To thrive, an organisation needs to have a sense of purpose that’s shared by everyone in it. But many don’t have this, leaving employees struggling to find a connection. Here, we explain how bringing purpose front and centre makes all the difference to an organisation.
No purpose, no point
Organisational purpose and employee engagement are intrinsically linked, playing a big part in a workforce’s productivity, passion, and drive. In many organisations, however, a distinct lack of meaning attributed to people’s roles can leave them questioning if what they do even matters.
A lack of connection to the organisational purpose means employees don’t fully understand the organisation’s mission, what it stands for, or what it hopes to achieve in the future. As a result, they don’t see what impact or positive changes their company is making.
So where’s the motivation?
Moving purpose centre stage
For a workforce to feel proud of their job, they need an organisation’s purpose to be clearly defined. Regardless of where an employee is in the organisational chart, whether they’re back office or customer-facing, there should be a focus on what they do and how it fits into the bigger picture. The meaning of their day-to-day job needs to be spotlit and they need to see value in what they do.
We’ve identified three main factors that help drive purpose among employees and across an organisation.
1. Communicate the mission
Employees need to identify with the cause of an organisation. Having common goals and a shared vision is about understanding a company’s culture and values; this is where the mission comes in.
A company’s mission shouldn’t be considered an HR exercise but an explicit part of its culture discussed at all levels between its people. It plays an essential part in uniting beliefs among employees, enabling them to identify with their company’s meaningful work.
How a mission is communicated will vary from company to company. While it will undoubtedly form part of an Employee Value Proposition, the core narrative must be present across all messaging. It can become part of why people want to work for an organisation, something relatable that drives their pride, productivity, and engagement.
As Facebook’s employee research found, “When people are committed to the mission, their relationship with the company changes. Work is more than a job or a career—it becomes a calling.”
2. Recognise the human factor
Establishing a more human-emotional connection with the purpose isn’t just about helping employees understand the impact of their day-to-day work. It’s also about an organisation understanding their employees, what inspires them, and giving them a platform to express this openly.
While employees want to know their voices are valid and acknowledged, they also want to be aware of the broader decision-making processes beyond their departments and the corporate strategy. So open communication and information sharing are critical and are far more effective than a siloed approach.
It’s also essential to take the time to understand employees’ expectations of the company and whether it’s met. Do they feel valued? If not, what can be done about it? How supportive is the organisation in acting on feedback from employees? Are they aware they’re making a positive difference to the organisation?
Building these emotional connections can be achieved by connecting the dots between individuals and management. When a shared purpose joins a team of individuals, they can move together towards the same goals, strengthening a sense of belonging to the company’s shared vision. And when individuals connect with their managers, more explicit goals can be set, with a more focused output.
3. Lead with purpose
While we know a clear sense of purpose among employees leads to higher engagement and commitment to the cause, the purpose risks just being words on a page without meaning. It’s only useful having a purpose if it’s articulated among employees and communicated clearly as part of a shared goal.
Leaders must help their people link what they do on an individual level and within a team, highlighting how it impacts the excellent work a company is doing. They should cultivate purpose, putting it at the centre of any employee engagement strategy, driving it into their organisation’s culture.
Happiness from within
While many companies have tapped into the importance of employee engagement and its link to heightened productivity and better performance – for its people and the organisation – it’s not just about creating a fleeting feeling of satisfaction for employees through financial perks, autonomy, or a supportive manager.
Instead, it’s about creating an organisation’s purpose laced into a vision of the future, shared by all, and at the core of every interaction. Employees can connect to this shared purpose and be proud of their organisation. Not only that, but they are far more likely to be happier at work. And happier employees equal better commercial performance and healthy workplace culture.
By Charlotte Brett, Copywriter, Employer Brand Advisory
It has been a remarkable few years for those of us working in Talent Acquisition (TA), without doubt the most remarkable of my 25 year career. We have navigated the Covid epidemic, the dramatic reductions in hiring that understandably took place and the corresponding furloughs and layoffs. We then navigated the rebound and the subsequent ‘great-resignation’ which led to unprecedented hiring volumes across most sectors and geographies, a period in which Talent Acquisition professionals were more in demand than software engineers. We are now navigating a period which feels somewhat uncertain; we’re seeing hiring reductions in some sectors, stability in others and employers that are struggling to forecast their likely hiring demand for the year ahead.
AMS are calling these changes the Talent Climate and we’re delighted to be working with the Josh Bersin Company on an exclusive series of data-driven reports that will explore the continuing changes in the Talent Climate and the impact of those changes on companies and talent leaders. The first of those reports will be published next month and will include comprehensive benchmarking data and trends related to time to hire, a must-read for any leaders looking to make sense of their own TA performance metrics.
