As we look to 2024, major shifts in technology, work environments and hiring practices continue to reshape the future of recruitment. From the constant march of artificial intelligence to the ever-growing importance of diversity and inclusion, the world of talent acquisition has always evolved but 2024 looks set to show a considerable acceleration in the pace of that evolution.

What’s hot in the world of talent acquisition for 2024

Contributors:

Alexeis Garcia Perez

Professor of Digital Business and Society, Aston Business School

Nicky Hancock

Managing Director, The Americas, AMS

Sara Gutierrez

Chief Scientist, SHL

If you’re wondering where the world of talent might be headed in 2024 and thinking about the key trends you need to keep up with, look no further than our experts round up of what the year has in store.

The operationalization of skills-based hiring

Ongoing talent shortages and the volatility of our current business environment means organizations are having to re-evaluate their approach to hiring people. While almost all talent professionals will have already heard about skills-based hiring – hiring for the skills and potential an individual has, rather than experience and past employment history – 2024 will bring a greater focus on operationalizing it, rather than talking about it.

“Skills-based hiring increases talent pools exponentially, it’s good for diversity and inclusion and it gives us more agility in our workforces – but every organization is on a different journey,” says Nicky Hancock, managing director Americas at AMS.

“Some have made some progress from an internal hiring perspective, but generally it is more theoretical than operationalized. The technology is there to do it, it’s more about a culture change in the organization and how to systemize it. We’ll see that next year,” she adds.

Moving contingent hiring from procurement to HR

Back in 2020, there were 51.5 million contingent workers in the US, representing more than a third of our entire workforce and generating $1.3tn in revenue. With organizations aiming to become more agile and adaptable while also competing for talent, contingent hiring is likely to continue growing.

With this in mind, businesses are increasingly taking control of their contingent hiring processes and moving it away from procurement and into HR, where it can align better with skills-based hiring and employer branding.

“Traditionally, contingent hiring in the US has been through a provider and has rarely innovated or evolved. Now, it’s all about brand-led direct sourcing. It’s a disruptor and it’s about building talent pools for a brand through identifying skills, regardless of whether they’re for permanent or contingent roles,” says Hancock.

A ‘post-industrial’ age of workforce planning

The combined challenges of artificial intelligence, talent scarcities and an uncertain future means we’re entering a ‘post-industrial’ era of business, where growth will mean focusing on reskilling, retention and productivity, rather than simply increasing headcount.

For recruiters, this will mean thinking about talent attraction in new ways, with a focus on harnessing AI to build data and exploit new talent intelligence, argues HR expert Josh Bersin.

Future business success might be about doing more work with fewer people – and better workforce planning.

“All over the world companies feel a need to improve productivity, yet we keep throwing more tools at people, expecting work to get better. It is time to couple strong technologies with new models of leadership, organizational dynamism, and more integrated HR. When done in concert, these strategies can help any company grow and thrive without hiring more and more people,” says Bersin.

GenAI or ethical AI?

Conversations about AI will continue to dominate the recruitment industry in 2024, but regulation and how to stay on the right side of the ethical argument will become an increasingly important part of it.

Earlier this year, New York State implemented legislation requiring companies using AI in hiring to notify candidates that they were doing so, while also allowing independent auditors to check the technology for bias. Regulation is coming, and recruiters need to be aware of it.

While AI potentially has huge benefits for sectors of work, there are two key risks for business. One is accuracy, with a recent Stanford University study claiming Chat GPT is becoming less accurate over time, rather than more.

The second is about ensuring that humans make the ultimate decision on hiring, not technology.

Alexeis Garcia Perez is professor of digital business and society at Aston Business School. He believes that it is incumbent on all businesses to update skills to ensure humans are able to manage digital transformation 2.0.

“As we transition into a knowledge economy and jobs continue to be transformed by technology, employees who lack the adaptability enabled by digital fluency risk structural unemployment. For businesses this would mean a challenge to recruit talent, execute new strategies and keep pace with the speed and nature of change. Investing to facilitate and improve access to digital skills and cultivate a culture of continuous learning is key to securing a competitive and inclusive economic future,” he says.

Resignation not relocation

The days of new hires willingly uprooting homes and families to move cross country for a new job are over. The rate at which American employees move for work fell to a record 1.6% in the first three months of 2023, according to data by outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas.

The proportion of jobseekers moving for work has been on a downward trend since the firm began measuring the data in 1986 (when 48.1% of people relocated for work), However, the confluence of plentiful remote jobs, skyrocketing mortgage rates and house prices, and decreasing employer loyalty means moving for work is no longer an option for many.

So what does this mean for recruiters in 2024? As employers get increasingly serious about a return to the office, they’ll have to reevaluate their relocation strategies in order to attract – and retain – the best talent. Asking your people to move for work is no longer a given.

A ‘post-industrial’ age of workforce planning

For recruiters, this will mean thinking about talent attraction in new ways, with a focus on harnessing AI to build data and exploit new talent intelligence, argues HR expert Josh Bersin.

Future business success might be about doing more work with fewer people – and better workforce planning.

GenAI or ethical AI?

The second is about ensuring that humans make the ultimate decision on hiring, not technology.

Resignation not relocation

Investment in people for the long-term

As Gen AI continues to impact workforces, uproot jobs and change the very fabric of work, it is vital that recruiters and businesses extol the benefits of investing in the right people and talent for the long-term success of business.

In short, businesses should not let short-term solutions like artificial intelligence overshadow the long-term value human capital can bring.

“Although we saw economic struggles coming out of the pandemic, we also witnessed the most buoyant job market in recent history. This led to the Great Resignation, with employees having agency and power, and employers having to work hard to attract and retain talent. The result: higher starting salaries, greater flexibility, more work life-balance, and so on,” says Sara Gutierrez, chief scientist at SHL, the global leader in talent insight and data analysis.

“That pendulum has shifted. A tight labor market and less opportunity, coupled with job insecurity and a cost-of-living crisis means that employers are back in the driving seat. While it might be tempting for organizations to pull back from employee-oriented initiatives, such action will be short-sighted. Organizations that continue to invest in their people, offering development, mobility, and career growth in 2024 will reap the rewards in the months and years to come.”

written by the Catalyst Editorial Board

with contribution from:

Alexeis Garcia Perez

Professor of Digital Business and Society, Aston Business School

Nicky Hancock

Managing Director, The Americas, AMS

Sara Gutierrez

Chief Scientist, SHL

The life sciences and pharmaceutical industry is facing massive disruption. Biotechnology, digitization and ‘a patent cliff of tectonic magnitude’ are transforming the industry, changing how treatments are developed and delivered while also leading to a revolution in the roles and skills needed.

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Why pharma and life sciences industry needs to rethink talent attraction

Contributors:

Georgia Pink

Analyst and Head of Event Content, LEAP TA: Life Sciences

Chip Holmes

Managing Director, Client Services, AMS

With such change, industry skills gaps are increasing. Four out of five (80%) of pharmaceutical manufacturing facilities are struggling with skills mismatches and half of all executives say that recruiting experienced staff is challenging, according to the report. Things aren’t much better in the clinical trial sphere, with more than a third (36%) of drug developers warning that talent shortages are limiting progress.

To solve these shortages, life sciences companies are having to think more creatively about how they recruit, attract, retain and upskill both existing and new talent.

“Life sciences has some significant challenges at the moment. As Deloitte says, we’re going from doing digital to being digital. We have all these roles to fill that two years ago didn’t exist. We also know that in five years time, there will be more jobs to fill that we currently have no idea about. So where do we find the people needed to fill these roles?’ asks Chip Holmes, managing director, client services at AMS.

