In our increasingly digital world, demands on technical skills have been high for some time. That demand has now reached crisis level. Our paper, Is the tech Skills Gap now a tech talent crisis? reports that job roles requiring systems design and related areas are expected to increase by 15% by 2031, so the problem is far from going away.
We typically see hiring managers put out requests for candidates that look specifically for key skills, experience and education that will meet all the needs of the job role. This is no longer a viable option, however, one of the solutions offered in our paper is to expand the ‘last mile’ of your talent pool.
So, what do we mean by the last mile when it comes to talent? Metaphorically speaking we are talking about employing a candidate, in many cases a graduate, who fulfils much of your requirements and has the energy and cognitive dexterity to excel in your role but perhaps lacks all of the specific skills that you need.
This might be a developer who hasn’t yet learnt a particular programming language or a marketer who knows the theory but lacks experience with a specific digital tool. In most cases this gap between their starting skills and full job competency can be bridged with a last-mile training programme; a 2–3-month digital training course or a one-year software apprenticeship, for example.
While on the surface it might look like it would take longer for that candidate to reach full competency, this strategy will have a positive impact on how quicky roles are filled and talent acquisition costs are lowered.
Engagement
In the world’s largest study in team performance and engagement, the Gallup report, Employee engagement and performance analysed data from more than 100,000 teams.
The report shows that engagement partly centres around the growth and development of the individual employee, who is keen to be known for what they’re good at. When studying the most successful organisations they report that where there is a culture of high employee development, it results in the most productive environment for the individual and the business. This aligns with their findings that the top reason given for a change in job, is ‘career growth’.
Taking ready-made candidates who fit perfectly into your role might be the utopia but there isn’t then room for that person to develop their skills. The last-mile training option puts personal development at the heart of your talent acquisition and these new employees are likely to become much more engaged which we know to have a knock-on effect on production. Chances are, there will be a lot less churn amongst this cohort too.
Have you also considered looking internally for these candidates?
By giving development opportunities to individuals who have been within your organisation and gained invaluable domain knowledge, can enable candidates to make the jump into roles in more niche areas. For example, do you have 1st/2nd line support workers looking for a foot into development, or network engineers keen to make the move into DevOps or cloud roles? Last-mile upskilling can be a perfect option.
DEI
Nurturing a talent pool that focusses on training candidates can allow you to expand your talent search to more diverse groups. This can increase economic mobility in under-utilised communities or drive more women into your technical roles, and your organisation will gain the benefits of having a more diverse workforce.
Without doubt, refocussing your energy from finding job-ready candidates to finding graduate or early-career individuals that are digitally savvy – that have enthusiasm and aptitude will create a flexible and engaged workforce. Opening up your talent pool to last milers will meet your immediate hiring needs while also drive long-term employee engagement and business objectives.
Why is everything seemingly about doing things quietly these days? We seem to have moved on in 2023 from “Quiet Quitting” to “Quiet Firing” and now to “Quiet Hiring”… The silence is deafening…..
But what’s the story about Quiet Hiring? Is it a good or bad thing? Is it a new thing, or just a trendy badge for something that’s always been there?
Quiet Hiring, for those unfamiliar, is the practice of assigning additional tasks and responsibilities to current employees, rather than hiring new staff. This approach has grown in popularity in recent times, particularly in 2023 with today’s economic uncertainties as businesses look for ways to optimise their workforce and minimise costs.
On one hand, Quiet Hiring can offer significant benefits for employers. By leveraging the existing workforce, companies can avoid the costs associated with recruiting, onboarding, and training new hires. It can help to create more agile and adaptable teams, as employees become familiar with a broader range of tasks and responsibilities.
Rebecca Knight, correspondent on all things HR and Talent said “Quiet Hiring can be an excellent way for companies to maximise the potential of their existing workforce. By doing so, they can unlock hidden talents within their team and foster a sense of ownership and commitment among employees.”
However, quiet hiring is not without its drawbacks. As employees take on additional tasks, there is a risk of skill gaps emerging within the organisation – because not every skill is easily developed. Companies may find that employees lack the necessary expertise or resources to perform their new responsibilities effectively, resulting in a decrease in overall productivity and efficiency.
