leaders need to know exactly how their workforce can proactively respond. A headcount view of the workforce doesn’t get you there.

Once you understand where you are long and short on skills, you can fill the gaps one of several ways, the first and most effective being via internal mobility. According to Deloitte, organizations that promote employees vs. hire externally are 32% more likely to be satisfied with the quality of new hires. Meanwhile, external hires are 61% more likely to be laid off or fired within one year and 21% more likely to leave.

An internal-mobility approach results in the quickest reaction time to adapt, offering a big competitive differentiation in highly commoditized industries. But with a traditional headcount-based view of your workforce, it’s impossible to achieve.

Building talent. Filling gaps, though, isn’t just about moving talent. It’s about growing it. Internal upskilling and reskilling programs allow you to cultivate your existing talent, adding new capabilities to your workforce without adding heads. Combined, mobility and upskilling/reskilling also give employees access to new opportunities, increasing retention and their value to your organization. This in turn creates a stronger employer brand that will help you attract new talent.

An effective strategy is a cross between building and buying talent. Forward-thinking talent acquisition and HR teams are starting to partner with outside companies that can expertly source and train untapped, early-career talent. They’re working with numerous stakeholders to cultivate people’s skills specifically for hard-to-fill or fast-changing positions, especially tech and digital roles.

Buying talent. As for the buy approach, today adding headcount is expensive and difficult, especially as competition for talent ramps up. It’s also a bit of guessing game into the skills you need now, and those you need in the future. It’s critical to understand the future state of your mobility and upskilling efforts to proactively address gaps with external hiring efforts.

A fluid view of the workforce gives you the ability to do this. With a clear sense and real-time view of the skills you’re adding internally, you can make more informed buying decisions that can help you move your business forward.

Creating a strategy of fluidity

1. Look for candidates with fluidity-friendly traits.

First, candidates should be avid learners with a growth mindset. This is a non-negotiable trait that ensures a good fit for both your company and the individual. Second, employees should be critical thinkers. They should be excited by challenges and passionate about finding better solutions than the status quo.

It’s now crucial to find talent with basic technology skills, no matter what position you’re filling. People should be comfortable with and excited by the potential to use new technologies in their work lives. And lastly, as individuals move into new roles and contribute to new projects, being strong communicators and collaborators will aid in their success.

2. Re-think the job description.

Skills and capabilities are more important than specific requirements. Don’t limit your search only to those who have held the exact role you’re filling. TA needs to view a new hire’s skills in not just the context of the role but in the context of the entire organization.

Let’s say you need a Java developer. Old methods would say, “You must have been a Java developer for 3+ years in our industry within the last five years.” A skills-based approach might say something like, “You should be an avid programmer with experience in Java, but ideally have broad full stack experience, as well.” You’ll still end up hiring someone with a Java skill set, but the person might not technically have been a “Java developer” in a previous role and can offer more to your company in the future.

Just like this description suggests, the job description should make it clear that you’re looking for someone who has developed a mastery of certain skills but still has a desire to continue broadening the application of them.

3. Set expectations upfront.

When determining fit, a good place to start is a candidate’s career trajectory. One red flag might be if someone left a high-change environment (such as a start up) in search of a role with more defined parameters.

Another must-do is to position the opportunity as more than just “this job.” Explain what an assignment-based culture looks like, how the role will likely change over time, and use real employee examples to give someone a sense of the person’s future with you.

At the same time, assessments can play an important role in helping you determine both hard and soft skill sets. It is important to identify those who can start adding value from their first day from a tactical perspective but also possess the aptitude and qualities that signal their potential.

The aftershocks of the pandemic have taken the form of many changes, both big and small, that impact business operations: extreme highs and lows in business demand, the acceleration of digital operations, supply-chain disruptions, to name a few. The reality is that the talent you have today isn’t enough to compete tomorrow. The future industry leaders will be those that find a way to proactively address weaknesses before those weaknesses begin to limit their growth potential.