Growing talent pools

For Holmes, the move towards digitization starts with re-evaluating how life sciences and pharmaceutical companies recruit. With such a limited talent pool to choose from and new skill-sets required, it no longer makes sense to focus on past experience or job history.

“Currently, life sciences companies are hiring too much against job descriptions, with hiring managers looking for people already within the industry who can do a particular job. Skill-based hiring is about hiring for aptitude and propensity to learn. You hire them, and train them in what they need,” says Holmes.

When shining a light on attracting talent, internal hiring is of critical importance especially within the life science sector. A lack of focus on internal mobility risks growth, according to new data analysis by AMS and The Josh Bersin Company. AMS’s latest Talent Climate Series on Internal Hiring is a challenging read for many talent acquisition teams who have spent so long bringing great talent into organizations only to see it walk out of the door to find new opportunities. The data, compiled in association with experts at The Josh Bersin Company, highlights that only 25% of roles today are filled by internal hiring, but with effective skills mapping, great technology, and building a culture of mobility, organizations can turn that tide and accelerate growth.

Georgia Pink is an analyst and senior event producer at Hanson Wade, which curates the LEAP HR’s Life Sciences global conferences. She agrees that skills-based hiring is high on the agenda in the sector.

“We frequently hear that life sciences organizations need to be able to identify and navigate future talent needs to fill the growing skills gaps and the increasing number of open positions. As a result, we’ve seen a greater focus in 2023 on skills-based hiring, which for many companies is replacing the traditional approach and opening up opportunities to reach a far wider talent pool,” says Pink.

“Not only is this enabling life science organizations to fill positions more quickly, but it is allowing them to match candidates to roles in a more meaningful way, whilst challenging biases that come with a more traditional approach to sourcing talent,” she adds.

Strategies for growth

Moving towards skills-based hiring also allows life sciences and pharmaceutical companies to improve on another strategic business aim – diversity.

According to Biospace’s 2022 Diversity in Life Sciences report, 65% of the life sciences workforce is white, with black people making up 6% and Hispanic/Latinx individuals 8%. By focusing recruitment on potential and skills rather than experience and education, hiring managers can open up new talent pools.

Recruiting for potential leads to another change talent leaders need to make – and that’s to focus more on internal career development and skills building.

“This is the first time individuals in life sciences have had – en masse – a willingness to move industries. It used to be that when you were in life sciences, you were in and spent your whole career here. Now, we’re at a point where people think there might be opportunities in other industries,” warns Holmes.

Combating this potential talent drain means creating the right opportunities for individuals to develop and progress. From a diversity perspective, that means ensuring that talent from different backgrounds not only have the opportunity to progress, but also see and hear from role models in senior positions.

It also means rethinking your employer brand to ensure that you target the right people on the right channels. Research is key, as the image a company thinks it projects is often at odds with the one candidates see.

“Employer branding is key. How do we move from having an employee value proposition to a talent value proposition? The start is to consider the segments of talent you are targeting. We’ve worked with life sciences companies who say they want to be more diverse, but when we run a persona check on the people they’re reaching out to, they all look the same”, says Holmes.

“It’s vital to do your research. Does what you put out to market match what people are saying about you? Oftentimes, companies find that they are not who they think they are,” he adds.

Pink agrees that brand activation and defining an effective EVP is increasingly important to companies in the sector.

“Companies doing noticeable work in this space are actively leveraging internal and external data insights to understand the reality of the brand they are portraying. Analyzing this data and understanding how your organization is perceived is key to identifying and defining a truthful and impactful EVP,” she says.

Future optimism

Despite a downturn in recruitment and the ongoing talent shortage, Holmes believes there is plenty for the sector to be positive about. He sees 2023’s levelling out of recruitment as a temporary measure, predicting that by 2025 we’ll begin to see an upward curve in hiring again.

However, the make-up of where the industry gets its talent from, and where it’s based is likely to change. Holmes cites the APAC region as an area of growth with tremendous talent pools and a bigger consumer base, with EMEA and the US markets more saturated.

“One of the things life sciences really needs to look at is a global location strategy. I’m aware of a couple of life sciences companies who are really trying to change their employee percentages in India and China by looking to move into those areas. They’re not going to exit the US, but they’re looking for a diversified strategy,” he says.

This reimagining of what the life sciences and pharmaceuticals sector looks like is going to continue. Thriving through this period of uncertainty requires agility, flexibility and an openness to change.

“Companies need to be thinking about how artificial intelligence is going to affect the industry and how they can become more digital. The future of life sciences is very bright, but talent is hard to find. Jobs are going to exist and grow, but the skill sets, and profile of people is going to change. We need to be ready for that,” says Holmes.

written by the Catalyst Editorial Board

with contribution from:

Georgia Pink

Analyst and Head of Event Content, LEAP TA: Life Sciences

Chip Holmes

Managing Director, Client Services, AMS

Businesses have focused heavily on filling technology jobs in recent years, but the tech talent gap continues to grow – despite recent cutbacks and layoffs.

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Tech skilling and finding the right skills in your organization

Contributors:

David Shrier

Professor of Practice, AI & Innovation, Imperial College Business School

Erica Titchener

Global Head of Technology & Analytics Advisory, AMS

Claudia Nuttgens

Global Head of Assessment Advisory, AMS

Businesses have focused heavily on filling technology jobs in recent years, but the tech talent gap continues to grow – despite recent cutbacks and layoffs.

In fact, around 80% of tech workers who were laid off in 2022 found new jobs within three months, according to a ZipRecruiter survey, with the number of new technology job postings far outnumbering the amount of people laid off. With tech skills in such high demand, many simply moved out of the technology sector into other industries, including retail, fintech and healthcare.

At the same time, research shows that the US is lagging behind its neighbors when it comes to developing digital skills. One third of working age Americans possess ‘limited’ digital skills according to the OECD, with the US ranking just 29 out of 100 countries for the digital acumen of its workforce in business, technology and digital science.

“People are often not thinking in a systems fashion about the impact of digital transformation,” says David Shrier, Professor of Practice, AI & Innovation at Imperial College Business School.

“I spent the summer working with investment bank research house Evercore ISI looking at the impact of AI on the global economy. Their work suggests that almost 100% of jobs will experience some impact from digital transformation, and within that, 32% will feel meaningful effects from AI. We are projecting as much as $11.8tn of GDP growth by 2032 from AI – nearly 10% of global GDP,” he adds.

Dealing with these factors and unlocking the true potential of organizations in a digital age will require a fundamental shift in how companies think about tech talent and skills development. At the heart of this is the move towards skills-based talent management – where employees are hired, rewarded, and developed based on their current and potential skills, rather than past experience or job roles.

Taking a skills approach

Increasingly, organizations are building and developing tech capabilities, rather than simply hiring them.

“Every organization is competing for the same skills. One way to deal with this is internal tech skilling, where you identify existing skills gaps and build out internal training capability to move people from one area of the business into more of a tech space,” says Erica Titchener, Global Head of Technology & Analytics Advisory at AMS.

“The challenges with this are two-fold. First, you need effective internal mobility and learning and development programs. Secondly, you need insight into the existing skills make-up of your organization. That’s the journey most businesses are on – how to identify what skills they already have in the business, and what skills within the business can be transformed, upskilled, or reskilled into the tech space,” she adds.

The idea of a skills strategy is not a new one. However, what is new – as HR thought leader Josh Bersin points out – is the way organizations are using technology and skills frameworks in an integrated way for recruitment, internal mobility and development.

