Here I look at the major trends for the year ahead in two key areas of HR: recruitment and learning services.

Recruitment Trends

Talent Acquisition (TA) challenges were already complex in the pre-pandemic period, with an aging workforce population, shortage of digital talent, rapid evolution of technology, Brexit, legal changes, and more. The pandemic added another layer of complexity in 2020: the rapid shift to digital hiring/onboarding (with some sectors seeing rapid upticks in activity), non-digital skills shortages, working from home and keeping workers safe and well. While expectations for 2021 focused on digital, hybrid working with a highly-distributed workforce, the Great Resignation presented unforeseen challenges, with knock-on consequences, requiring organizations to take a different approach to the future of work.

Organizations struggle to find talent in a highly-squeezed market, as tried and trusted methodologies no longer work. More are reaching out to vendors for support as they become desperate to attract candidates while juggling increased turnover levels of existing employees. Vendors are evolving their TA solutions in line with advancing TA trends. The hot topics for 2022 will be:

A total talent/holistic approach to hiring

Organizations will act upon their 2021 intentions, as sought-after talent is no longer guaranteed from traditional full-time/permanent channels, requiring a contingent or internal mobility channel approach. So, all organizational functions must work collaboratively to proactively strategize their 2022 talent plans via a strategic workforce planning (SWP) approach, using enabling technologies to aid the process. While some urgent talent needs may require a quick fix, this reactivity is unsustainable long-term. An increased focus on internal talent mobility will reduce the risks of unnecessary employee turnover. Organizations must also plan their salary/contractor rate positioning (avoiding neglectful over-inflation of rates) to prevent future problems around pay inequities across the workforce.   

Back-to-basics recruitment

Companies are competing for talent from shrinking talent pools, as the sansdemic (decreasing working-age population) and the Great Resignation dominate the 2022 market. The most in-demand TA services will be employer branding and associated services contributing to organizations’ brands. Businesses will work hard to promote their company cultures to be future-of-work fit for their audiences, across all talent channels. Priority is on promoting diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging (DEIB), work flexibility, safety/wellbeing, career longevity, and environmental, social, and corporate governance (ESG) issues.          

In one of the most candidate-led markets in years, tried and trusted recruitment methods are becoming less effective, yielding fewer candidates. While pandemic-induced travel restrictions impact talent mobility on the one hand, on the other, more significant opportunities exist to engage remote talent globally. So, organizations must expand their repertoire of initiatives to reach candidates: international hackathon events to find future digitally-skilled talent, leveraging previously untapped audiences (career returners or those launching second careers). Companies failing to focus on these basics will lose out on vital talent. 

Building talent by upskilling and reskilling organizations’ workers

Traditionally, the focus was on building in-demand digital skills and reskilling workers whose roles were being automated. Organizations must now expand the remit to offset the broader talent challenges associated with employee churn.

Essentially, TA and learning will work in greater unison. Corporate functions must plan how talent will be managed beyond initial recruitment/onboarding to drive ongoing employee engagement and development, to encourage longevity of service. A training course here and there or a HiPo scheme for a select few are no longer fit-for-purpose in their traditional formats. Long-term career mapping and initiatives to put newly-learned skills into immediate practice for all workers will be required, or workers will seek to progress their careers elsewhere. Core to this experience is using intelligent, AI-driven tech, feeding personalized content, enabling a self-service, pull approach to skilling, upskilling, and reskilling.        

Next-generation platforms/tools

Hiring quality candidates at speed while driving a highly-consumerized experience will remain a priority (although hiring speed success is likely impacted by talent availability). Candidates will expect a predominantly digital hiring experience to meet the needs of a workforce seeking flexibility and being less focused on having a physical workplace presence.

Employees will expect to use intelligent tech, underpinned by sophisticated RPA, AI, and ML, via a single platform interface to drive a highly tailored and personalized day-to-day work experience (feeding relevant content to them to maximize role efficiency). Hence, there is also a greater shift to a microservices/low-code/no-code architecture as a standard. The appetite for deep data and predictive/prescriptive analytics will grow, as organizations and their workers seek insights to help eke out extra competitive edge in all areas of talent. The use of digital agents and voice-enabled technology to personalize the tech experience will be a focus in 2022.

Learning Trends

In 2021, learning focused on building out the digital foundations initiated in response to the 2020 pandemic. Hence, the criticality of using the most appropriate technology and tools to drive a digital learning experience emerged. It is now generally accepted that a predominantly digital learning approach is the way forward, focused on skilling for the future of work.

Events such as the Great Resignation of 2021, inadvertently fueling the talent shortage, have turned attention to employee engagement, retention, and development to offset employee turnover. Hence, in 2022, learning will see a revitalized focus and achieve a higher priority within organizations to curb TA challenges (as part of the holistic/total talent approach to attaining the skills needed). Learning vendors continue to develop their services and technology apace to support businesses in meeting their workforce skilling needs. Hot topics for 2022 will include:

Tailored content for skilling

Learning vendors will continue to curate content (where there is an abundance of ready-made material available on generic skills) and create content (where organizations need tailored content for a product or specialty compliance reasons). Subjects such as digital skills (from basic to advanced, niche, certified skillsets) and future of work skills (remote leadership, maintaining wellbeing), commonplace since 2020, will continue apace.