Lou Adler emphasises the importance of addressing these skill gaps: “While quiet hiring can be a cost-effective solution, organisations must be careful not to stretch their employees too thin. Investing in training and development can help ensure that employees have the skills they need to succeed in their expanded roles.”
For employees, quiet hiring can provide opportunities for personal and professional growth. Taking on additional tasks allows employees to develop new skills, expand their knowledge, and gain a deeper understanding of the business. This can lead to increased engagement and a stronger sense of loyalty to the company. Easy access to developmental or career mobility opportunities is key here, as well as a culture that supports that more entrepreneurial approach to talent mobility.
On the other hand, quiet hiring can also be tough for employees if it’s not managed well or is implemented poorly. Additional workload and responsibilities can obviously lead to increased stress and burnout, affecting work-life balance and overall job satisfaction. This, in turn, can create low morale and a loss of trust in the company and its leaders. If people feel they are doing multiple jobs for no extra recognition or reward and can see that much needed heads aren’t being recruited, well forget “quiet quitting”, very vocal quitting might become the norm….
Matt Alder, host of the Recruitment Future podcast puts it this way: “Quiet hiring can lead to a decrease in employee morale and engagement. When organisations continually increase the workload without adjusting compensation or providing adequate support, employees may feel overworked and underappreciated.”
Quiet Hiring is definitely a double-edged sword. Organisations really do need to strike a balance between maximising the value of their existing workforce whilst ensuring employee well-being and engagement remain a priority. It’ll be interesting to see how this plays out over the course of this year and which organisations are able to find that balance.
For me, quiet hiring is not inherently good or bad. It is merely a tool, and like any tool, it can be used for better or worse. The key lies in understanding its strengths and weaknesses and utilising it responsibly to achieve desired results. Simply taking a “sink-or-swim” approach is clearly significantly more risky than understanding skills and skills adjacency and then having a framework to support employees in their stretch opportunities….
And is it a new trend? Obviously not. Any organisations looking to retain and develop their people, whilst complimenting overall capability by hiring great talent have been doing this for a long, long time. But will this approach get pushed too far in these uncertain times, will the needle move to too far to the right? Only time will tell, but then who really wants to live a quiet life…..?
In Myth 4 of the AMS Whitepaper “Exploding Digital Myths in Talent Acquisition”, AMS experts discuss the effect of digital transformation on the talent acquisition profession. The paper looks holistically at the fundamental shift that digital transformation has on the way we operate in our businesses as well as diving into the detail of how certain tech enhancements are supporting the various stages of our recruitment processes.
For example, the time saved by the automation of administrative recruitment tasks has allowed us to focus on more strategic, value added and human relationship building aspects of our jobs as well as providing a faster service which is so important in today’s competitive job market. Technology also helps us to engage our candidates and give them a slick experience that reflects well on the company brand. Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) are also evolving rapidly and are helping us push boundaries. However, I think it’s also important to recognise the limitations of tech and that compassion, trust, respect, honesty and empathy are key human elements to building relationships and so the recruitment of people will always rely on a human touch.
The paper also highlights that cultural adaptivity is essential within organisations, to be ready to innovate, experiment and successfully adopt all that is brought about by digital transformation and new tech solutions. The paper argues that technology is an enabler of talent acquisition and not a threat and ultimately it is our responsibility as humans to have the final say and set the parameters and direction to make sure the change is for the better.
On the Public Sector Resourcing (PSR) Framework, managed by AMS, we are wholeheartedly embracing digital transformation and innovative talent acquisition technologies as they are allowing our people to continuously focus on adding value at every step of our recruitment service. We are particularly proud of how our tech is helping us to provide reporting on DEI, reduce bias in screening, as well as helping us to make data led strategic decisions. We are also however, proud of and reliant on, our award winning, innovative, passionate, bold and authentic PSR team.
We hope you enjoy the read!
Technology is an enabler of talent acquisition and not a threat and ultimately it is our responsibility as humans to have the final say and set the parameters and direction to make sure the change is for the better.