For many businesses, building a skills framework is a messy, incredibly challenging job. Identifying – and then updating – all the skills your people own and that your jobs require is time-consuming and confusing.

“In the past three to four years, technology has really caught up to this skills-based hiring agenda. Instead of building your own internal skills taxonomy, many organizations are using software providers that provide personalizable taxonomies to help drive skills development for employees,” says Titchener.

To succeed in implementing this technology, businesses need to be able to do two things – drive adoption of their chosen platform and accurately assess internal and external skills capabilities.

“To drive adoption, you need colleagues to get something back. You need to think about the user experience and ensure that when they login, it’s always worthwhile. In return for updating their skills, people need to receive opportunities to grow,” says Titchener.

The role of assessment

When it comes to skills-based assessment, some job roles and industries are easier to assess than others, argues Claudia Nuttgens, Global Head of Assessment Advisory at AMS.

“Skills-based assessment works really well in certain areas, particularly technology. Here, you can be prescriptive about the skills needed – such as coding – and what you can predict if you can develop them. If your job is decision-making based and intellectual, it can be harder to quantify the skills needed,” she says.

What skills-based assessment can do is diversify the talent pools you normally recruit or promote from. By focusing on an individual’s capabilities and potential rather than experience and employment history, organizations can tap into new areas. This can be particularly helpful with technology skilling, where potential is easier to map.

“In theory, the skills-based approach will unlock social mobility, gender diversity and internal mobility. You can do a base assessment looking at an individual’s attitude to learning and curiosity while also mapping their past experience to your business needs,” says Nuttgens.

“We’ve seen really good pockets of success in certain role types or demographics, such as our training recruiters program and our work with ex-military personnel – people who wouldn’t traditionally be in those talent pools,” she adds.

Changing business requirements and the impact of technology means the assessment industry is constantly having to update itself. Nuttgens warns that tools like Chat GPT have led to an increase in cheating in assessments, with recruiters having to look at different processes to assess talent. Skills-based hiring is only accelerating this process.

“If you want to move towards skills-based hiring, you can’t just focus on interviewing people and expect to understand their skills. You need to see them work, measure their personalities and attitudes. We’re leaning more towards experiential assessment with a bit more of a human touch,” says Nuttgens.

Diagnose and strategize

With lifelong learning on the agenda for most employees and organizations, it’s also important to focus on so-called softer skills like resilience, agility and adaptability, warns professor Shrier.

“In addition to technical and factual capabilities to address AI disruption and other kinds of digital transformation impacts, companies need to reorient their workforces around the ‘new skills’ of the post-generative AI era: soft skills like empathy, critical thinking, creativity and team skills,” he says.

“One CEO of a $4bn multinational we were working with thought his team were doing quite a bit in this area. It turns out only 20% of training was on soft skills, so doing a diagnostic helped them look at how to reorient their training activities,” adds Shrier.

Ultimately, no technology or desire to focus on skills-based hiring can be successful without planning, processes, and strategizing. Getting skilling right requires a commitment to ongoing development.

“You need to be ready and have the budget to make adaptations and tweaks every quarter. Organizations invest heavily upfront but leave nothing for optimization. Forward planning is key,” says Titchener.

written by the Catalyst Editorial Board

with contribution from:

David Shrier

Professor of Practice, AI & Innovation, Imperial College Business

Erica Titchener

Global Head of Technology & Analytics Advisory, AMS

Claudia Nuttgens

Global Head of Assessment Advisory, AMS

The role of assessment

When it comes to skills-based assessment, some job roles and industries are easier to assess than others, argues Claudia Nuttgens, Global Head of Assessment Advisory at AMS.

“Skills-based assessment works really well in certain areas, particularly technology. Here, you can be prescriptive about the skills needed – such as coding – and what you can predict if you can develop them. If your job is decision-making based and intellectual, it can be harder to quantify the skills needed,” she says.

Diagnose and strategize

With lifelong learning on the agenda for most employees and organizations, it’s also important to focus on so-called softer skills like resilience, agility and adaptability, warns professor Shrier.

written by the Catalyst Editorial Board

with contribution from:

David Shrier

Professor of Practice, AI & Innovation, Imperial College Business

Erica Titchener

Global Head of Technology & Analytics Advisory, AMS

Claudia Nuttgens

Global Head of Assessment Advisory, AMS

By 2024, a quarter of the USA’s workforce will be aged 55 or over, with a third of those older than 65, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

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Early careers – vital for business success

Contributors:

Kirsten Barnes

CEO, Bright Network

Susan Major

Global Managing Director, Early Careers and Campus, AMS

By 2024, a quarter of the USA’s workforce will be aged 55 or over, with a third of those older than 65, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

At the other end of the age spectrum will be Gen Z (those born between 1997-2012), who are expected to make up 27% of our workforce by 2025. With 3% of baby boomers taking retirement during the pandemic, early careers talent is vital to organizations looking to fill existing skills gaps and create a resilient, future proof workforce. But what does the next generation of employees want from work and how do we attract them?

“There has been a strong trend towards investing in early careers programs, with a massive focus on equality, diversity and inclusion in the past few years,” says Susan Major, Global Managing Director for Early Careers and Campus at AMS.
“Organizations have had to pledge to do even more in terms of diversity targets – and they have seen early careers as a way to do that,” adds Major.

In the US, this has meant a move away from recruiting at targeted schools and universities towards skills and potential. According to NACE (National Association of Colleges and Employers) statistics, employers who screen for GPA (Grade Point Average) have dropped from 73% in 2018-19 to 37% in 2022-23. This move away from screening for grades and academic achievement to potential and skills development brings more diverse candidates into an organization’s talent pool – as well as reflecting a wider trend towards skills-based hiring.

However, Major cautions that it’s one thing to attract diverse talent, but another to retain and develop them.

“Moving away from GPA means that organizations are pulling in more diverse candidates, but are they set up to support these candidates when they arrive? Almost every survey I look at tells me that young people don’t feel ready for the world of work and that is even worse for those from diverse backgrounds,” says Major.

Having a post-offer communication strategy can help limit reneges, while dedicated coaching and mentoring schemes can help new recruits settle in and allow them to optimize their potential.

What Gen Z wants

While hiring may have eased off after the frenzy of the post-pandemic years, the jobs market remains a candidate-driven one. In the US, there are 1.6 job openings for every unemployed worker, according to government statistics. Attracting early careers talent can be just as challenging.

Kirsten Barnes is CEO at the UK based digital platform Bright Network. Its annual What do Graduates Want? report surveys 14,000 students about their future job prospects and how employers can best engage with them, with the latest edition finding that 84% of students believe that the cost of living crisis will impact their career prospects. Job security, salary and development opportunities are key.

“Graduates understand that they are new to the world of work and are looking for employers to upskill them. They want to see what training, development and support is available to them,” says Barnes.

This provides an opportunity for employers to engage with early careers talent. Networking is a particular skill that young people want to develop, so employers should be creating – and shouting about – opportunities for young people to meet with them in person. Other priority areas for development include commercial awareness, coding and expectations in a professional environment, according to Bright Network’s survey.

“Corporate social responsibility, from sustainability to equality, diversity and inclusion, are important elements when students and graduates are researching employers. They want to see what work is being done in this area, but it’s important to be authentic. It’s OK to be on a journey to be more diverse and graduate talent would rather hear and understand this than be met with misrepresentative claims,” she adds.