With many organizations focusing on raising their corporate profiles to attract talent, there will be demand for DEIB and ESG awareness training, living the company culture when workforces are remote, and managing employee performance/career conversations. Enhancing skills training focused on the digital world of work will include digital selling (without face-to-face engagement). 

Learning tech/tools

In 2022, the technology and tools focus will deliver experiential learning, taking advantage of RPA, AI, and ML developments, driving content suited to individual learners' preferences and needs. More organizations will seek advice on replacing or augmenting their existing learning systems with LMS/LXP and other specialty platforms to ensure learning is engaging and tailored to encourage self-service/pull learning in the flow of work. Notably, Microsoft Viva will make an impact on the LXP market. Driving learner engagement will start at the candidate level via digital onboarding (supporting pre-boarding learning activities to give new employees a head start and the opportunity to reach productivity sooner).

Next-generation platforms delivering digital internships, graduate programs, academies, and certification programs will be sought to skill, upskill, and reskill a more distributed workforce, to engage and retain them long-term. The use of events platforms will also increase alongside. A mobile-first/appified and microlearning approach will dominate, enabling learning to take place in small chunks across all devices, fitting in with learners’ busy lives. For companies keen to create content internally or manage curated content, the uptake of rapid authoring tech and content library subscriptions will increase. Organizations will seek more learner-specific data/analytics to measure the success of their learning programs as the competition for skilled talent intensifies.

Next-generation modalities

The emphasis on experiential learning will drive the demand for engaging modalities, such as video, animation, gamification, serious games, and simulation. There will be re-energized demand for VR, augmented reality (AR), and the metaverse, as the technology becomes less expensive. An emerging area is haptic technology enhancing kinesthetic learning.   

Other learning services

Demand for consulting services will continue, covering digitalization of learning (including tech/tools and learning content advice), reskilling/upskilling, and driving learner engagement (as retention of talent becomes a priority to avoid unnecessary turnover). Administrative services will continue to focus on systems administration and the sourcing of third-party suppliers, as more organizations decide to outsource such tasks. 

Quarterly financial reports for 2020 (April onwards) from recruitment organizations show that in a COVID-19 world, temporary hiring is more resilient than permanent hiring, faring on average about 10-30% better (albeit both types of hiring are seeing negative growth overall). Meanwhile, gig work has increased on average 10-15%, over the same period. These figures are not surprising as organizations undertake recruitment that minimizes labor cost risk. And, in 2021, with the economic situation likely to be the same as 2020, organizations will want to maintain flexibility with their workforce, making contingent hiring the most attractive option.

With a multigenerational workforce demanding more flexible working arrangements (avoiding the 9 to 5, choosing working hours, characterized by freelance or gig work), now is an ideal time for organizations to embrace a holistic (total talent) approach to talent acquisition. Organizations have also demonstrated their resilience in embracing technology/tools to enable remote working. So, now is the time for organizations to combine the two: using additional technological channels to find the flexible skilled workers they need to get tasks done, while minimizing labor cost risk in an economically challenging market. 

Human clouds, where task-specific jobs, projects or gigs are carried out on demand from any location, using an online/digital platform, have seen a growth of ~15% in 2020 over 2019. And they could see a further uptick in use in 2021 as workers laid off due to the COVID-19 pandemic seek new ways to find work.

Challenges in determining the most suitable human clouds

At first glance, there are potential challenges in determining the most suitable human clouds to use, when:

• There is a choice of at least 1,800 online recruitment platforms/human clouds (KellyOCG, 2020)
• Some advertise a broad range of skills, while others are highly niche. How do you know which ones are most suitable for hiring specific skillsets?
• There are choices on human cloud/platform types: organizations would likely seek candidates by entering a direct legal relationship with an individual worker, using an online marketplace platform such as Toptal. But another option is to use a crowdsourcing platform, where several workers bid for, then independently work on, specific elements/constituent parts of a project. 99designs is an example of such a platform. In another example, restaurants refocusing their business for online delivery may use a service platform such as uber eats to seek drivers to deliver takeaway food to the public
• These marketplaces operate in their own environment, with their unique ecosystem and end-to-end process
• For procurement, it is an expensive way of getting labor (by paying separately for resources on different platforms).

One vendor that has addressed these potential challenges is KellyOCG.

KellyOCG’s one-stop-shop solution

KellyOCG has recently launched its human cloud aggregation service, offering a one-stop-shop for access to best-in-class human cloud platforms. Initially offered as part of its MSP/CWS offering, the service fills the gap in its holistic/total talent acquisition offering. The service combines human support underpinned by technology.

The Kelly Human Cloud technology (co-developed with Avature) automates and consolidates the process steps and harmonizes the profile information from each human cloud (with their unique profile formats). Some platforms involve going through a mini RFX process, where freelancers bid on the work to be done. Other platforms have a white glove hands-on approach, with a consultant that understands the requirements and finds the talent. The platform links to the organization’s VMS, enabling the hiring manager to review worker information and manage the project via the most appropriate human cloud. The system integration allows an organization to use existing invoicing and time-sheeting functionality within the VMS without re-inventing the wheel externally.