Originally published 3 March 2021 in ERE Recruiting Intelligence

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5 August 2021 — Anyone who has worked in talent acquisition for more than a few years will recognize the pace at which it has evolved. Our teams have segmented and become more specialized, with the creation of new roles designed to better identify talent, better engage with talent and better support hiring managers and candidates. While we had 360° recruiters who would manage an end-to-end hiring process a little more than a decade ago; today, we have recruiters whom we have elevated to become talent advisors. We have insight consultants who can provide competitor intelligence and visibility into market supply and demand. We have specialist sourcers who are skilled at identifying and engaging passive talent and we have dedicated administrators to support interview scheduling, offer management and candidate care.

Alongside the changes to our teams and our roles, we have seen continual innovation in the tools and technologies that support talent acquisitions. We’ve seen more advanced applicant tracking systems and candidate relationship management tools. Sourcing technologies powered by AI to help us search for talent and stack-rank candidates based on suitability. We have robotic process automation to remove administrative tasks, create efficiencies and speed up hiring processes.

One thing that has not changed over time is the core premise of hiring — recruiters partner with hiring managers to find the best possible talent to meet their requirements. And those requirements are nearly always for a job-ready candidate, a candidate who possesses the skills and experience required to immediately add value to the hiring manager and the business.

We know that the skill requirements of businesses are changing rapidly. The total number of skills required for a single job is increasing 10% year-over-year and a third of the skills that were sought by employers in 2017 won’t be required this year, according to Gartner research. It’s no surprise then that 72% of executives participating in a Deloitte study selected “the ability of their people to adapt, reskill, and assume new roles” as the most important or second most important factor to navigate disruptions. And in a McKinsey survey of approximately 300 global executives, a majority of respondents said they’ll need to retrain or replace more than a quarter of their workforce by 2023.

The changing nature of skills requirements is a strategic imperative for most executives. So how are talent acquisition leaders responding to this? The truth is that most aren’t. They are doing an admirable job of evolving their functions, improving their access to talent, enhancing the experience of hiring managers and candidates, reducing costs and improving time to hire. But they’re still perpetuating the same core premise of hiring, the ability to find the best job-ready talent.

Given that most executives site the ability of their people to adapt, reskill and assume new roles, shouldn’t talent acquisition teams be seeking new talent (when internal talent isn’t available) that is better able to adapt and reskill in the future? Outside of emerging talent (i.e. campus and apprentice) programs it would be naïve to believe that we can hire talent based purely on future potential; hiring managers will naturally and rightly require new talent that can add value immediately. But, if we could better balance the need for job-ready talent with future-fit talent we would undoubtedly add strategic value to our businesses.

Progressive talent acquisition leaders have worked hard to elevate the value that their functions provide to the business. They have invested in elevating their recruiters to be true talent advisors to their hiring communities. Now is the time to elevate further, to influence the hiring community to consider the skill sets that they are likely to require in years to come and to consider a broader range of talent that can fulfil both the current and future needs. And by doing that we will not only help to future-proof our businesses, but we will enhance our ability to hire the best diverse talent.

Originally published June 2021 in The Staffing Stream

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22 July 2021 — Within permanent hiring, direct sourcing is well established and is a key part of many talent acquisition functions. It delivers a return on investment in the shape of agency savings and the benefits of building a strong talent pool and brand enhancement for the organization. Direct sourcing within contingent hiring is less established, and in the US region specifically, the market has historically been dominated by a managed service program (MSP) approach.

This is beginning to change. According to the Ardent Direct Sourcing Toolkit Research Study, 70% of businesses cited direct sourcing and talent pool curation as their top priorities for 2020 and 45% planned to enable a direct sourcing service within the next two years — although we all know that 2020 threw a fair few curve balls!

Certainly, this fits with what we are starting to see: Organizations want a direct sourcing model with curated talent pools — a shift away from the traditional contingent hiring model. Discover our Branded Direct Sourcing services.

The reason for this shift is not only the considerable dollar savings that can be made by reducing agency fees and time but also that organizations recognize the importance of selling their brand and using the power of their brand to attract the right candidates. It is a competitive market so using the brand to seek out the best candidates, create talent pools and reduce time to hire are all ways to gain competitive advantage.

Without a doubt, it is a candidate-led market and whether candidates are looking for permanent or contract roles, they want to know: What is the brand? The proposition? The organization’s culture and values? and how all this fits with what they are looking for. Having a direct sourcing team that can articulate the brand in a positive way builds strong employee engagement and is key to building the best talent pool for your business.