Re-engaging to avoid reneging

A by product of Gen Z’s desire for better job security and better salaries is a marked increase in the number of those reneging on offers.

“Candidates seem much more willing to hold multiple offers and not feel bad about reneging,” says Major.
“During the pandemic, everything became virtual. While some of the techniques we use to attract talent has gone back to in-person, a lot of organizations have kept assessment virtual rather than asking people to make travel arrangements. From a diversity point of view this should allow more people to apply, but some of the dialogue we’re having suggests people aren’t as engaged as the process is remote,” she adds.

Barnes agrees that employers need to do more to keep candidates engaged between offering a role and starting a job.

“Our members shared that if they held competing job offers, factors such as the length of commute, salary and flexible working conditions would help drive their decision. 40% of those surveyed are significantly concerned about the uncertain economic environment having an impact on their job prospects, so salary and job security are key. In addition, clearly communicated, strong L&D offerings for once they have joined will also reduce the likelihood of reneging,” says Barnes.

Building loyalty through effective recruitment marketing can reduce the risk of reneges. This could be as obvious as providing a positive application experience and giving those with an offer access to groups where they can communicate. However, it could also be about face-to-face interactions where you give back to the student community, such as insight days or meeting students on campus. It could even involve helping new recruits with finding accommodation or introducing them to your benefits providers.

Whatever engagement strategy an organization chooses to use, the tension between what Gen Z wants from the new world of work and how best to provide them with workplace skills remains.

“There is an interesting trend emerging with candidates wanting to work flexibly post-pandemic. Young talent wants work/life balance and flexibility, but they also say they feel isolated and stressed, with many preferring face-to-face training. How organizations deal with that in their development programs will be important going forward,” says Major.

written by the Catalyst Editorial Board

with contribution from:

Kirsten Barnes

CEO, Bright Network

Susan Major

Global Managing Director, Early Careers and Campus, AMS

In challenging times, a strong employer brand can unlock commercial success by attracting and retaining top talent, enhancing engagement, and driving long-term growth.

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Challenging times?
Employer brand is the hidden secret to commercial success

Contributors:

Vangie Sison
Head of Employer Brand Advisory Americas, AMS

The coming months are likely to be challenging for all businesses. A global economic slowdown has seen job cuts and hiring pauses forecast – perhaps as a correction to post-pandemic hiring spikes.

At the same time, changing workforce demographics has seen some portions of the talent market drop away. In fact, the percentage of people retiring younger than 65 has grown from 44.5% to 46.7% between 2020-21. Globally, women lost 64 million jobs in 2020, according to the International Labor Organization; more than 7.2 million men of prime working age (25-54) are not in work or even looking for work and women’s labor force participation in the US sits at just 58.1% compared with 70.4% for men.

The Great Resignation, the talent crunch, the ever-widening skills gap – whatever you call it, it’s increasingly difficult for organizations to fill roles and build skills, particularly in heavy growth areas like digital and technology.

Add in the impact of ‘COVID clarity’, where employees are reevaluating the role work plays in their lives, what level of remote or hybrid working is acceptable to them and the desire for more purposeful work, and the relationship between employer and employee is becoming more complex.

As businesses look to navigate economic slowdowns and talent shortages, it can be easy for organizations to turn to layoffs and reduced investment in internal and external employer branding to save money. But are these truly the right tactics to leave their businesses well placed for future success?

Evidence suggests not and according to Harvard Business School professor Sandra J Sucher and research associate Marilyn Morgan Westner short-term savings can have a long-term negative effect.

“Companies continue to cling to the idea that reducing staff will provide the best, fastest, or easiest solution to financial problems,” they write in this Harvard Business Review article.

“I’ve studied layoffs since 2009… the short-term cost savings provided by a layoff are overshadowed by bad publicity, loss of knowledge, weakened engagement, higher voluntary turnover and lower innovation – all of which hurt profits in the long run,” they continue.

What we’re seeing is potential candidates and existing employees evaluating organizations not just as companies they work for, but more holistically as brands that they might buy from or interact with. Consequently, it has become more important than ever that these organizations communicate effectively with their target audiences across different platforms and mediums. And that means thinking about your employer brand.

Segment your branding

Research shows that three quarters of candidates will research a company’s reputation before applying for a job, with half refusing to work for a company with a bad reputation, regardless of salary increases. Conversely, 87% of candidates will join an organization purely on culture fit.

“The one thing we’ve consistently heard from clients over the past few years is that there has been a significant shift in how candidates think about where work fits into their lives,” says Vangie Sison, head of employer brand advisory Americas at AMS.

“Do I need to go into an office? Should I look for something that puts more importance on family than work itself? I think it’s just the jarring conclusion of the pandemic. But employers need to think about how to best present their brand story to candidates in this new reality. These are very important topics for the value employers provide to candidates and employees, but it’s not resonating with them,” she adds.

Sison says AMS is seeing lots of organizations refreshing their brand stories and thinking about the value propositions they offer to employees. While the external economic environment may be challenging, there is a huge opportunity for employers to focus on development opportunities in the near future. Part of this is creating an authentic and inclusive culture which creates growth opportunities for all talent.

Achieving this requires businesses to personalize development, reward and growth opportunities to different talent populations.

“One thing that has come out of recent years is the importance of a talent segment proposition. For example, take a pharmaceutical company that wants to hire 100 data scientists. That company might not be a brand technology candidates think of at first. But, by tailoring their value proposition to that talent segment, that pharmaceutical company can show future data scientists that there is a place for them in their company, ultimately making them more competitive in the market,” says Sison.

Secondly, companies need to think about where best to tell these stories. What are the channels your candidates use to consume media and interact with each other?

“Everybody’s media consumption has changed. We’re seeing more people using streaming channels and on-demand media. You need to be aware of where your talent segment is interacting and how you can reach them,” says Sison.

Growth of branding

The term employer brand was first defined by management consultant Simon Barrow in a 1996 paper in the Journal of Brand Management. In this podcast with Link Humans, he explains how the term has changed over the years.

“In 1985, tangible assets like plant, machinery, buildings and cash formed 56% of corporate assets. Today, that is just 20% of value. So 80% of value is in intangibles, what used to be called ‘good will’. It’s your ability to attract, engage, retain and motivate great people. That’s critical, and it’s what is driving the importance of employer brand thinking,” says Barrow.

He argues that there are three key components of effective employer brand management. First, is to focus on the employment experience itself. How do you rate each touchpoint employees have with your organization? What can be improved?

Second, is to have a board-level sponsor, so that senior management are bought into – and lead on – employer branding strategy.

Employer brand is not brand management

Thirdly, Barrow argues that a distinction needs to be made between employer branding and brand management. Employer branding fails if the reality of the experience doesn’t match the promise. As Barrow says, “you can’t spin your way to an employer brand”.

Sison agrees that authenticity is the key to an effective employer brand.

“As marketers, we can tell a good story. We can sell it. But, if you don’t deliver from an experience perspective, it’s not credible,” she says.

For Sison, the experience a candidate has with a company starts before they even apply for a job. Precise targeting means you’ll already be offering potential hires the right information in the right channels before they see a job advertisement.

From there, it’s about a consistent experience. If the job application page doesn’t provide the experience they want, they won’t finish the application. If their interview with a hiring manager isn’t consistent with the application, they might not take the job. And if their onboarding experience and subsequent job role doesn’t live up to what was promised, they won’t become brand ambassadors – or they might even leave the job.

“The same messaging needs to continue throughout the candidate and employee journey. We can make a brand as sexy as possible, but if the candidate has a bad experience, they will leave,” warns Sison.