Once a new organization comes on board, it signs a client-specific contract or an addendum to a master services agreement, allowing for very easy onboarding with minimal administration. This saves the organization from needing to negotiate all the platforms separately. The organization determines whether a human cloud environment is suitable to get the work task done. KellyOCG liaises with the hiring manger to determine ground rules around using human clouds, then configures the decision-tree functionality within an organization’s VMS to determine the best hiring option. If the work can be delivered remotely (with talent sitting anywhere in the world), human clouds can work, though obviously they are not suitable for organizations that want the physical presence of a worker in an office environment.

One of KellyOCG’s clients needed to undertake quality control on 50 billboards it had set up across 50 airport locations. After posting a requirement on a platform, the client identified candidates to undertake the work of going to an airport, taking a picture of the billboard, and uploading it to enable the client to check on the quality of each billboard. The candidates received payment for the work done.

After initially reviewing eight human cloud platforms, KellyOCG settled on an initial five with which to launch the aggregation service: 99designs (leading in the creative space), BTG (Kelly major stake), The Mom Project (diversity), Toptal, and Freelancer.com. The core five cover most of the skillsets hired within its clients’ existing hiring programs. KellyOCG plans to expand the human cloud aggregation service, adding more human clouds over time.

The need to use remote talent will endure 

In addition to the ongoing budgetary concerns about the cost of labor in an uncertain economic market, other restrictions remain in place, making remote talent an attractive proposition. Many countries are not processing visa applications, so workers cannot travel internationally. The second wave of COVID-19 is already well-established, potentially forcing further lockdowns at a local or country level well into 2021. Embracing human clouds should not be concerned with the “if” but rather the “when”.

While KellyOCG does not yet have any data/analytics around the usage or success of leveraging the human clouds in its aggregation service, there are some statistics that serve as a starting point. For example:

• 99designs have 20K designers working on the platform every month, and a new design is created every two seconds, with 97m designs created overall
• In 2019, Freelancer.com posted 1.9m projects
• In 2020/21, The Mom Project expects 10k projects to be posted on the site.

Undoubtedly, the number of candidates registering on human cloud platforms will increase, as more traditional methods of hiring requiring in-person interviews are stalled. Companies need to act to capture these work-ready candidates.

Everyone speculates as to what the long-term world of work could look like as we head into the second half of 2020 and beyond. But the reality is that we don’t really know how things will pan out. While organizations might be preparing for an uptick in hiring activity behind the scenes, the biggest challenges are the ongoing uncertainty around the future of work, and even survival from week to week.

Organizations have demonstrated resilience and agility in adapting to tech-enabled, remote, and socially-distanced operating models, often being surprised by the outcomes this has brought, notably business continuity with minimal interruptions. To continue talent acquisition (TA) activities, organizations have embraced tech and tools to aid remote interviewing, electronic signatures for documents, and remote onboarding.

However, organizations that fail to embrace such digital change, will leave themselves inflexible to sudden changes in business requirements, putting long-term survival in jeopardy.

Here, I look at three of Korn Ferry’s clients at different stages of digital TA transformation, to measure the impact of that journey on their hiring activity, as business priorities were turned on their heads.   

Organizations embracing digital talent acquisition can pivot at short notice

A long-standing consumer products client, with 70% of its workforce sitting in high-volume categories (production, retail, etc.), approached Korn Ferry in 2017 to support its shift to a more digitalized approach to hiring. Using its six pillars methodology, Korn Ferry focused the client on identifying the hiring challenges they were trying to resolve. It recommended a third-party tech stack as well as proprietary tech to best enable the client’s objectives: scalability for seasonal and geographical expansion ramp-ups and ramp-downs being its priority (with the technology designed to handle candidate volume - 15,000 annual hires - at the top of the funnel).   

While the funnel would normally be slow and inactive, with Korn Ferry seeking out talent through active campaign work, 2020 has seen that flipped on its head. A spike in unemployed people looking for work has transformed the client’s talent funnel to being very full and active, yet the client has absorbed the funnel ramp-up with no drop-off in service due to the scalable technology already put in place. The client can deliver a good candidate experience because the automation handles the sheer volume of applicants and screens them out if they are not suitably skilled. Having the digital capability to scale has clearly enabled this organization to pivot to the new circumstances of an oversupply of candidates.

A financial services client, hiring 30K heads annually, had fragmented, inefficient, and manual hiring processes. It was looking to digitally transform its talent acquisition function to increase efficiency and improve the candidate experience. Following a tech stack audit, it was advised to use a combination of Korn Ferry’s proprietary technology and a few select external providers. Korn Ferry Recruit (KFR) with its AI-sourcing capability would be suitable for niche roles (10K annual hires), while KFR’s Nimble platform with its chatbot and short-form assessments would be suitable for high-volume recruitment (20K annual hires). A proposed trial of an internal mobility platform was a feature of the tech stack. Many organizations keep scant records of employee skillsets. However, the internal mobility platform takes non-confidential employee details from basic HRIS records and augments them with in-depth public domain information available externally. The enhanced information acquired by Korn Ferry enables internal talent with specific skills to be identified and deployed elsewhere.