“It is tremendously exciting to see the high level of interest in contingent labor direct sourcing solutions across the Americas,” says Mark Jones, managing director of AMS’ Americas contingent business. “There is without doubt an education element to bring to life the benefits, but I have yet to find an organization that doesn’t want to at least discuss the concept.”

How to embrace contingent direct sourcing

In order to maximise the opportunity that directly sourcing contingent workers will bring, there are some key areas to get right.

Capability. Talent acquisition and the make-up of a recruitment teams has become more sophisticated over time and the role of a talent sourcer has evolved into a key role with a defined skillset and expertise. Certainly, within our business we have invested significantly in training programs for talent sourcers and we ensure they are trained in how to use the tools, how to engage candidates and how to use analytics to refine the process. It is important that a sourcer fully understands direct sourcing.

Methodology/engagement. Gain senior buy in on the concept/benefits and gain excitement using the organization’s brand to attract quality candidates and embedding it into to the overall candidate experience. Be proactive around finding and engaging with talent and create a robust talent pool. Identify what talent the organization needs and engage your diverse candidates. Organizations often have leavers that will return to the business again and a talent pool is the perfect way to capture such workers.

Technology. Technology has come long way in terms of its ability to support the process, and there are really good technology providers that specialize in contingent talent pool management and integration into career websites. Jones states that “Technology providers such as TalentNet are vital to the successful running of a contingent labor solution enabling the sourcing, management and engagement of contractors within one platform and analytics tools that will help the sourcer translate data into actionable insights.” AMS enables a complete end-to-end solution meaning we are accountable for all elements of the service including overseeing the chosen technology platform.

As the dusts settles following the trials of 2020, we feel now is a really exciting time and a big opportunity for organizations to consider how they approach sourcing contingent talent. Those organizations who embrace their brand in relation to direct sourcing and really engage their candidates are likely to gain a competitive advantage — and ultimately and will win the best talent.

Originally published 21 July 2021 in The Staffing Stream

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21 July 2021 — As Covid restrictions continue to ease there’s a general optimism that some sense of normality is on the horizon. We’re already seeing recruitment confidence pick up, with recent research from the Association of Professional Staffing Companies (APSCo) showing that permanent vacancies in the UK were up 90 per cent year-on-year in April. Contract roles reported a similar spike, up 83 per cent between April 2020 and 2021.

However, while this uptick in hiring may seem positive on the surface, below the water there’s a potential skills shortage looming that is worrying HR and management teams as organisations plan for post-pandemic growth.

In fact, in a recent survey of global talent acquisition managers and HR Directors, we found that 42 per cent are facing a hiring surge at the moment, with the need to reduce time to fill and improve efficiency in the hiring process also flagged as top of the agenda for talent teams.

The challenges with this are two-fold. In the first instance, a number of these teams are attempting to support this sudden uptick in recruitment with limited internal hiring resources themselves. Of those we surveyed, 40 per cent indicated they had faced lay-offs in their talent acquisition teams in the last year, meaning that many are now trying to do more, with less resources. (To learn more, read our Guide to Recruitment Process Outsourcing)

Secondly, for skills that have long been in short supply, an increased demand for talent is certainly not a good thing – it simply means that competition for resources is continuing to outstrip supply. This is certainly the case for many STEM-based job roles where the gap between supply and demand has been stretching for several years. The pandemic has arguably done little to help alleviate this problem. In fact, it has exacerbated it. Having gone through a significant period of uncertainty, fewer individuals are comfortable leaving the safety of their current employment, which will have a knock-on effect for job-seeking numbers in the immediate future.

So, how can HR and talent acquisition teams address the skills challenges in a post-pandemic world?

A focus on reskilling

The answer – or at least, part of the solution – lies in reskilling. The last year has drastically changed the resources that many organisations need. We’ve seen businesses shift into new markets and geographies as the need arose. While that has created a need for new skills, it’s also led to unfortunate job losses in some areas where demand stalled. It’s likely that we’ll see peaks and troughs of this trend, particularly when the furlough scheme begins to wind down.