Rebuilding and transforming employer brand at LHC Group.

Positive impact included:

New career website
Employer brand and recruiter toolkit
Brand lift

To find out more, read our LHC success story

Read case study

Healthcare is the largest industry in the US, with almost 14% of the workforce serving this industry. Registered nurses are among the most sought-after talent in the US, and as a result the industry has become creative at finding ways to recruit and train nurses.

Leading healthcare services company LHC Group wanted to redefine itself as the ‘destination of choice’ for healthcare workers, attracting talent who would stay for the long term. It worked with AMS to craft a specialized narrative that spoke directly to the talent they sought in an authentic, relevant way.

AMS helped to hone LHC Group’s brand story by identifying core pillars that supported a new EVP story, alongside a new career website, branding and recruitment toolkit and content marketing strategy. Crucially, AMS helped LHC Group identify the top seven personas of their priority hires, allowing them to target these different segments in personalized ways.

The results include:

a 7% increase in social metrics like engagement rates and impressions
a 67% increase in Google Ad clicks
and lowering cost-per application by 33%

‘‘Thanks to our collaboration with AMS, we have developed a robust EVP strategy that has helped us establish LHC Group as the employer of choice in the healthcare industry,”

Tina Slattery, VP of Talent Acquisition at LHC Group.

written by the Catalyst Editorial Board

with contribution from:

Vangie Sison

Head of Employer Brand Advisory Americas, AMS

The era of fixed job roles, linear promotions and rigid functions is over. Modern workplaces are agile, flexible and able to pivot to new strategies, ideas and challenges to deal with a volatile, changeable environment.

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The rise of
skills-based hiring

Contributors

Jo-Ann Feely
Global Managing Director, Innovation, AMS

Driven by this new reality – and accelerated by the impact of the pandemic – many organizations are moving away from recruiting on experience and qualification to skills-based hiring for potential and flexibility.

Of course, talent shortages and technological needs are affecting this move too. According to Dell Technologies, more than 85% of jobs that will exist in the next decade haven’t even been invented yet. In the face of such uncertainty, an individual’s past experience is less relevant than the skills they hold and can acquire in the future.

Skills as the new currency

One advocate of the move towards skills-based hiring is LinkedIn CEO Ryan Roslansky.

“Our data shows that roles are being created and displaced at a truly record pace right now. Whatever your role, whatever your company, whatever your industry, you need to keep up with these really quick and big changes that are going on right now,” argued Roslansky in a podcast with Harvard Business Review.

Traditionally, business leaders and hiring managers have focused on past experience, qualifications, universities or personal networks as a way of assessing talent. Not only does this narrow talent pools and lessen diversity, but it also no longer makes sense when the pace of change is so rapid, says Roslanksy.

“If you take the same job role from 2015 to 2022 that existed in the world, roughly 25% of the skills needed for that job will have changed. When the labor market is moving much quicker, we really need something to focus on. I think that alternative, flexible, accessible path is really going to be based on skills,” he adds.

Take a systemic approach

Jo-Ann Feely is global managing director, innovation at AMS. She agrees with Roslansky that organizations are under pressure to find more sustainable ways to deal with talent scarcity.

“I think organizations are being forced to look inwards because they’ve really struggled to fill vacancies in the external market. The speed to digitization, especially post-pandemic, has put a lot of pressure on the skills needed to do roles as almost all organizations became digital ones,” she says.

In order for businesses to move towards skills-based hiring, they need to better understand the skills their current workforce have, alongside the different skills each job role requires.

“There needs to be a systemic approach to understanding skills. To make career mobility effective and skills-based hiring work, you need to understand the primary and secondary skills needed to do each job,” says Feely.

The challenge for business is two-fold. Firstly, they need to have some way of categorizing the skills they require – such as skills taxonomy – which takes time and effort to build and update. Secondly, there needs to be a culture shift in hiring away from instant gratification (i.e. poaching a job-ready employee from a competitor) towards looking to new hires or existing employees with skills adjacent abilities that can be developed through training.

“Skills-based hiring isn’t going to be an organizational, wholesale change. It’s going to take pilots within certain functions or departments, as it’s not an easy thing to effect,” says Feely.

“If you want to identify adjacent skills, you need to understand and map out the skills required for the roles you need. Doing this exercise is time-consuming, but on the positive side it not only increases career mobility, but it also allows for a broader talent pool externally,” she adds.

More inclusive workforces

Increasingly, hiring managers and talent professionals are starting to agree. In the US, major employers like Walmart, Boeing and IBM have signed up to skills-based hiring projects through partnerships with social mobility champions like Rework America Alliance. In Maryland, the local government announced in 2022 that it would no longer require college degrees for 50% of its state jobs.

However, the pace of change is slow. In the previously discussed Harvard Business School podcast, Roslansky described how LinkedIn data saw the potential for food service employees to be retrained as digital customer service workers during the pandemic. According to the data, there is a 70% match between the skills of the two roles. Yet many roles went unfilled and people lost jobs because organizations focused on past experience rather than skills.

“If we had just taken a view on what skills are necessary, who had those skills, how can we help them acquire some skills to become employed, we would’ve found ourselves in a much more efficient labor market. We would have been much more productive,” he said.

When it comes to talent attraction, skills-based hiring is also a better indicator of future success. Studies show that skills-based hiring is five times more predictive of future performance than hiring for education, and 2.5 times more predictive than past work experience.

The rise of skills-based hiring means organizations can better prepare for future challenges, develop internal career mobility and build their employee skill base. It can also lead to a more inclusive, equitable work environment.

“If you take a skills-based approach, you can open a broader talent pool both internally and externally. You can also identify under-represented talent that hasn’t come to the surface before because you’ve always hired a certain profile of person from a certain background or education,” says Feely.

“This approach to hiring broadens the talent pool and makes an organization more inclusive with a more equal playing field. Skills are the new currency. We just need to see organizations embrace it faster,” she adds.

written by the Catalyst Editorial Board

with contribution from:

Jo-Ann Feely
Global Managing Director, Innovation, AMS

An uncertain economic outlook coupled with talent shortages and a demand for rapid growth means talent acquisition teams are under huge pressure.

View the story

The rise of data driven approach to talent

Contributors

Mike Brown
Managing Director, Digital, Tech & Transformation

Risk and return in a data-driven approach to talent

An uncertain economic outlook coupled with talent shortages and a demand for rapid growth means talent acquisition teams are under huge pressure.

At the same time, organizations are increasingly moving towards skills-based hiring and talent management. These twin factors mean businesses are laser-focused on how they can improve their talent acquisition and retention processes – and unlocking organizational data, managing its usage and building insights is key to this.

To combat this, AMS is launching AMS One, a proprietary RPO operating system that enables better, faster and fairer talent acquisition for AMS’s clients.

Data hierarchies

“There are a series of different points in the recruitment process where information about candidates and jobs needs to be acted upon by sourcers, recruiters and administrators,” says Mike Brown, managing director digital, tech and transformation at AMS.

Brown suggests that these points are linked together in a hierarchy, driven by the potential to create value in the recruitment process and the risk associated with what organizations choose to do with data and technology.

The first step is about replacing manual parts in the recruitment process and reducing administration by using data and technology effectively. Artificial intelligence can automate some administrative tasks like form filling, conversation transcriptions and interview booking, but it is the use of data that can truly drive smart hiring.

“At the moment, there are a lot of manual steps in handling recruitment data. This means that candidates don’t all get treated in the same way, that there is an awful lot of administration and less focus on conversations that really drive whether or not people are interested in taking a role,” adds Brown.