As March 2020 resulted in the immediate cessation of hiring in its retail setting due to the pandemic, there was an immediate need to redeploy employees into other roles within the business. While the recommended platforms/trial had not been implemented at this stage, there were strong indications that continuing with its planned TA transformation during COVID-19, would reap hiring benefits post-COVID-19 or in subsequent lockdowns. Benefits would include improved Time to Fill (when ramping-up numbers to meet pre-COVID BAU staffing levels), Interview to Hire, and Quality of hire measures (due to better AI matching of candidates), or easier redeployment of workers elsewhere if retail premises needed to close again.

It’s not too late to embrace digital TA and reap the benefits

The ongoing uncertainty for another of Korn Ferry’s clients (in the hospitality sector) will linger until a Government decision is made on whether to permit the mass gathering of people in 2020. And the window of opportunity for hiring is drawing ever tighter (with the final client decision for a “go” or “no go” hiring situation due in July). However, that has not prevented the client from preparing its TA strategy for this year.

The client would normally launch multiple in-person, recruiter-intensive hiring events, over five months (as it did in 2019) to find the 4.5K part-time talent needed for the Autumn season: a process that from year-to-year rarely sees the same talent apply. However, by March 2020, it was clear this talent campaign was not going to happen, so the client approached Korn Ferry for support. Korn Ferry suggested going 100% digital for its 2020 campaign – a dramatic pivot for the client, but one which would enable an instant 60% reduction in campaign duration – great when leaving the decision whether to hire until the eleventh hour!

Korn Ferry has deployed the Breezy HR platform and designed a single workflow (enabling a single application process) for six separate franchise companies that come under the remit of the client (rather than requiring six separate application processes), much improving the candidate experience. The manager’s decision to hire specific candidates is the only manual phase, with all other process steps being automated. If hiring does not go ahead, the worst-case scenario for the client is the cost associated with the consulting work undertaken in standing up the project. There will be no costs associated with the technology.

When decisions must go to the wire, with potentially 75 heads to be hired daily for 60 days, having a digital TA process clearly has its advantages. Whether the client forges ahead with hiring or reluctantly admits defeat for this year, it will be interesting to see if the digital TA set-up has changed their outlook on future recruitment for the better. 

A digital TA transformation approach helps organizations embrace the future of work

Embracing a digitally-enabled hiring process does not mean sacrificing the high-touch approach. It is about achieving the right balance between technology and human interaction. Some digitalization of the TA process enables automation of mundane tasks and speeds up the hiring process, clearly giving competitive advantage to organizations. Driven by events in the first half of 2020, the technology deployed by these clients has enabled them to adapt to new circumstances when they least expected it. These case studies show how a digital approach to TA can take organizations to a new level of business agility that can help them to adapt to unforeseen circumstances at the flick of a switch. A digital TA transformation approach is highly recommended, especially when the future holds so many unknowns. Failure to embrace digital TA processes in 2020 will put those organizations at increasing disadvantage, making it more difficult for them to catch up with those organizations who have embraced digital transformation and are enjoying the benefits of being business agile.

The pace of change in RPO and contingent worker outsourcing has been unprecedented in recent years due to technological advancements and the range of services expected by buyside organizations. Cielo recently organized a customer and analyst day to explore what talent acquisition (TA) might look like in the next five years.

Speaking with several of Cielo’s clients, they comment on Cielo’s enthusiasm to question the status quo and ask how things can be done better, and on its keenness to continuously improve and be future-fit while maintaining its core values.

Automation must complement high-touch service

Clients cite Cielo’s “WE BECOME YOU” mantra as a feature of its RPO service. They value the Candidate Impression Center and Bridge pre-employment service, established in 2010 to address pain points in the recruitment process (such as a lack of contact with candidates once they have applied for a job, and post-job offer before the employment start date). Given the current focus on candidate experience, remaining high-touch is key. With Cielo’s Candidate Impression Center, a chatbot now provides a response to the top 100 FAQs to save agents’ time, with humans doing more meaningful and highly personalized candidate-care work.

The RPO journey is becoming a Total Talent expedition

Cielo aims to adopt a partnership approach with clients, taking them on a journey of improving both efficiency and effectiveness in their recruitment processes. Enhancements to the service have included SkyRecruit, reporting and analytics (SkyAnalytics), Employer Branding (EB), and most recently consultancy services in areas such as TA strategy, tech advisory, marketing, and diversity and inclusion. The shortage of talent in many skills areas has spurred Cielo to look at alternative sources of talent such as contingent workers and developing existing employees to plug supply gaps, taking more of a total talent acquisition (TTA) approach.

Cielo is now taking the partnership approach to the next level with its Client Success Program.  Using Cielo’s Talent Acquisition Maturity Model, clients are presented with a scorecard to determine their position on the RPO/Total Talent journey at various points through the relationship. Using design thinking, Cielo undertakes a more strategic workforce planning (SWP) approach to better plan its clients’ hiring needs to help them improve their talent acquisition maturity.

Next-generation delivery – “Certified to Serve”

Cielo posits that delivery excellence requires more than expertise in sourcing talent and industry sector knowledge. In its “Certified to Serve” initiative, Cielo’s talent advisers are required to be knowledgeable in hiring process definitions, operating principles, talent options, payrolling/invoicing, plus information specific to the client. Those with more advanced skills can advise on SWP.