The pandemic has seen employees across the world re-evaluating their personal and professional priorities. Today’s workforce is now far more determined to align their purpose and values with those of their working environment and organization. This shift in priority has renewed the role workplace culture has to play in improving teamwork, raising morale and enhancing talent retention.
Promoting a positive and engaging workplace culture isn’t just about installing the latest coffee machine. Skills retention for a modern workforce involves a network of inter-connecting benefits and career mapping initiatives, alongside an awareness that a diverse, equitable and inclusive workplace supports individuals to thrive and realise their ambitions.
Understanding where skills lie within an organization and aligning against future business goals means HR teams can give better career advice to talent; promoting internal pathways which not only enable business success but enable career success. Career mobility can be the difference between retaining and losing talent and with that loss often goes the positive culture organization’s have invested so heavily in. Technology increasingly has a role to play in this area, supporting teams to easily and accurately identify and align adjacent skills, helping to broaden talent pools far more quickly than more conventional approaches.
Going hand in hand with this critically important skills mapping is the requirement to understand the needs of the talent you have and the talent you are trying to attract. Flexibility is increasingly valued in today’s workforce, delivered either through remote or hybrid working practises and with it comes a new challenge to organizations to think deeply about how they convey culture and employer brand initiatives to that remote population.
These are not necessarily easy initiatives to get right but organization’s who focus on building an authentic workplace culture will reap the rewards in an increasingly competitive talent climate.
For this article I wanted to share some fascinating new data on the importance of Boomerang hires, employees that have left an organization for an alternative employer but subsequently been hired back. According to the article (linked below to Harvard Business Review), 20% of workers who quit their job during the pandemic have since returned to their old employer and 28% of all new external hires are boomerangs who had previously resigned within the preceding 36 months. I imagine all of you reading this article will be as stunned as I am by those statistics. I should point out that this is not a small study, the research was provided by Visier through an analysis of 3m employee records across 120 enterprise organizations over a period of 4 years.
This is a topic that resonates with me as I too am a Boomerang employee. After 5 years with AMS, back in 2009, I decided to leave the company to try something completely different. Having spent the whole of my career up to that point working within Talent Acquisition, I accepted an offer to lead the operations of an online marketing company. I lasted 16 months before I was back in AMS and back in Talent Acquisition. I’ve now been back in AMS for 13 years but that doesn’t stop me from being referred to still as a Boomerang employee! I didn’t leave AMS with any sense of frustration or disillusionment, purely a sense that if I didn’t try to do a role outside of TA at that point in my career I may never do so. And why did I return? The allure of a role outside TA was short-lived, I didn’t particularly enjoy the work, I didn’t feel the passion that I feel for TA and I missed my previous colleagues and the culture at AMS.
According to the article in HBR my experience was almost entirely in line with industry norms. The majority of Boomerangs return within 13 months and more than 75% have returned by month 16. I must confess that I don’t remember the extent to which my pay increased at the point of return but it wouldn’t have been anywhere near the staggering 25% achieved by the average of Boomerangs. Yes, you did read that correctly.
So what do these surprising statistics mean for those of us in Talent Acquisition?
Boomerangs are obviously a far greater proportion of our hires than many of us expected. As such, with adequate focus, they have the potential to be an even greater source of future talent. If 25% of our external hires come from previous employees, with a little strategy and focus, we could make that proportion even greater still. The research shows us clearly that it is around the 12 month mark post departure that leavers may be tempted to return. As such we should create strategies that consider the following:
How do we best track departing employees and ensure we can engage again in the future? Can we capture departing employees in a CRM system or create alumni groups via tools such as LinkedIn?
To what extent can we capture data (skills, prior experience, aspirations, reasons for leaving) that will allow us to match departing employees against future requirements?
How do we create a level of ongoing engagement with departing employees? Is it possible to send regular company updates, can we invite alumni to exclusive online or in person events?
Given that it’s the 12 month point at which we should be engaging, how do we prompt recruiters or sourcers to proactively reach out? Is it worth the investment in a dedicated alumni sourcing team to focus exclusively on this community?