The next steps are about using data to gain information and intelligence on candidates during the recruitment process.

“There are two major ways you can use data,” says Brown. “One is as a feedback loop. You have a bunch of screening conversations – what can you learn from them that you can apply at the beginning of the recruitment process? For example, I’ve screened a lot of candidates for data scientist roles, now I have another data scientist role. What have I learned?

“Second is market analysis technology. Our talent strategy tool takes very large data sets and tells you how difficult it will be to hire a person in a particular location or salary bracket. It gives you an idea from the outset of what is possible and whether you’re pricing the role appropriately,” he says.

Such tools can also help you to compare the relative cost of external hiring versus internal mobility, or contingent workforce with in-house recruits.

The final part of Brown’s hierarchy is generative AI, which has been in the headlines recently, mainly through the rise of ChatGPT. The worldwide narrative on this relatively new transformative technology has been confused. Hailed both as the panacea of productivity while simultaneously having the power to bring down western democracy as we know it, Brown has a far more measured view. He suggests that there are applications for the hiring process, in the main as an aid to human-based decision making. Generative AI can also help with content creation around role descriptions and adverts.

The global talent management software market is a rapidly growing one. Currently worth $9.05bn, it is projected to grow to more than $20bn by 2030. For HR and talent acquisition professionals, technology allows them to become more accountable for their interventions at a time when driving efficiency and business growth is top of the agenda.

According to a Gartner survey of HR leaders, 44% of HR leaders report driving better business outcomes as their number one strategic priority for HR technology transformation over the next three years. Growth in headcount and skills was second (26%) and cost optimization third (17%).

The impact of such technology could be revolutionary. HR thought leader Josh Bersin says “it has the potential to totally reinvent how much of HR works”, with new platforms, vendors and ways of running companies.

In a recent post, he describes several ways generative AI and data-driven insights have the potential to change talent management, ranging from creating content for job descriptions and candidate profiles through to performance management and leadership development.

“Despite the fears and inflammatory headlines, I want you to remember that this technology will be a massive step forward in business. But I would remind you to consider that [technology] is a tool, not a living person. Just a Microsoft Excel was groundbreaking in the early 80s – and there were fears it would put accountants out of business – so this system will become an essential business tool as well. We all have to learn how to use it,” says Bersin.

Brown agrees that talent technology is something to support human decisions, rather than replace them.

“One thing we have chosen to do with AMS One is to not recommend candidate shortlists based on the technology. We use a simpler approach to filter based on skills. We filter CVs, applications and jobs looking to match skills, but human decisions influence the order in which candidates are ranked,” he says.

Doing so allows organizations to ensure data interventions are ethical and help to drive better diversity in recruitment. For example, recruiters can include DEI measures when filtering through candidates. However, the final decision on who makes a shortlist rests with a human.

Measuring effectiveness

Measuring the effectiveness of a data-driven approach to talent depends on your individual requirements. Brown suggests four key areas where this type of technology can deliver value.

First is access to a broader pool of candidates. Historically, employers would have posted job adverts to individual boards online and waited for people to send in their CV or application. New technology allows talent professionals to search multiple job boards at a time and narrow down that search to identify specific skills. This greatly increases the quality of candidates organizations have to choose from.

Secondly, technology can improve time to hire. By removing inefficiencies and administrative steps in the recruitment process, talent professionals can spend more time on people decisions and less on admin. A good measurement might be seeing an increase in time spent in screening conversations as a percentage of the overall process, says Brown.

Thirdly, mapping similar systems across an organization improves scaling. By having everyone on the same system, organizations can respond to rapid hiring needs in particular areas.

Finally, a data-driven approach to talent can improve information security. Audit logs can show who has accessed what information and when, while records can be deleted in accordance with GDPR requirements.

“I think technology in talent acquisition is generating value in many different ways. The emphasis you place on effectiveness is a personal preference,” says Brown.

AMS One

AMS One is the RPO operating system enabling better, faster, fairer hiring for AMS clients.

The platform improves the end-to-end recruitment process with an emphasis on candidate discovery, screening, and shortlist generation using the latest technologies and industry best practices.

AMS One is connected to a client’s entire talent ecosystem, integrating seamlessly with their existing tech stacks to provide a more flexible path in the adoption of new technologies and solutions, transforming their digital and technology operations. To find out more, or request a demo please contact AMS.

written by the Catalyst Editorial Board

with contribution from:

Mike Brown
Managing Director, Digital, Tech & Transformation

View the story

Why career mobility will solve talent shortages

Contributors

Matt Poole
Global Head of Service Evolution, AMS

The talent shortages businesses are experiencing are not going away. Not only are we failing to fill the shortfall of talent in key areas like tech – the global shortage of software developers is expected to increase from 1.4 million in 2021 to 4 million by 2025 – but demographic changes are having an equal impact on talent availability.

Despite overall population and labor force growth, the labor force available to US employees has actually shrunk in key recruitment areas. According to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, labor force participation in the 16-24 age group (traditional entry level age) and 45-54 age group (traditional leadership group shrank between 2010-19).

At the same time, the highest growth in labor participation was among older employers, with a 58% increase in labor market participation by those aged 65 or older and a 17.2% increase in those aged 55-64. How we work – and how long we work – is affecting the way employers fulfill roles within their organization.

Linear careers or agile mobility?

One impact of this is an increased focus on career mobility, as businesses become more proactive about how they deploy existing talent in new areas. However, this is an area businesses have traditionally been less successful at. A 2019 study by Deloitte found that just 6% of companies felt they were proficient at internal talent mobility, while more than half of employees thought it was easier to find a job outside their existing organization than inside.

Clearly things need to change. But how?

“With demand outstripping supply for talent, organizations are having to think differently about how they tackle talent shortages,” says Matt Poole, global head of service evolution at AMS.

Previously, we would have solved this issue by better recruiting, new channels to market and bringing in different recruitment vendors. What everybody has seen post-pandemic is that this is nowhere near as effective as it used to be,” he adds.

Career mobility programs are becoming more about building new skills in your talent base and deploying them in new areas or projects. As Josh Bersin argues, organizations are moving away from rigid career ladders to agile development.

“A few years ago, few were talking about talent mobility. Many organizations were building complicated career paths and competency frameworks, using heavy-handed succession management processes with months-long, paper-rich talent reviews,” writes Bersin.

“Today, roles are shifting quickly, skills become obsolete faster than ever and organizations need to find people for new roles or projects rapidly. At the same time, employees expect to try new work, learn adjacent skills, work with new managers and teams and take international assignments. The old model of planning career moves out doesn’t work anymore,” adds Bersin.

Creating an agile mobility program is about allowing people to work on various teams and projects. It’s about acknowledging the skills and competencies they have and how they can be applied to different projects, rather than strict job roles.

And while agile mobility can be common within a function – say an IT employee moving around different projects – it is much harder to facilitate across an organization. That same IT employee might have excellent data analysis skills that could be applied to a marketing position, but such cross-functional moves are uncommon. Agile mobility makes this sort of move more likely.

Start with one function

Creating this sort of talent mobility is attractive to businesses. It allows for a more dynamic talent function, it improves employee engagement and retention, it reduces hiring costs and can even improve diversity and equality initiatives by encouraging people to move into roles they might not have previously considered.

As Poole says: “There should be a series of journeys through an organization that allows you to come in at an entry level and still have a route to the top. That route might not be a traditional upward one, but there should still be junctures where as upward movement becomes restricted, parallel opportunities open up allowing people to step out of career paths into adjacent ones.”