Enabled by technology or driven by technology… a matter of preference

Cielo has seen early traction with its more automated High Volume RPO (HVRPO) platform launched in 2018. Several clients are using HVRPO in conjunction with Cielo’s SkyRecruit platform, typically hiring in high volume for niche/specialized roles. Examples include:

• A pharma that has made 4,000 hires through the HVRPO platform and has seen an 11% decrease in time to accept an offer
• A food service company that has made 5,000 hires and saved 1.5 hours of hiring manager’s recruitment time per hire through tech-enabled screening.

While at present Cielo’s clients mainly leverage recruitment technology as an enabler with limited automation (confined to processes that are already successfully automated in the wider market, such as website apply, interview scheduling, etc.), Cielo anticipates that in future more of its clients will leverage Cielo’s HVRPO platform (with programmatic advertising, mobile apply and assessments, automated matching, interview scheduling, and offers/onboarding) to drive the hiring process.

The “Experience Marketing” experience

Successful hiring requires a talent attraction strategy (making use of EB services) along with candidate sourcing. Cielo’s clients have embraced what Cielo calls Talent Magnetism (recognizing the importance of websites, campaigns, social media, and EVP in the TA process). The next phase is Experience Marketing (focused on EB and communications), which tailors marketing and communications to the stakeholder (the client, hiring manager, candidate, and employee team member). 

What’s next?

Cielo has reimagined and redefined its RPO offering, but what will be next? With the global skills shortage worsening, the blurring of the lines between permanent and contingent hiring to secure talent to deliver a business outcome may no longer be enough. It is already apparent, with the accelerating sophistication of technology/tools, that the current workforce is not sufficiently digitally capable to embrace the tech-driven workplace of the future.

If the required talent cannot be bought or borrowed, then it will need to be built. Organizations have the choice to seek expert help from both recruitment and learning outsourcing vendors, but as seen with TTA, why would you leverage multiple providers to source talent when one provider could be more efficient, effective and cheaper (especially when the available talent plays in both pools)? Savvy RPO, MSP and TTA vendors could become Talent Management experts, blurring the lines between talent acquisition and talent development. Cielo aims to become a “Talent Outcomes and Talent Experience” company. Does that mean it will further reimagine and redefine its portfolio and become a Talent Management vendor? 

Earlier this month, Allegis Global Solutions (AGS) launched the QUANTUM Platform™ to the U.S. market.  QUANTUM is a workforce acquisition (WA) framework comprising a total talent strategy, a sourcing methodology, and a technology platform all in one. 18 months in the making, the idea was initiated about a decade ago, as discussions began around the roadblocks associated with having separate RPO and MSP programs and data/information stored in disparate systems. While WA programs and tech/tools ecosystems have evolved significantly since 2008, throw in the worsening global skills shortage and it becomes blatantly clear that a new approach to acquiring talent was badly needed…. hence QUANTUM, which consists of:

• QUANTUM Strategy: to help clients fill jobs and get work completed in the most efficient/effective way
• QUANTUM Methodology: AGS’ proprietary workforce acquisition methodology, providing clients with a single-entry point to all types of workers (permanent, temps, contractors, freelancers/gig workers, and consultants) via the QUANTUM Platform, with advisory support from AGS in how to best go about leveraging those workers to get work done
• QUANTUM Platform: sits across all other technology platforms and uses AI/ML, underpinned by its analytics, to bring together all types of talent from other sources into one place.

Here, I take a pragmatic view of QUANTUM based on what is generally happening in the marketplace around WA frameworks and my recent demo of the QUANTUM platform. The strategy of “getting work done” is one of the hottest talking points for vendors at contingent workforce events at present, with a few of the key vendors established in the MSP and RPO space currently developing a WA framework to address the issues described above.

The associated methodologies applied to help clients get work done are unique to each vendor: a reflection of the vendors’ history, their strengths/expertise, and the challenges faced by/needs of their clients from a geographic, industry, size, skills, and outsourcing maturity perspective. The methodologies aim to give clients a number of options for how to get the work done based on insights from the vendors’ unique data, associated analytics (via a platform), and the vendors’ internal experts (consulting).

QUANTUM Platform

Talent platforms like QUANTUM Platform enable a hiring manager (HM) view, a supplier view, and the program office view. When each new talent platform emerges, though, there is an expectation that it will leverage some of the latest technology features/functionality available. QUANTUM Platform does not disappoint from that perspective. Features include:

• Ability for a HM to search for talent by carrying out a people search (like window shopping) or load in a job description
• Elastic search (enhanced AI matching and stack ranking) by matching candidate skills with those skills necessary to perform the open positions. Elastic search also allows HMs to view stack ranked candidates based on skills and experiences. Candidates are sourced from different talent clouds:
  • Supplier contractor talent cloud
  • Redeployed contractors (who have come out of an assignment ready to go elsewhere)
  • Client-sourced talent cloud (retirees, alumni, veterans, interns, etc.)
  • Freelancer talent cloud
  • Service provider consultants (SOW and service procurement)
  • Full-time candidates (from an ATS, silver/bronze candidates)
  • Existing employees (full-time employees who can assist on project work, who are searching for a new internal career opportunity)
• Ability for AGS to save time at the face-to-face intake meeting (with automated search results enabling a slate of talent to be in front of the HM the same day, at least a 50% reduction over the standard process)
• Ability to fill jobs more quickly (trials to date showing a 65% reduction in time to fill on average). 50% of roles have been filled with talent sourced from the QUANTUM Platform, 50% have eventually gone out to competitive bid
• Underpinned by sophisticated data/analytics:  
  • For example, QUANTUM’s data might show that a local software developer has an average time to fill of 34 days, but there is a qualified freelancer in another market who has just become available and can start immediately. AGS can leverage that freelancer and alert the HM to engage the person immediately (the freelancer being a resource that the HM would never even have considered previously)
  • QUANTUM’s market data (comprising supply and demand data, predictive analytics about location, job market, competitor intelligence) is used to provide a hiring scale to indicate hiring difficulty: focusing on potential candidates, positions currently posted and average post duration. If a particular market has a higher score (more difficult to fill), then AGS consults with the HM to see if they can adjust the skills (to make it easier to get more candidates), or choose a different recruitment channel (use a retiree rather than a traditional temporary worker, etc.) or a different location/relocation
• Ratings for candidates (given by HMs for work done):
  • Creating better matched quality opportunities for candidates
  • Building up a database of good/better performing candidates for HMs to leverage
  • Enabling suppliers to review HMs’ selection and buying behavior:  seeing which of their candidates are showing up most in searches, and which are more successfully placed in certain clients over others
• Automatic Alerts:
  • Notifications for HMs to alert them when new relevant talent enters the talent clouds, omitting supplier spam, as only the top candidates are presented (based on ratings given)
  • Suppliers receive frequent updates on the status of their candidates submitted (in the hiring process, or if a candidate has become inactive due to a lack of activity on their profile) as well as general alerts (when the rights to represent candidates is close to expiring or an assignment is ending).

AGS’ Support in QUANTUM Methodology/Strategy

All vendors operating in the outsourced TA space are improving their internal expertise/capability to some extent in a bid to gain competitive edge in the race to find talent.  The initiatives embraced to do this vary from vendor to vendor, aligned to their strengths and the desire to exceed their clients’ expectations. AGS’ recruiters bring a more proactive consultative approach, based on their experience/skills learned, which includes:

• Approximately ten years’ recruitment experience and seven years in professional recruiting roles managing all aspects of the hiring cycle
• Expertise in sourcing, experience with consultancy advice
• Analytical skills to understand the business intelligence data/search for market data to advise the hiring manager (HM) accordingly
• Strong consultative/communication skills to work well with the HMs and the suppliers (ensuring their recruiters are sourcing and pipelining the right types of talent), working to hiring plans and having the confidence to advise on adjusting hiring plans/sources of talent according to the market situation
• A partnership approach: moving away from a siloed approach to filling roles (permanent or contractor)/going on gut feeling, to finding the best route forward (any sourcing channel mix to reduce time to fill/increase quality/tenure) to get work successfully completed
• Initiative to drive their clients to increase the current U.S. national redeployment rates (7%) to save time/money for their clients, (including moving resources between permanent and temporary forms of work.

Future rollout outside the U.S. will be determined by client demand (although AGS perceives the most likely locations next in line will be Europe and APAC). AGS ensures they will meet all the compliance needs in the specific markets first (GDPR, etc.).

Summary

More vendors in the outsourced TA space are adopting a WA framework approach, and this pattern will continue into 2019. Some frameworks are total talent focused, others are permanent or contingent worker focused. Vendors with established frameworks include: Agile One, Alexander Mann Solutions, Cielo, HudsonRPO, KellyOCG, PeopleScout, Resource Solutions, and TAPFIN. Other vendors are currently developing/refining such frameworks. There is no “one-size fits all” WA framework solution. Buyside organizations, cognizant that vendors are taking this WA framework approach to sourcing talent seriously in the best interest of their clients, must still go through a due diligence process to ensure they choose the vendor that is right for them. 

With increasing pressure on organizations to find the best hires, talent acquisition (TA) teams are continuing to grow. And as more Gen Zs are joining the workforce for the first time, so too are the latest generation of virtual assistants or chatbots. Here I look at the early careers and future prospects of Ari and Mya, two virtual assistants currently being used by TA vendors and corporate TA teams.

Ari

Ari from TextRecruit, now a wholly owned subsidiary of iCIMS Inc., is a customizable recruiting chatbot that uses natural language processing and machine learning. Ari has shown potential from the start, has taken on more responsibility over time, and looks set to advance in 2018 and beyond. Ari supports TA teams by interacting/chatting with candidates on their preferred technology (mostly smartphone) by text, live chat and Facebook messenger (via JobChat and TextApply).

The chatbot completes administrative tasks (up to 80% of candidate communications) using the TextRecruit candidate engagement platform for keeping records, which enables robust analytics on hiring patterns or metrics, ensuring latest compliance with data protection. Ari’s expanded responsibilities include working with TextHR (onboarding candidates and improving internal employee engagement) and TextReach (communicating with project resources).

Ari initially supported candidates in ‘deskless’ environments (e.g. healthcare and retail jobs) but has developed knowledge across other jobs and sectors. Ari’s day-to-day tasks include sending job postings to candidates, screening, scheduling candidate interviews, and answering organization-specific questions.