Whilst there are clear opportunities for those in Talent Acquisition, what are the broader lessons for those of us with a more holistic interest in talent? As the article points out, whilst a company may gain considerable value in rehiring previous employees, they are as likely to lose a similar proportion of new hires as those hires return to other previous employers. The lesson here must be that we all need to do a much better job of retaining new talent. That means ensuring that the dream we sell when hiring new talent is matched by the reality of employment. Our onboarding needs to be supportive and seamless. We need interventions (such as employee surveys) to identify employees approaching 12 months that may be unhappy or disengaged. And we need to support our managers to be better equipped to identify and support dissatisfied employees.
If 28% of our new external hires are returning on 25% more pay than they had previously earned whilst employed with us, we need to consider new approaches to annual compensation reviews. As I shared in a recent article, typical workers who change jobs will achieve a 9.7% increase in wages v’s a 1.7% fall for those who stay. Given cost of living challenges, it’s hardly surprising workers are considering a change when faced with such increased earning potential. And if employees can leave for a year and return on 25% more pay, they may see the risk of leaving for an alternative employer to be a small risk worth taking.
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Say au revoir, but not goodbye, to exiting employees.
Last week, in celebration of International Women’s Day, it pleased me to see social media taken over with posts, images and positive movement in celebration of women. The theme this year centred around #EmbraceEquity and while I can see huge advancements over the last decade I know we still have a long way to go.
Alongside messages of support and awareness on social media, I came across a lot of news items surrounding the challenges that women still experience in the workforce. The following most stood out to me:
Men and women have different perspectives as to whether the workplace is inclusive (with 2022 Diversity & Inclusion in the Workplace Report finding that 88% of male employees state their workplace is inclusive over 75% female).
Discriminatory behaviour at work still takes place (the same report as in my first point found 1 in 5 women have experienced this).
Women have genuine fear of losing their jobs if they did say something (according to Young Women’s Trust survey finding 25% of 18- to 30-year-olds felt this way).
Women do not get promoted at the same rate as men (McKinsey’s most recent research found that for every 100 men who are promoted from entry level to manager, only 87 women are promoted).
I believe it’s important to celebrate the wins and advancement, but equally don’t want this to take away from the situations where work still needs to be done. We need to continue to call out inequity and keep conversations going, beyond International Women’s Day. We need to create safe spaces where people can be brave and boldly honest about real experiences and blockers. And this is why I believe workplace culture is one of many key elements of delivering equity. As while many companies are setting targets of increasing female hires, and the government-backed review has set a voluntary target of 40% women on boards by 2025, the workplace needs to be supportive of these women as they land and progress, ensuring that their culture and understanding of a diverse workforce allows female employees to excel in their roles.
Throughout the past three years, women around the world disproportionately suffered due to economic shutdowns. Their earnings, in many cases, have stalled or fallen relative to mens, and in many pockets of the labour market, women still struggle to climb to critical leadership positions. More women than men are leaving their jobs, unable to navigate corporate structures while balancing commitments outside of paid work.
With the pandemic an almost distant memory, the wider economic and political events of recent months are now taking their toll on young job seekers. The end of 2022 gave us a glimmer of hope that confidence was returning to our Gen Z audience, but feelings of anxiety and nervousness have dashed this.
A recent report highlighted that 41% of females were experiencing these feelings compared to 27% of males. However, 32% of the male population is experiencing a lack of confidence compared to 20% of females. So what’s going on? Much of this can be attributed to the economy and financial uncertainty, but as the pandemic hugely impacted this group, they likely felt it more.
Feelings of being underprepared and lacking specific skills are now paired with economic uncertainty and finding their place in the world. And whilst many organisations might be scaling back on programmes, or in some cases headcount, there are ways in which they can still help and assist the Gen Z audience with these thoughts and emotions.
Provide support to your talent pools
Here are a few ways to support your talent pools for a ready-made group of prospective candidates without relying on reactive campaigns to get their attention or gain their loyalty.
Upskilling This remains a key need for our audience. If you can’t currently talk about your upcoming programmes, upskilling can help prepare candidates for registration. It helps keep you front of mind and enhances the candidate experience.