However, from an organizational process and structure perspective, agile talent mobility is challenging. How do you understand the skills your people already have? How do you understand the skills and capabilities you need for the future? How do you build these skills into your learning and development programs?

For Poole, the answers will depend on your individual organizational circumstances.

“Lots of people ask us what the right mobility model is, and the answer is there isn’t one. Every organization has a different objective for the mobility process, so you need to calibrate your career mobility program with the goals of your organization. The question is what are you trying to achieve with your talent and how can mobility help,” he says.

It also helps to focus agile mobility programs in an initial pilot function, rather than trying to implement them across the business from the beginning. Focusing mobility on a pressing strategic objective and figuring out how to implement agile models into a segment of your workforce is a good starting point for wider cultural change, argues Poole.

“We’ve seen agile mobility conversations gain traction with clients when talking about digital hiring, as it’s the nearest problem for them right now. We’re saying identify the skills digital hires might need and identify the existing population that might have those skills. Who are those people who could come in and learn programming skills?

“What we’re not saying is implement the skills marketplace for all 25,000 employees and throw your current mobility program in the bin. Identify the roles potential programmers are in and build a pilot scheme around that,” says Poole.

Modern day recruiting and talent management is changing. Skills gaps and talent shortages are here to stay, so it’s imperative that we find new ways of developing, retaining and engaging talent. The future is about the depth of your organization potential, not your talent pool.

written by the Catalyst Editorial Board

with contribution from:

Matt Poole
Global Head of Service Evolution, AMS

2023 is set to be the year of the ‘job full recession’ – an economic slowdown where we see declining GDP but little to no growth in unemployment.

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Strategic influencers: Talent acquisition’s time to lead on addressing global skills gaps

Contributors

Nicola Hancock
Regional Managing Director, Americas & Investment Banking, AMS
Jim Sykes
Global Managing Director, Operations, AMS

2023 is set to be the year of the ‘job full recession’ – an economic slowdown where we see declining GDP but little to no growth in unemployment.

In fact, the latest release from the Bureau of Labor Statistics shows that the US economy added more than 500,000 jobs in January (nearly triple the predicted forecast of 185,000), with unemployment at a historic low of 3.4%. This comes off the back of Labor Department numbers showing 10.46 million job vacancies in November 2022, with 1.8 jobs available for every unemployed person in the US.

Commenting on the report, Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell suggested the US was now moving “beyond” maximum employment, with unemployment rates needing to rise for inflation to return to the Federal Reserve’s 2% target.

So how can we have an economic slowdown when jobs growth remains so robust?

“Things are complex. While the overall economy is a concern and there is a lot of talk about inflation, if you look at it from a pure jobs and talent perspective, things remain very competitive,” says Nicky Hancock, President and Regional Managing Director, Americas and Investment Banking, AMS.

“At the end of last year, there was a slowdown in certain industries, with significant layoffs in tech companies and the banking and finance sector. The context is that slowdowns are normal in quarter four, but we haven’t seen that recently due to the impact of the pandemic.
“Secondly, some sectors like technology have seen exceptionally high recruitment over the past few years to backfill attrition and deal with growth. It’s likely that we’re seeing some normalization of hiring as organizations look at headcount,” adds Hancock.

An opportunity to recruit hidden talent

This ‘normalization’ provides an opportunity to businesses outside the tech sector, who are desperately seeking talent with technology and digital skills. The growing technology skills gaps means millions of jobs in America are projected to go unfilled by 2030 – and businesses are competing hard for people who do have those skills.

However, the scramble for talent is so fierce that many organizations are significantly hiking salaries for new hires. A typical job switcher saw their earnings jump 9.7% year-on-year, compared with a 1.7% salary decrease in real terms for those that stayed in roles, according to a report by Pew Research Center. This presents a ‘ticking time bomb’ for organizations, says Jim Sykes, Global Managing Director, Operations and Sourcing, AMS.

“Companies have been hiring massively post-COVID, bringing on talent at a premium. The disparity in pay between tenured employees and new ones is a risk to organizations, particularly when young people are far more likely to talk about pay and conditions than other generations. This could drive attrition as people forget loyalty and move for money during a cost-of-living crisis,” warns Sykes.

Talent acquisition as strategic influencers

Focusing on pay hikes and hiring from competitors is a short-term solution to a long-term issue, believes Sykes. Instead, organizations need to be making strategic changes to how they hire and retain talent.

This starts with talent acquisition professionals moving from being pure recruiters to strategic skills advisers. When a manager has a requirement for a role, talent acquisition shouldn’t simply look to fill the role – they should also consult, collaborate and influence the hiring manager on the requirements and skills needed for the position.

Doing so will allow companies to tap into skills-adjacent talent, broadening the scope and potential of new hires. A good example comes from a recent HBR podcast with LinkedIn CEO Ryan Roslansky. In it, he posits the need for companies to move away from qualifications and education when assessing talent, to skills and behaviors.

“For far too long we’ve used degrees, or previous companies or networks as we didn’t have anything better to assess talent. But with the labor market moving so quickly, we really need to figure out something to focus on. And I think that alternative, flexible, accessible path is really going to be based on skills,” said Roslansky.

Roslansky cites an example from the pandemic, where hospitality workers were laid off during lockdowns. At the same time, LinkedIn saw a huge rise in demand for digital customer service roles. When examining the skills needed for these roles, LinkedIn found that the average food service worker had 70% of the skills needed to be an entry level customer service agent.

However, rather than mapping the skills between the two groups and retraining people, most of the hospitality workers remained unemployed and many of the customer service roles went unfilled, as organizations focused on past experience instead of skills.

“Organizations need access to market insights to understand what skills are available in the marketplace. We need to understand that if we’re not looking for a like-for-like replacement, what are some of those hidden talents and markets we can map across?,” says Sykes.

However, market pressures brought about by the pandemic and an uncertain future means many businesses have simply reverted to type when it comes to hiring – ramping up recruitment, handing out high salaries and driving up attrition – rather than addressing strategic challenges.

“We haven’t changed the fact that demand for certain skills outstrips supply. What we’ve done is solve the problem by stealing talent from each other. But this won’t address the root problem – which is that our companies are growing faster than we can produce talent,” says Sykes.
“The only way to solve this is to break the cycle. Organizations need to look at talent strategically, invest in reskilling internal talent and hire from other fields based on skills and potential. Otherwise, you’ll soon run out of talent,” he adds.

Be fast to market – Talent is in high demand, so the speed at which you move is critical
Tap into hidden talent pools – Look for skills and abilities rather than past experience and profiles
Excellent candidate experience – The candidate is king. Engage, support and encourage candidates at all stages
Streamline processes – Technology needs to be aligned with and supportive of talent acquisition strategies. Too often, talent processes become complex over time and technology no longer fits its purpose. Strip this out and invest in new areas.
Be a strategic adviser – Talent acquisition professionals need to take on a more strategic advisory role to leaders. Understand the market, influence recruiters and shape strategy.

Tech skilling

With demand for tech talent far higher than supply, it’s no longer viable for organizations to simply continue buying in talent. Instead, forward thinking businesses are reevaluating how to upskill, reskill and train employees to meet the digital demands of a technology first future.

With 87% of executives saying they are experiencing skills gaps in their workforce and millions of jobs set to go unfilled by 2030 due to tech skill shortages, it is incumbent upon businesses to look at new strategies to develop the talent they’ll need for the future.