The chatbot also undertakes regular training such as learning organizational information specific to each customer (industry, business unit, location, functions, skill levels, etc.), including any updates to that information. Building on an earlier (2015) integration of TextRecruit with iCIMS via UNIFi, the new 2018 relationship with iCIMS will enable Ari (and TextRecruit) to be a core component of the iCIMS Recruit, Connect and Onboard products, bringing improved candidate engagement and automation capabilities to the market.

Mya

Mya from Mya Systems originally started her career in 2016 by addressing a big issue identified in the recruitment space: candidates not hearing back from potential employers. Mya’s remit from the start was focused on delivering candidate care through quality conversation via text, chat, Skype, WhatsApp and Facebook.

Mya converses with candidates and uses natural language understanding to pick up on details in the conversation. Utilizing AI technology including a deep learning-based multiple intent classifier, named entity extraction (such as company, role, duration, etc.) and sentence semantic analysis, Mya ingests, understands and evaluates a candidate’s responses to a job position's requirements, and can then determine how to proceed, suggest jobs, or schedule an interview.

The chatbot uses Dialog Management to lead the direction of the conversation. As natural conversations are non-linear, Mya can manage multiple states of a conversation and gently guide candidates through an evaluation while continuously processing the current state, action and result. This allows Mya to find meaningful information from the candidate's responses. Mya uses a realization engine to generate text from a syntactic representation, dynamically shift her conversation based on responses, and complete the conversation. Once the conversation is complete, she will send an updated status, updated profile,  and transcript to the client’s applicant tracking system.

Mya is constantly learning from these candidate interactions and can interpret open-ended dialogue via intent recognition – e.g. questions such as ‘Where are you in your career?’ Mya’s linguistic skills have developed rapidly – she can now adapt language to regional/country nuances (such as English/ U.S. English) and to customer preference for tone (formal or more casual language style). If a candidate responds with ‘No problem!’, Mya interprets that as a positive response, not a negative one. While Mya can already support multiple languages (such as Spanish, German, Italian, etc.), she continues to learn nuances about each language to develop her capabilities further.

Mya is also proactive, in that clients can have her reach out to passive candidates in their databases to initiate a conversation about possible interest in a job opportunity rather than waiting for candidates to apply for a role. This has a 90% conversation completion rate.

Initially, Mya supported candidates in the retail, warehousing, food and hospitality industries, but has now expanded to engineering and healthcare. Originally, the emphasis was on screening and scheduling of candidates, but Mya has taken on more responsibility, covering the entire hiring process – pre-application questioning, sourcing, responding to FAQs, delivering application progress updates, giving tips and guidance to candidates, scheduling interviews, providing reminders, alerting candidates when a position has been filled, and even re-deployment. Mya has achieved a 4:1 ratio of applicant to hire, compared to the 10:1 industry average, taking less than 72 hours to get applicants to the interview stage in the process. 

Mya’s future is looking good. Further investment in her training/mentoring will focus on deep learning for her more recently acquired onboarding skills. Mya will continue to work with larger clients, as the demand from larger organizations continues to accelerate.

Summary

The potential for the more well-known digital assistants in the TA space is positive, with both Ari and Mya showing good career progression to date, and their individual development plans look promising.

And the trend for TA virtual assistants looks set to continue. Another example is Olivia from paradox.ai, who delivers screening, scheduling and FAQ support to candidates through the web, mobile platforms, and social channels. She also intelligently provides next steps and routes ‘green light’ candidates to recruiters.

TA virtual assistants are also being developed in-house by recruitment organizations, both by investing in/acquiring third-party technology companies with their own AI expertise, and by hiring AI experts into their own innovation teams to develop digital assistants using a third-party AI platform.

We will see more digital assistants emerging from third-party tech/tools providers and recruitment service providers. But, just as some of the Gen Zs starting their careers in the recruitment space will not make it and drop out, so too will some of their virtual colleagues!

Is your organization already struggling to find the best talent? If so, put yourself in the shoes of a candidate for a moment. Take a look at your organization’s employer branding on your website and social media pages. Do you think candidates would be impressed? Hopefully yes, but many organizations’ employer branding leaves a lot to be desired.

Appealing to all possible candidate personas across all touch points, and ensuring the hiring process is timely, are both critical. Candidate drop-out increases 25% for each week of delay in the recruitment process. And because candidates (for both permanent and contingent work) often have multiple job opportunities in process, they will quickly drop out or decline job offers where hiring processes frustrate them.

However, employer branding is not only about attracting candidates, but about keeping them once they become employees. Here, a digital onboarding process is something that organizations of all sizes can leverage to make a big impression on new hires. Yet 25% of organizations still do not have any formal onboarding process, and this can have serious implications, including:

• Up to 20% employee turnover in the first 45 days
• Employees being 10 times more likely to leave within the first year of employment.

However, where organizations have a structured onboarding process, 65% of new hires are likely to still be employed by the company three years later.

Onboarding for the SMB

Surprisingly, not all the well-known enterprise HCM providers have an onboarding module, but there are plenty of providers that can offer onboarding technology/tools, a snapshot of which I discovered at the UNLEASH HR industry event in London last month.