But why lose talent when they have the potential to be reskilled – particularly where the business is struggling to source specific attributes in other areas? Indeed, I’d argue that the most sustainable and cost-efficient approach for modern talent acquisition strategies is to incorporate reskilling into any plans. But action does need to be taken on this matter swiftly, before employees become disengaged with the business or skills gaps impact business as usual operations. Unfortunately, it’s likely that over the course of the pandemic organisations have already lost high-potential talent where reskilling hadn’t been factored in to resourcing decisions. But it’s not too late to prevent the loss of highly engaged talent and improve the skills imbalance.

It’s also important to highlight that skilling helps create equity. This method of developing new attributes allows employers to discover hidden talent and provide a more equal playing field for talent pools – no matter what their prior experience. With equity, diversity and inclusion high on the talent agenda, reskilling should certainly be a significant consideration.

Making reskilling work

While any approach to growing your own skills internally will need to be tailored to your unique business needs and the skills available or in demand, there are a number of best-practice steps that should be followed:

Integrate skilling into talent acquisition plans: this shouldn’t be a standalone skills strategy. Reskilling needs to be integrated into current and future talent acquisition plans and aligned with development programmes in order to truly work. Treating reskilling as a siloed activity will limit its success.
Have the data systems in place: This trend of growing your own skills is only going to increase. Now is the time to ensure you have the data collection and tracking in place to effectively measure internal skills and map where there are not only gaps that need filling, but also positions that may soon become redundant.
Gain active and visible sponsorship from the top: Change is driven from the top down and it’s important to have the buy-in from the executive team that is openly communicated. Active and visible sponsorship of reskilling and the benefits it brings to the business and its people will be crucial to the successdul implementation of this approach.
Involve all business stakeholders: Re-skilling isn’t an activity that should be managed by a segregated team – whether that’s HR, talent acquisition or line management. Each of these divisions should be involved in the planning stages as each will have a role to play in identifying where skills need to be developed, highlighting where there may be the resources to develop in line with this demand and ultimately ensuring that the reskilling activites are fit for purpose.
Agree a review process: As with any talent acquisition strategy, it’s important to agree metrics to measure the success of any skilling programme up front. Dexterity will be key to making re-skilling work across your organisation, but without the metrics to track what is working well and what may require improvement, it will be almost impossible to adapt and react in a timely manner.

It’s impossible to predict what the future will hold – the last 18 months have certainly shown us that. But we do know that creating a workforce that’s built for change will give businesses the best possible competitive advantage, no matter what the future holds. Achieving this requires a mix of flexible workforce solutions that includes reskilling as a key strand of talent acquisition.

Originally published 18 June 2021 in HR Review

Whitepaper

Next Gen Talent Acquisition in Pharma, MedTech & Life Sciences

Everest Group research reveals the key shifts, investment priorities and operating models shaping the future of talent acquisition in life sciences.

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AI Human Blend

By Lynne Gardner

Lynne has been with AMS for over 20 years, many of which have been spent collaborating closely with blue-chip clients across a range of sectors. Lynne has partnered with many of the world's largest global investment and retail banks including Morgan Stanley, HSBC and Standard Chartered and supported the evolution of their regional and global RPO models. Lynne has a degree in Business Administration from Aston University. Before joining AMS Lynne spent 10 years in HR and consulting roles with BAA and Hay Management Consultants in a range of roles from business partner to reward and OD.

19 May 2021 — Never has it been more important for energy companies to be able to communicate a cohesive people strategy – and deliver on it.

When BP’s recently appointed CEO, Bernard Looney, launched the company’s new global strategy ‘Reimagining Energy’ last year, he said: “Everywhere I have been inside BP and outside BP, I have come away with one inescapable conclusion and that is that we have got to change.”

The strategy Looney was announcing commits BP to cutting oil and gas production by 40% over the next decade and achieving carbon neutrality by 2050. Many of BP’s large, global rivals are laying out similar visions. The energy industry, whether you’re a transitioning oil and gas company or a leading renewables technology business, is changing fast and forever.

To support their businesses through this change, HR and talent acquisition leaders must be prepared to address at least three fundamental issues that are impacting energy workforces today. Discover how our Workforce Flexibility and Compliance solutions can help.