On Thursday 20th April, in advance of the first Talent Climate report, I will be hosting a webinar together with Janet Mertens at the Josh Bersin Company to explore some of the trends that we’re experiencing. We have a bumpy economy with very high levels of inflation and a corresponding rise in the cost of living. Companies are more circumspect about investing for growth yet business transformation continues at pace. We have layoffs in the tech sector and material hiring reductions in sectors such as financial services and investment banking. Yet unemployment in many countries is at a record low, skills shortages continue to intensify in areas such as tech and digital and talent demand overall continues to outstrip supply.
To help us gain perspective on all of these trends we are delighted to have three distinguished talent leaders join us for the webinar; Shilpa Shah from Standard Chartered Bank, Beatriz Rodriguez from Bayer and Martin Vergara from Morgan Stanley.
To join us for the webinar please register here. And do look out for our first Talent Climate report next month.
The Talent Climate is heating up – hiring volumes continue to rise and time to hire is at an all-time high. With research showing that only 25% of organizations have a systemic, integrated approach to Talent Acquisition, what can HR practitioners and business leaders do so they don't get left out in the cold?
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.
We were delighted to pick up this award yesterday at the British Diversity Awards. It recognises the amazing effort and commitment from our joint Disability and Neurodiversity employee resource groups (ERGs), led by my colleagues Jamie Shields and Stella Steigleder and supported by our Exco Sponsor, Maxine Pillinger. We are committed to creating an environment in AMS for all disabled and neurodivergent colleagues to thrive, we have made great progress, but we know we have more to do.
Following are some examples of initiatives that we have embedded in the last year, to enhance our disability inclusion approach:
Our ERGs hold joint monthly meetings and biweekly regional meetings across the UK, APAC, EMEA, and Americas. We have seen a 12% increase in membership in the period.
We have a “DEI Milestone Moments” calendar to amplify the voices of colleagues and external guests across the year for important milestones such as International Day of Persons with Disabilities, Accessibility Week, Autism Acceptance Month and Neurodiversity Month
We have strengthened our partnership with the Valuable 500 and due to the strength of this relationship, we have been selected as one of 75 organisations invited to participate in the Generation Valuable programme, providing mentorship for people with disabilities to build the disabled leaders of tomorrow.
We were awarded Level 2 Disability Confident Employer status in March last year
Our ERG members have also designed and delivered training to our sourcing, recruiting and marketing teams, and client accounts on various accessibility and inclusion topics
Within the ERG, parents of neurodiverse and/ or disabled children support colleagues across the organisation by sharing their experiences and creating an online forum to encourage conversation between other parents
We proudly accept this award and acknowledge the amazing work from the other shortlisted organisations in the category. I’d love to hear your feedback around how we can all collectively progress the disability and neurodiversity inclusion agenda for the future!
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.
Yesterday I was fortunate to join a call, hosted by EY, where the Parker Review provided an update on ethnicity representation in the FTSE 350.
It’s great to see that further progress has been made in the last 12 months against the original commitments:
“One by 2021” target for all FTSE 100 boards to have at least one director from a minority ethnic background by December 2021
The Review also set a similar “One by 2024” target for all FTSE 250 boards
In summary, the key highlights over the last 12 months are:
In the FTSE 100, there were ethnic minority directors in 96% of Boards at the end of 2022, compared with 89% in 2021 and 18% of all director positions in the FTSE 100 were filled by ethnic minorities (16% in 2021)
Given that over 70% of FTSE 100 Board members are NEDs, it is no surprise that majority of positions held by ethnic minorities were as NEDs (159 out of 190)
In the FTSE 250, 67% of those organisations had ethnic minority directors (55% in 2021)
Moving forward the Parker Review will be introducing 2 new commitments / initiatives (and in addition to the above, these will be tracked annually):
Targets for Senior Management in all FTSE 350 organisations – to include Exco and Exco minus 1, organisations to set a target to achieve by end of 2027 (and this to be confirmed by the end of this year)
All of the above commitments to be extended to 50 of the largest private organisations in the UK; Ineos, Deloitte, EY and John Lewis have already confirmed their participation
It’s heartening to see the extension of the commitments to larger privately owned businesses across the UK. At AMS we have already implemented all of the commitments being proposed by the Parker Review. We set our initial commitment in 2020 to be delivered by the end of 2023. Over the next few months we will be recommitting to a new 3 year plan to take us through to the end of 2026.
I’d love to hear how your organisation is committing to ethnicity representation.
Parker Review announces new targets to improve ethnic diversity of FTSE 350 senior management teams and large private businesses
As we celebrate International Women’s Day today, I am proud to see how committed AMS is to promoting equity and supporting women in progressing their careers into senior roles.