Skills training workshops This is best done in person as the audience responds well to face-to-face, despite being on their mobile devices most of the time! You can build this out with additional virtual or pre-recorded content available on-demand.
Mentor An informal mentor programme can be highly beneficial, even for a set period, so think about how to set one up.
Industry focussed sessions Educate your audience on the industry and try targeting new audiences who may not realise there are opportunities for them.
Strengthening your connection These three principles will guide you to get the best out of your Gen-Z audience, and create a connection based on an honest understanding between you.
See the individual beyond the grades Firstly, and most importantly, they need to know that exam results aren’t the key driver in their success. Gone are the days when academia counted for everything – the values of employees, businesses and society have shifted, and there’s a much bigger focus on the person behind the grades.
We want to know everything that makes the candidate who they are and what they can bring to your organisation as individuals with unique views and ideas. That’s not to say exam results don’t matter; there’s just far more to their story.
Detail, detail, detail Give them as much detail as possible about the role. From what their day-to-day will look like to career prospects and available training, the more up-front you can be about the job, the better. It enables students to opt out earlier if the role isn’t suitable, leaving you with applicants more suited to the job or programme.
Current figures show a distinct lack of loyalty from Gen-Z, with 44% expecting to move employers multiple times and the average student applying to between two and six programmes to secure employment. However, a focus on career development and investment in their individual growth will help them view us as an employer with longevity and can hopefully help reverse this trend.
Be honest about the culture Gen Z wants to know who you are and how they might fit in, so don’t pretend to be something you’re not, as they’ll see straight through you. It doesn’t matter if you still need to get the latest technology, your DEI strategy sorted, or you aren’t that company that rides scooters around the office. Instead, focus on what you do have, whether flexible or hybrid working, a great learning culture or impressive sustainable practices.
Whatever culture your company adheres to, everyone looks for different things, and it’s impossible to please everyone. So be proud of who you are and what you can offer while acknowledging where improvements can be made.
What does all this mean?
Getting under the skin of your audience to uncover their drivers is essential, but more is needed. An authentic campaign requires you to understand your company’s identity and find the link that connects you and your Gen-Z audience.
AMS will be a speaking partner at the Resourcing Leaders (RL100) Summit on Friday 24 February. Pag Miles, Global Head of Alliances is facilitatinga roundtable discussion to Heads of Resourcing and Talent Acquisition Directors on where the HR Technology market is today, where it’s headed and how to navigate it.
HR processes that were once time-consuming and labor-intensive are now easier than ever, thanks to technological automation. However, with every new technology comes its own set of challenges. Having seen more than 1,000 HR Technology demos over his career, Pag’s session will take a deep dive into how HR Tech is evolving and some of the latest HR Tech trends – tech stack consolidation, the skills race, ChatGPT and AI Compliance.
My colleagues, Roxana Siebert, Robert Matthew and I will also be attending the summit. We’re looking forward to meeting RL100 members, and discussing our solutions to the most pressing TA issues faced in the industry today, from hiring technical talent, to evolving candidate engagement, managing internal mobility and uncertainty in workforce planning.
An exciting and insightful day and a half ahead!
AMS is sponsoring the next RL100 Summit. With a myriad of HR Technology available, Pag Miles, who leads AMS' Technology Alliances, will discuss the key trends and challenges across HR technology.
I’ve been reflecting recently on my upcoming 10-year anniversary at AMS – What does this say about me? What does it say about my employer?
When I first joined the organisation 10 years ago, completely new to the Talent Acquisition sector having been working in Consumer Branding and Marketing, I would never have thought that I would still be here 10 years later. I believe there are a number of factors that have contributed to this:
Having a sense of belonging is so important, and if I’m being honest, the times when I haven’t felt valued, or couldn’t be uniquely me, are the times I considered jumping ship. But by and large I have enjoyed not only being part of such an inclusive culture but also helping the organisation build it. More and more organisations are focusing on creating the psychological safety that will enhance performance and wellbeing and in turn, retention.
I don’t think someone can stay at a company for 10 years if they are not truly engaged and believe in the value that the company delivers to its clients. The authenticity of this is so important (and coincidently one of our values).