Remember the great crew change?

It may no longer be part of the public conversation, but it certainly hasn’t gone away. Quite the opposite. Large oil and gas players now tell us that around 50% of their workforces will retire in the next five to seven years. For companies that tend to have lengthy average tenures (Exxon’s is greater than 30 years), this is a problem. Several organisations are already expressing concerns about the skills gaps they have at the 10-15 years’ experience level.

Need for new skills

Traditional engineering and technical specialist skills remain at the core of all energy businesses. But new and evolving skills are in increasingly high demand, whether in procurement, digital design and commissioning or sustainability. To geophysicist and structural engineers we can now add geothermal designers, carbon reduction analyst and many more. Data analysis, digital and commercial skills are opening up a whole new world of opportunity for the sector – and a whole new world of talent competition. Even established technology businesses are struggling to find these skills. Take Tesla, who emphasised in their 2019 Report & Accounts that retaining key people and acquiring the skills in the right places to deliver on their strategy is one of their greatest risks.

Diversifying the workforce

With females currently making up just 22% of the workforce in traditional oil and gas companies and 32% in renewables companies, gender diversity remains low across the sector. But it doesn’t need to. We see real opportunities to address the imbalance at the entry and fast-track level. For the first time, female engineers are ranking the energy industry among the top five most attractive sectors in Universum surveys. Shell, with its impressive people strategy and focus, has shifted female representation on its Board of Directors from 25% to 46% over the last six years. And here at AMS, we have proven that a 50:50 mix of female/male hires is absolutely achievable when managing global graduate campaigns.

So, what should HR and talent acquisitions do to address these key issues and support their business through change? Here are three of our top recommendations.

Centralise strategy and planning

It is difficult to execute enterprise-level change in highly decentralised HR and talent acquisition teams. Whether reskilling or hiring, you can end up addressing business challenges in a highly reactive, short-term way rather than planning for the big picture. True, execution is sometimes best done locally. But transforming a global employer brand? Creating a five-year workforce plan? Designing the infrastructure for skills ‘fast lanes’? Activities like these require board-level backing. Centralising resources and investment to focus on game-changing moves will help you deliver faster and bolder outcomes.

Become irresistible

You need to build an end-to-end attraction and retention strategy that makes your organisation uniquely compelling to external candidates and internal employees. You need a vision that excites and engages future talent, grabs the attention of female engineering graduates, and instils pride and passion in your existing workforce. People need to be able to see themselves growing and reskilling in your organisation and contributing to something aspirational.

Make reskilling transformation, not reactive

This is easier said than done. First off, you need a clear understanding of what’s needed now, in 12 months and in five years’ time. And that’s only possible if you have the right tools and data, and if there is close collaboration between resourcing planning teams, finance, talent acquisition and HR. Many shy away from workforce planning. But it doesn’t have to be the scary behemoth many HR and talent acquisition leaders assume it to be. Start by focusing on bringing the right people and data together and before you know it, you’ll have evidence-led analysis that can help you answer talent questions that are critical for your business. What skills are worth risking a more creative hiring approach for? Where should you focus your ‘grow your own’ investment? Which communities or job families can you reskill within two years? Which roles do you need to create ‘fast lanes’ for to fill the traditional 10-15 years’ experience gap?

I look forward to sharing more sector insights with you via additional blogs and events. In the meantime, please do share your views with me through LinkedIn.

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In my previous two articles, I have been exploring the challenge that the pharmaceutical, medtech and life sciences sector faces in relation to the sourcing of scarce talent.

Talent Acquisition (TA) leaders have consistently told us that identifying and attracting talent is the biggest challenge that they face and our white paper, Transforming Talent Acquisition for the Future showed that prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, 63% of TA leaders rated the ability to find and attract quality talent the largest challenge.

Whilst many would acknowledge that the sector faces a challenge in hiring of scarce skills, there is little discussion as to what actually constitutes scarcity. If TA leaders are to devise strategies and seek investment to address these hiring challenges, then naturally they will need to define and quantify the extent of the challenge. When researching this topic we devised a methodology, outlined in my last article, Scarce Talent Evaluation: A new methodology to assess scarce talent in life sciences that TA leaders can utilise within their own organisations, using data that should be readily available. Our methodology looks at the variance in average time to hire, variance in average agency usage and overall volume of hire.