It’s my pleasure to lead our Women’s Employee Resource Group at AMS. Our aim is to provide a space for conversation about equality, share ideas and initiatives but perhaps most importantly to take the time to celebrate our successes, together.
At AMS, we are committed to building a workplace culture that supports equity and empowers women to achieve their full potential. We believe that when women succeed, we all succeed.
We also understand that promoting equity and supporting women in their careers is not just the right thing to do, but it is also good for business. Diverse teams bring different perspectives, experiences, and skills to the table, which leads to better decision-making and improved outcomes.
Our executive team has an equal split of women to men and our wider senior leadership team has 59% female representation. In fact over 62% of our entire workforce is made up of women. These stats reflect that our commitment to advancing gender parity is not something we only consider once a year. The ongoing support of women and men across our organisation has helped us to create an environment where women’s careers can thrive.
This year, the theme of International Women’s Day is #embraceequity and we have planned some great activities to generate conversation, celebrate our AMS Heroines and share their stories, achievements and inspiration. From race, neurodiversity, war, family-life; women’s voices and experience are rich, varied, and at AMS, they are heard.
MISSION: To forge inclusive work cultures where women's careers thrive and their achievements are celebrated
I’ve now been in my new role within AMS for a month and I thought I would share some thoughts on our new mission, what it means to me and what I hope it will mean for our talented staff around the world. This article is unapologetically targeted towards my colleagues in AMS but I hope it will resonate with all Talent Acquisition (TA) professionals regardless of role, location or whether they are working in an in-house environment or with an outsourced partner.
Within TA our mission is simple, we’re seeking to hire the very best talent to enable our businesses to be successful. How we do it is important (speed, cost, experience), but our ultimate mission is a simple one. One of my proudest moments in AMS came a few years ago when I was copied in to an email from a global HR leader within one of our large pharmaceutical clients, to a small team of AMS recruiters supporting manufacturing hiring for that client in Europe. The email thanked our team for the contribution that they had made to ramping up the production of an incredibly important vaccine that was urgently needed to tackle a virus spreading quickly in Africa. The contribution that our team had made had helped to save lives.
Most of us will know the story about President John F Kennedy visiting the NASA space centre in 1962. During the tour the President spoke to a janitor and asked him what he was doing. “Well Mr President” the janitor responded, “I’m helping put a man on the moon”.
We like to tell ourselves that TA isn’t rocket science yet we certainly have a lot of complexity in what we do. We are continually focused on optimizing our services through process design, deployment of technology, through leveraging data to analyze and predict performance. We focus on how quickly we can perform our tasks and the cost-effectiveness of our work. Sometimes we may forget our ultimate mission – our own versions of putting a man on the moon.
Within AMS our vision is to harness a new universe of talent for the world’s leading employers. Put simply, talent is our world. We want every single colleague in AMS to understand the part that they play in that mission. I’ve heard great stories from Recruiters who have gone out of their way to support candidates through the hiring process by spending time checking-in with candidates out of core working hours or by finding time to have a coffee with new starters to welcome them to the business. I’ve heard stories of Sourcers making connections and discussing potential roles with people they meet whilst on holiday or in coffee shops. And I’ve heard stories from Administrators who have simply made the effort to put a call in to a candidate to connect in advance of an interview to wish them good luck.
I’ve asked my colleagues in Client Operations to share more stories with me so I can share them further to help motivate and inspire all of us to put talent at the centre of our worlds. It’s a very small reminder that all of us are contributing to a far more important mission. In our own ways we should each be helping to put a man on the moon.
We wanted to create something with greater purpose and clarity, and this video is a trailer of where we will be focusing in the years ahead. Talent is our world.
Ten steps everyone can take to improve hiring success
“Marginal gains is not about making small changes and hoping they fly. Rather, it is about breaking down a big problem into small parts in order to rigorously establish what works and what doesn’t.” Matthew Syed, Black Box Thinking
Volume hiring has always been hard, and it keeps getting harder.
Wage inflation, demographic challenges and unpredictable business demand – most likely in locations which have often always been challenging – have only added to the pressure. According to a recent Forbes analysis 74% or organizations in the service industry list recruiting as their top business challenge – and the result can be a kind of organizational paralysis. ‘This is just a problem, there is nothing we can do’ or, most commonly ‘we don’t have the budget’.
But simple initiatives can be quick to implement, and impactful and multiple simple initiatives can really start to move the needle. Most are free or – better – will stop wasteful spend and have a positive impact on your budget.
So: here is our AMS guide to help you Moneyball your high volume hiring.