I haven’t stopped learning. I learn something new all the time and believe that I am constantly developing my skills and knowledge to provide better outcomes for AMS and our clients.
Internal Mobility has enabled me to hold a number of roles within the organisation, benefiting my own career progression, keeping me engaged and rounding my TA experience.
The benefits of my last point, Internal Mobility, is clearly experienced by my employer too and continues to be a priority for organisations, especially as economic uncertainty continues. It’s also long been a talking point and according to Forbes is the missing piece of 2023 Business Strategy:
When organizations set up structures so employees can pursue their interests within the organization, studies show employees grow happier and retention rises. A 2019 Deloitte report described one organization that saw a nearly 30% increase in employee engagement after introducing an internal career program to help employees learn new skills and seek alternative roles. The same is true for retention. In 2020, LinkedIn found employees stay 41% longer at organizations with high internal hiring than those without. This data furthers the notion that internal mobility is key to navigating the tight talent market.
Storytelling remains a powerful means of communication for employer branding, yet it’s something many organisations struggle to get to grips with. Through storytelling, we’ve helped clients identify and express their work’s meaning and purpose, bringing to life the true values of an organisation and its people.
Here, we share our approach to uncovering good stories, so they stand out from the crowd.
Striving for authenticity
Remember: authenticity is key, so while some employers might want to wax lyrical about how great their benefits package is, if it’s not what’s motivating the employee, it’ll only come across as contrived.
Instead, we focus on what their employees are talking about and hone in on it. What’s important to current employees will likely resonate with potential employees, so we’ll get an accurate insight into what matters to the people and work it back from there.
Staying relevant
Clients need to stay relevant, so we apply our experience and knowledge to the latest trends in employer branding and see what everyone else is doing, including competitors. For example, in 2022 just some of the trends were:
Workplace flexibility
DE&I-focused strategies
Employee wellbeing
Work-life integration
Leadership buy-in
It’s one thing for the employer to have an opinion on how well they’re handling these topics, but the authentic voice on this will always be the employee – and the one that will pique more interest.
Finding and keeping the storytellers
We’ve chosen what topics to focus on, so what’s next? Well, this is the tricky part; we need to find employees willing to open themselves up and be one hundred per cent authentic. Not only that, but they must be able to confidently articulate their story on whatever platform we’re using, be that video, podcast or any social platform.
So first, the buy-in. What’s in it for the employee? Is this an opportunity for them to speak on something they’re passionate about? Can sharing their story help others? Will they become brand ambassadors? Can they expect recognition for their involvement?
It may be one or all these things, but whatever is decided, we map out how to reach people with this message. Depending on the audience and budget, this will vary from client to client. For example, internal comms and social campaigns are some of the most effective tools we use to attract storytellers.
Providing freedom and transparency
Transparency around the process and expectations from the outset is vital. We involve the participant across all stages and share the full transcript with them before it gets published. This helps them to better tell their story, gives them control, and ensures nothing goes out without their consent. It also gives them a sense of freedom should they want to change anything before it goes live.
Empowering the storyteller
The whole storytelling experience must be a positive one. While this might sound obvious, don’t underestimate the importance of employees feeling empowered through sharing their stories. It’s more than just dispensing a sound bite; it’s about delivering personal insight into an experience they choose to share.
So how do we empower someone in the context of storytelling?
We make sure the person telling the story feels comfortable and supported to be themselves – it will make the story believable and engaging. Not only this, but we ensure the organisation and individual are aligned in seeing the importance of the story they want to share. It’s a big part of the authenticity process.
Also, we’re always mindful of how information is collected, edited and used, allowing the storyteller to be part of the process, and any changes, along the way. It’s about creating a story together, helping the organisation and the employee unite in seeing its value.
The last word
Storytelling in employer branding is about finding a truthful representation of people and their organisations. It’s a powerful tool that provides a brilliant platform to express a company’s values and demonstrate its commitment to important topics affecting us in the work-sphere, from the micro to the macro.
By keeping it real, using real people, experiences, and authentic voices, we can help create stories that are as unique and honest as powerful and thought-provoking.
If you need help telling your story or want further information, please get in touch with our Employer Brand Advisory team.