In the past 18 months, in partnership with our clients within the sector, we have hired >30,000 permanent staff across every region of the world, so we have seen first-hand these issues. Let me share with you some highlights from our internal analysis: -

Which countries have the biggest challenge when it comes to scarce talent in Life Sciences?

Hiring in more than 80 countries around the world we naturally see variances in average time to hire and agency utilisation. If you’re hiring in Malta then be warned, it’s the country in which we have seen the longest time to hire and the highest agency usage in the last 18 months. If you’re ramping up in Kazakhstan or Sri Lanka then you may well face a similar challenge, both are countries where hiring takes almost 50% longer than average and in which agency usage can be up to 5 times higher than average. But given those three countries account for just 50 of our 30,000 hires I think we can accept that the challenge posed could immaterial.

So, let’s instead look at the top 15 major markets by volume. As a reminder, this methodology plots each country’s agency usage and time to hire based on the variance to our global average. And the size of the bubbles represents the total number of hires.

Our analysis shows that of the top 15 countries by hiring volume, only two stand out as having above average agency usage:

China (>5% above average)Our analysis shows that of the top 15 countries by hiring volume, only two stand out as having above average agency usage:
UK (c. 3% above average).

Whist the UK has a below-average time to hire (c. 2 days less), China averages 2 days above the average. Taking into account both these metrics we conclude, of all the major hiring markets, China will represent the greatest challenge.

Elsewhere it’s worth noting:

Both France and India have significantly greater time to hire than all other major hiring markets.
It’s likely that both can be explained by local factors. In India; an incredibly competitive market for professional talent and significantly higher offer decline rates than in other markets. Even with measures in place to mitigate the risk of offer declines, average hiring times are elongated as a result of having to restart the hiring process or recommence with silver medallists.
Hiring in France is often subject to governance requirements from corporate works councils which can place focus on internal hiring and require additional approvals for external hires. These factors have increased our average time to hire for clients in France.

Which functions are hardest to hire for within Life Sciences?

Unsurprisingly we see that the fastest time to hire and lowest agency usage are within functions such as:

Operations (which includes manufacturing)
Supply Chain and Enabling Functions (such as Finance and HR)

If we look to the upper right quadrant of the chart, we see the functions for which hiring is more challenging. It won’t be a surprise for TA practitioners to see Medical Affairs and Compliance within this quadrant as both are functions which are often spoken of anecdotally as challenging to hire. More of a surprise is that Sales and Marketing (often referred to as Commercial) hiring is above average for both agency usage and time to hire. Given the criticality of time to hire for sales positions and given the number of hires in this function (c. 8,000 of our 30,000 total), we conducted further analysis.

Looking at Sales and Marketing hires by country, we start to see a different picture:

All of our major markets are demonstrating an above-average agency usage (China and the UK in particular).
We see a split when it comes to ‘time to hire’, with half of our major markets demonstrating an above-average time to hire.
When it comes to scarce talent within Sales and Marketing, China, Czech Republic, Philippines, Germany and Belgium are all countries in which further investment will pay dividends.

What are the most problematic roles to hire for?

So, let’s take a look at our most challenging roles - the functions that appear in the upper right quadrant of our chart. For this analysis we have focussed on those functions and countries for which we have made >50 hires in the last 18 months, deliberately excluding those for which hiring challenges may be heightened by a lack of volume.

Our analysis shows that:

A broad range of functions and countries make up the top 10 most challenging roles to hire for within the Pharmaceutical & Life Sciences sector.
Medical Affairs hiring in China is likely to require the greatest level of agency usage. In our analysis > 20% higher than the global average and the time to hire is likely to be c. 3 days longer than average.
When it comes to time to hire, Commercial hiring in Denmark is amongst the longest globally at c.18 days longer than the global average.
Other outliers include Commercial hiring in Austria at c.6 days longer to hire and with c.7% higher than average agency usage.
IT, Technology and Engineering hiring in Israel shows a time to hire that is c.6 days longer than average and agency usage 6% higher.