Diversity and Data – Before, not After, Thought If you read no further read this: diversity and data matter. Understanding your hiring metrics (even the absolute basics) and how your organization reflects the communities you serve is a non-negotiable baseline. If you don’t have this, you are a chef without a recipe; a coach with no gameplan; a driver without a map. Do NOT be intimidated by the challenge. Not everyone can access cutting edge predictive analytics, but you have a finance function and almost everyone has a friendly team member with a head for numbers. Pull some basic data and build from there. And if you have those analytics but don’t have ‘the time’ to review them, cancel a meeting and look at them now. They are your friend not your enemy.
Needs Assessment – What and Who Are you Hiring? Everyone knows who they are hiring…don’t they?
Even if you do feel you know your most common profiles, get back to the floor – those roles you have been hiring for ever will most likely have shifted significantly in focus or even in skills required given the changes in the world post-Covid. What is important in that role today? Have any of your ‘must have’ requirements evolved or even disappeared? Plus, your employees can be inspiring: if anyone knows how to hire for their roles, it’s them.
Job Titles – Will Your Target Audience Understand? So many job titles have been designed with an internal audience in mind. Your CEO may get it, but your target candidates most likely do not. Use simple, natural language in your job descriptions so that candidates can find you, even if they are not looking for you. And keep descriptions short and to the point: has anyone ever told you they are NOT a ‘team player who can also work individually’? If key requirements matter, don’t bury them! Someone will confess that they do not have them at some point, so make it clear up front – better now than two weeks into the job.
Sourcing and Attraction Strategy – Average Never Works If you are lucky enough to have a budget, plan for where you spend and be ready to pivot. Programmatic advertising programs and partners are easier than ever to implement but their key role should be to fill gaps in local organic traffic. If candidates want to walk in and ask about a role, let them, and make it as easy as possible for them to do so (more on that later). Remember that local communities are always, always happy to help. Churches, sports clubs, housing groups, charities and local rehabilitation charities and will go the extra mile to align those in need with opportunities. Just make the time to ask.
Execute Your Plan – No One Else Will Having a plan is one thing, make sure to make it happen. A series of great ideas in a notepad or in a spreadsheet do not action themselves. ‘We are just about to’; ‘we do not have time to’, ‘I will get to it after’ are all off limits. Break it down and commit to trying something that will make a difference at least once a week, or even every day.
Take some swings.
Screening – Pull candidates IN do not screen them OUT This is your first chance to treat candidates as they should be treated. And this should not be by asking them aggressive questions, requiring hours of their time or understanding their life story. Align this stage to the critical data you need to know – really need to know – and make sure your process is aimed at keeping the right candidates engaged. Screening process as endurance event is helping no-one unless you are hiring for a role that requires endless form completion of parsable data.
Assessment and Selection – Relevant and Making a Difference? Formalized assessment tools can be useful – they can give candidates a sense of the role, help prioritize high quality candidates in bountiful markets and ensure rigor. They can – but do they do this for you? Or are you running a legacy battery of tests with only an indirect relevance for the roles you are hiring, most likely at a point in your process where quality candidates are looking to proceed quickly? Oh, and do you expect them have to set aside time at a desktop, remember a code and then follow complicated instructions to gather their results? Try the process yourself, you may be surprised how your flow chart looks great for you but not so good from the outside.
Interviews – Train, Train and Train Again People write books on this, so we’ll keep this simple. If someone is interviewing or spending any time with candidates (face to face, virtually or on the phone) make sure they know what they are doing. There are free resources out there on best practices, you may have in-house guides on a (virtual) shelf or maybe now is the time to pull something together?
And if you are running through multiple phases of screening, assessment AND interviews: think long and hard about the why and if there are opportunities to simplify further.
Offer and Onboarding – Stay in Touch Maybe you and you team concierge candidates all the way through to their first day, or maybe you hand a fully hire-ready candidate to an HR or business function. Consider either way that it is in your interest to keep in regular touch with candidates here: if it is in the thousands, leverage some basic tech to help: if numbers are smaller, keep the contact 1-1, direct and personable. If you don’t, someone else will.
Hire – Do Not Stop at Hire Volume hiring is relentless but that can also provide a rhythm to your activity that is difficult to manage in other areas. Schedule time after 10 and 30 days to check in on the most recent intake of hires. How is attrition? How are they performing? Find out from those hires what they think of their role. The elephant in the room can frequently be that it is on-the-job culture or management that most affects these numbers and can impact the overall perception of a TA function, so don’t ignore feedback and work with your partners in the business to make a difference.
In the words of Billy Beane: ‘If we pull this off, we change the game. We change the game for good.’
If you found this article helpful and you would like to talk more about how you can improve the effectiveness of your volume recruitment, please do get in touch.