Our latest tech skilling digital whitepaper outlines new initiatives to plug future tech talent shortages. Download the paper here.

written by the Catalyst Editorial Board

with contribution from:

Nicola Hancock
Regional Managing Director, Americas & Investment Banking, AMS
Jim Sykes
Global Managing Director, Operations, AMS

Social mobility is very much on the agenda in the UK. The first round of the government’s Levelling Up funding saw £1.7bn distributed among 105 UK towns and cities, with further plans in place to invest regionally, in skills training and in some of the UK’s most deprived areas.

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The UK needs to talk about why social mobility and social value matter

Contributors

Matthew Rodger Chief Growth and Commercial Officer, AMS
Mel Barnett Managing Director, PSR, AMS
Anna Crowe Client Operations Director, AMS

It’s not before time. Research from the Institute of Fiscal Studies suggested that “on a wide variety of measures, regional disparities in the UK are greater than in most comparable countries.” At the same time, research from the Office for National Statistics shows that only London and Northern Ireland have seen economic growth since the start of the pandemic.

With social mobility levels in the UK languishing behind our neighbours, it’s obvious that businesses have a part to play in spreading opportunities more evenly across society – not just because it’s the right thing to do, but because it makes commercial sense.

But there is still a long way to go. Research by the Social Mobility Foundation found that working class professionals earn an average of £6,718 less than their middle class peers – a pay gap of 13%. This means underprivileged professionals essentially work 13% of the year for nothing – almost one day in every seven.

“This class pay gap is not just an indictment of professional employers. It is morally unjust and economically illiterate,” said Social Mobility Foundation chair Alan Milburn on the release of the research.

Britain’s professions are a cornerstone of the modern economy. In 2021, services industries contributed £1.7bn in gross value added to the economy, 80% of the total figure. Britain’s success in the global economy relies on the very best people, regardless of their background, being attracted, not deterred, from working in the professions,” he added.

In addition to factors relating directly to social mobility and inequality, the way in which businesses interact with the environment, and how their leaders communicate on issues is becoming ever-more important. It’s no surprise that ESG (environment, social and governance) and the need to focus on sustainability are top of mind for many c-suite leaders as we move into the post-pandemic era.

Take Larry Fink, CEO of asset management giant Blackrock, who used his annual letter to CEOs to discuss how “stakeholder capitalism is all about delivering long-term, durable returns for shareholders” and that “it is more important than ever that your company and its management be guided by its purpose”.

Or how about the media frenzy around Patagonia founder Yvon Chouinard’s decision to give away all future profits to combating climate change, proclaiming “as of now, earth is our only shareholder”?

However, it’s not only the private sector who are making an increased commitment to responsible business. Increasingly, public sector organisations are paving the way and selecting suppliers based on ethics, social responsibility and how much social value they provide to the wider community that they serve.

What is social value?

Put simply, social value refers to the meaningful impact an organisation has on society. When it comes to public sector procurement, it looks at how the partnership can have a positive and lasting effect on the social, economic and environmental wellbeing of a community.

The UK’s Social Value Act should be applauded for what it sets out to do. Pre-pandemic, the launch of the government’s Public Services (Social Value) Act 2012 encouraged public sector bodies to consider social value alongside cost and quality in any tender process. This was reinforced in 2018-19, with the introduction of the common values procurement framework, which recommends that social value should make up a minimum 10% weighting of any tender.

The pandemic and ongoing economic recovery has thrown social value into even sharper focus, with greater importance being placed on the impact organisations have on local communities and social responsibility.

“When it comes to social mobility and sustainability, if we can support our customers’ goals in these areas, it’s a win/win. In the public sector, social value is a crucial factor, so being able to demonstrate our work in this area is incredibly important and we have a real responsibility to do the right thing,” says Anna Crowe, client operations director at AMS and the company’s social value lead.

AMS’s public sector resourcing (PSR) service provides more than 19,000 skilled workers across the UK government at any one time, meeting contingent resourcing demands on large projects including Brexit and the pandemic. And while PSR has no commercial obligation to respond to the impact of social value, Crowe argues that doing so is the right thing to do.

To this end, PSR formed its own social value strategy to align with the challenges facing the public sector and began working collaboratively with its clients.

“The Social Value Model was built to address five key themes that include Equal Opportunity, Tackling Economic Inequality and Fighting Climate Change each with subsequent policy outcomes. On the PSR framework we have projects and programmes aligned to each of these areas to drive positive change, as well as repurposing initiatives already in place at AMS to make them applicable to our public sector customers,” says Crowe.

For example, Crowe’s team identified that they didn’t have detailed information around the DEI demographics of the contingent workforce they supplied through PSR. So, they created a pulse survey to capture that information and reported back to their customers, giving them full visibility over their entire workforce, not just permanent employees.

A future objective is to create technology that can provide ongoing reporting on a live basis, allowing customers to check the efficacy of targeted interventions on an individual basis, providing greater depth on DEI impact.

AMS has also introduced a new service line in PSR, called recruit, train, deploy. This will bring in trainees from under-represented or those from lower socio-economic backgrounds, upskill them and then place them in a client’s business, providing both commercial and social value. Partnerships with inclusive recruiters like Recruit for Spouses, Auticon and Bridge of Hope will help to provide opportunities to individuals who might not think public sector roles are for them.

“The commercial value comes from upskilling these people,” says Crowe. “Clients get individuals more cost effectively who can be trained into new roles. Given where the market is and the high day-rate of skilled workers, bringing these individuals in from different backgrounds, training them and putting them into the public sector is both cost-effective and has a significant impact on social mobility.”

Matthew Rodger, chief commercial officer and ExCo sponsor for social mobility advocacy at AMS, agrees: “Driving social mobility is central to AMS and something we openly focus on and actively celebrate. This year, for the first time, we entered the Social Mobility Employer Index, the leading authority on employer led social mobility and we are honoured to be a top 75 employer in the Index. It is also promising that 15% of all entrants were from the public sector which shows a clear commitment to social mobility. We still have so much more to do in this space and partnering with our public sector stakeholders allows us to further engage and amplify our efforts,” adds Rodger.

An important driver for social mobility is the ability to collect and analyse data on the socio-economic background of potential hires. AMS now collects data from all new hires on type of school attended, parental occupation and eligibility for free school meals.

Tech skilling

Another area which is top of mind for government and business leaders globally is the dearth of relevant skills, particularly in the tech and digital space. AMS, in partnership with its public sector stakeholders, will be hosting a roundtable specifically on tech skilling and social mobility which will address the myth that tech talent hiring is only possible through traditional routes to market.

“As the hiring demands for tech skills in the UK continues to rise, organisations are finding it challenging to access the talent they need to innovate and progress. The UK government recognises the importance of the tech sector and tech skills for improving the UK economy, but also acknowledges there is a significant shortage of available candidates in the market,” says Mel Barnett, managing director, PSR.

“It is no surprise we see digital skills alongside levelling up at the heart of the UK Digital Strategy launched earlier this year. With this market reality and with the government’s digital strategy clearly outlined, it is evident that traditional routes to talent are not going to deliver the candidates hiring managers need. As such, a fresh approach is needed by organisations hoping to build digital-ready workforces that can carry their businesses into the future and we hope roundtables like the one we will be holding in January will allow us to openly discuss what is urgently needed to help individuals and businesses to succeed,” she adds.

written by the Catalyst Editorial Board

with contributions from:

Matthew Rodger
Chief Growth and Commercial Officer, AMS
Mel Barnett
Managing Director, PSR, AMS
Anna Crowe
Client Operations Director, AMS

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