What should we take from this analysis?

As TA leaders we have limited resources and limited budgets. Our primary role is to help our organisations hire the best talent in the market, with the most experience and as quickly as possible. If the biggest challenge cited by TA leaders is the ability to find and attract quality talent then it’s clear we need to focus our investment on those areas where we face the biggest challenge.

In my last few articles, I have been advocating for a focus on three distinct areas to help address talent challenges: -

a candidate centric approach to hiring (which includes the use of tailored candidate value propositions instead of generic employee value propositions)
an investment in market insight
deployment of specialist candidate sourcing skills and technologies

My advice to all TA leaders is to conduct the analysis I have described in this article within your organisations in order to identify your own scarce talent hot spots. Once you have an understanding of your own hot spots you can put in place investment strategies focussed on candidate centricity, market insight and candidate sourcing capabilities.

As always, I would welcome your thoughts on this article. Please reach out to me via LinkedIn to join the debate.

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Whilst the COVID-19 crisis is far from over, many of us are starting to see restrictions ease and many businesses are starting to think about the future, if not the long-term future then at least the medium-term future and the potential of returning to growth.

24 February 2021 — As 2021 moves forward with varying levels of optimism for the year ahead, talent acquisition (TA) leaders are considering the transition to a new normal — to what extent will they hold on to changes made during the global pandemic and to what extent will they return to the old ways of working?

For the majority of TA leaders that I have spoken to, hiring has not only worked well during the pandemic but it’s actually worked better than they could have hoped. Within the life sciences sector, we have helped many of our clients to hire more talent and to hire faster than in previous years.

Arguably one of the biggest achievements for TA leaders has been the growing ability to broaden their search for critical and niche skills. With most organizations working remotely, hiring managers have been able to expand their geographic search for talent, and consider excellent candidates that would not otherwise have been interested in being tied to a specific office five-days a week.

In the Covid-19 world and after, flexible work will be a must-have for many candidates, but it isn’t limited to only occasional remote working. According to research from PwC, prior to the pandemic, less than 30% of financial services organizations had part of their workforce working from home once a week. Post-pandemic, these organizations expect to have nearly 70% of employees working from home at least once a week.

Of course, flexible working doesn’t only involve remote working, it might also encompass job sharing, reduced hours or the flexibility to manage one’s time around commitments, such as childcare. Although the pandemic has moved work in this direction, it remains up to employers to continue the momentum — and communicate all the options to employees.

Employee Value Propositions and Candidate Value Propositions

So how do existing employee value propositions (EVPs) support this shift toward new ways of working? The simple answer is, they don’t.

For too long EVPs have been generic statements that go along these sort of lines, “At [insert company name], we’re a team of [insert adjective] people dedicated to our customer’s success. Our [insert adjective] culture empowers our employees to reach goals they didn’t know were possible. Together we are shaping the future of the [insert sector] industry.” These messages are not only underwhelming but they also fail to attract diverse and in-demand talent.

So, what’s missing? Well, a lot; starting with giving candidates the ability to envisage themselves as part of the organization. In today’s challenging employment market, it’s not enough to say who you are anymore. It would help if organizations also told candidates how they’d fit. Part of that can be achieved by incorporating details about what the organization offers, such as flexible working.

The most progressive TA leaders are working hard to differentiate their recruitment brands to appeal to specific segments of talent. If a pharmaceutical organization is hiring talent within R&D then what is the proposition for that specific talent? How does that differ for commercial roles? And importantly, what are the flexible working opportunities within R&D compared to those for commercial roles?

Companies with compelling EVPs are able to hire employees at two times less cost than those that don’t. At the same time, flexible working will help employers secure top talent and build more diverse organizations, making it an ideal addition to those looking to differentiate their hiring approach. Isn’t it time to put the pieces together?

As we emerge from the pandemic TA leaders must quickly get to grips with their remote and flexible working propositions, seek to build the most compelling propositions for candidates and ditch the EVP in favor of differentiated candidate value propositions (CVP). A CVP can recognize and connect with specific target market demographics and allows an organization to engage with prospective talent in a credible and compelling way.

Originally posted 24 February 2021 in Staffing Industry Analyst Staffing Stream

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Next Gen Talent Acquisition in Pharma, MedTech & Life Sciences

Everest Group research reveals the key shifts, investment priorities and operating models shaping the future of talent acquisition in life sciences.

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In my last article, Number one hiring challenge in pharma and biotech? Securing scarce talent I wrote extensively about the challenge of sourcing scare talent within the pharmaceutical and life sciences sector and I shared some strategies for talent acquisition (TA) practitioners to follow in order to best address those challenges. We know that identifying and attracting quality talent is the biggest challenge facing TA leaders right now because they consistently tell us that’s the case.

Within the sector I’m sure that we all have a view of what talent is the scarcest. When I speak with prospective customers, they are always keen to understand our strategies for finding and engaging with clinical talent, with regulatory affairs specialists, digital marketers and data scientists. That talent is indeed scarce but not everywhere, naturally there are countries and locations in which we are far more likely to find that talent than others. Similarly, there are skills that may be commonly viewed as abundant but prove challenging to identify in particular countries and locations.

So, what constitutes scarce talent?

To answer this question, we have been analysing data from over 30,000 permanent hires that we made for our clients over 18 months in order to understand which roles should be considered the scarcest and the most challenging to hire for.

In looking at that data we have focused on three particular factors:

the average time to hire for each of the role functions
the use of recruitment agencies to support the identification of talent
the volume of hiring for those role functions

The methodology that we created has proved to be incredibly insightful and we plan to use this regularly in the future as we look to better understand trends and challenges across the sector and for individual clients. I’m sharing the methodology with you here, to allow you to replicate it with your own hiring data.

This chart is a visualisation of scarce talent using example data. On the x-axis we plot role functions based on their average time to hire against our total average (i.e. if our total average time to hire is 40 days we’re looking at the variance to that 40 days). On the y-axis we plot role functions based on their average agency usage (i.e. if our average agency usage is 5% we’re looking at the variance to that 5%). The size of the bubble denotes the number of hires made against each role profile. Any bubbles that plot to the upper right quadrant of the chart (in this example A, B and C) therefore represent our most scarce talent - those role profiles for which it takes longer to hire and for which we have a heavier reliance on recruitment agencies to support hiring.

This methodology can be utilised for role profiles, produced on a geographic basis or even reproduced for specific job profiles or hiring grades.

Why do we need to understand what constitutes scarce talent?

In the previous article I mentioned, I shared three key strategies to secure scarce talent. Those three strategies require effort and investment and as TA leaders we have finite resources at our disposal. I spoke about the concept of Candidate Centricity and the need to put our candidates first in every aspect of our hiring strategies. That is not a simple endeavour and it requires us to elevate our recruiters so that they become talent advisors, able to consult with hiring managers and influence the parameters of a particular hiring process. Should we aim to deploy talent advisors to cover all of our hiring requirements? Absolutely not – firstly it would likely be unaffordable and secondly, it’s unnecessary, where we have an abundance of talent available to us we need recruiters (or technology) who are best placed to efficiently screen and process candidates whilst providing an exemplary experience. We should target our talent advisors to work on our most challenging hiring requirements, hence the need to proactively identify the Scarce Talent Propensity for our own organisations.

The second strategy that I shared was the use of Market Insight to empower our hiring teams with the data required to be able to consult with hiring managers and adapt hiring strategies. Whilst market insight is no longer an expensive investment as it once was, it does still come at a price and requires specialist resource to be able to deliver the insight to hiring teams. That effort needs to be focussed on the scarce talent and ideally conducted proactively rather than simply at the point that we have received a requisition which looks challenging.

The third strategy that I shared was focussed on the deployment of specialist candidate sourcing skills and technologies. The business case for the deployment of specialist sourcers is clear but the investment only pays off if our sourcers are focussed on the roles that truly requires the effort. Why have a specialist sourcer support a requisition for which we know we’re likely to have an abundance of talent apply? Another reason to proactively assess our own Scare Talent Propensity and deploy our resources wisely.

I look forward to sharing more insight with in future articles. In the meantime, do please share your views with me through LinkedIn.

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