Sage, focusing on the SMB market, has onboarding as part of a unified approach to attracting and managing talent through its Sage Business Cloud People technology, built on Salesforce app cloud. The platform allows seamless transition from candidate through to employee via a branded onboarding portal. Other features include automated forms, custom workflow management, and new hire onboarding surveys.

The platform is mobile-enabled and accessible from any device, and enables a positive user experience, including clean lines, vibrant colors, dashboard personalization, and swipe-right functionality. A taster of what Sage is offering can be seen by looking at their own onboarding site, covering pre-boarding and the first three months of employment: a good example of a vendor walking the talk with their own product.

Appification enables easy access to onboarding tools

Microsoft’s Dynamics 365 for Talent: Onboard also brings onboarding to organizations via an app which can be integrated into the organization’s existing HR architecture, negating the need for replacement of legacy HCM technology. Once candidates accept a job offer, they can access the Onboard platform and use step-by-step checklists (e.g. for background checks, form-filling), see organizational information in a central repository (e.g. training resources, organisation charts, and tips to navigate different departments), and link to cross-functional teams with detailed contact information. Templates for documents can be created, replicated, and modified. Other content, such as location maps, local attraction guides, and public transport timetables can be added.

Meanwhile, hiring managers and recruiters can monitor progress on which tasks have been completed by new hires.

Digital onboarding case study

At the UNLEASH event, a practical case study of embracing digital onboarding was provided by a global information services organization. The organization had a traditional paper-based onboarding program, but its new hires felt disconnected because line managers were not prepared for the new joiners, often with essentials like IT equipment not in place on the first day – a problem identified across all geographical regions.

As part of a wider talent transformation initiative, the organization prioritized the candidate experience. And, in early 2017, it transitioned from paper-based onboarding to using the Oracle Taleo Onboarding Cloud Service. The main features include a new hire portal, electronic forms, validated electronic signatures, automated workflows, a correspondence library, and reporting & analytics.

The organization used online publishing tool Page Tiger to create engaging and interactive content, including videos, infographics, pop-up boxes, and weblinks. Initially, the onboarding program was rolled out in the U.S., the U.K. soon followed, and global roll-out is set to be completed in the first half of 2018.

Lessons learned from the adoption of digital onboarding include:

• Thinking about the big picture and identifying what a great onboarding experience looks like globally
• Embedding onboarding best practice as part of a core set of standards
• Ensuring data compliance
• Giving localized teams more scope to develop specific content for their region/country
• Scaling up any successful localized content to a wider audience in the organization. 

The results so far have been impressive:

• 4,500 onboarding packs automated
• 96% new hire onboarding satisfaction level achieved
• 25% process efficiencies gained by using a single global technology
• 60% improvement in the ‘time to offer acceptance’ metric.

More improvements are planned from H2 2018 onwards. In addition to onboarding, Oracle Taleo Onboarding Cloud Service can be used for internal mobility, cross-boarding and offboarding, and linked to learning plans (by integrating with Oracle Taleo Learn).  It can also be integrated with other enterprise back-office systems.

Summary   

The global talent shortage for both permanent and contingent workers is worsening, candidates increasingly have multiple job opportunities in the pipeline at any one time, and onboarding tools and technologies are more accessible and easier to integrate into existing systems than ever. Given this, there’s no excuse for organizations not to embrace digital onboarding. And if they don’t, there’s a very good chance they’ll be left behind in the war for talent.

One of the things that was very clear from my visit to the UNLEASH HR industry event in London last week was that virtual reality and other interactive tech has arrived in the talent acquisition space in a big way. Here I look specifically at examples of how VR and gamification are having an impact on the candidate assessment process.

Candidate assessment is one of the hot talent acquisition topics for 2018. With the estimated cost of a bad hire being between $25k and $50k, organizations are increasingly looking at assessing candidates for cultural fit to minimize churn, and are turning to VR and other sophisticated assessment tools (incorporating performance analytics) to provide a unique, and often more enjoyable, approach to candidate assessment.

VR tech example: Assense from Actiview

Tech start-up Actiview has created Assense, a ‘fit prediction’ assessment platform, which is tailored for each customer. Customers can choose exactly what they want to assess, including:

• Personality traits
• Cognitive skills such as spatial awareness
• Work-related situations such as problem-solving, coping with change, outside the box thinking
• Integrity (credibility, loyalty, morality)
• Motivation.

Understanding the traits and skills of an organization’s top performing employees can be used as a benchmark to measure against, as well as wider market data from such assessments. For the candidate, it combines a VR tour of the organization they will potentially join (including the people they will meet), followed by a set of tasks/real-life simulations which are presented to the candidate.

Each move the candidate makes (based on what they see, point out, and say) is captured and analysed through deep learning and advanced sensory technology. The candidate is scored against correlations derived from organizational data; algorithms specific to the job, team or organization; and market adjustments. Whilst Assense is currently available as a standalone solution, the roadmap is for it to be integrated with an organization’s core HCM platform.

VR case study: pharmaceutical sector

The advantages that VR can bring to the workplace are illustrated by a case study from the pharmaceutical sector, where it is being used to initially train and later assess employees who are candidates for working on the manufacturing production line.

‘Line clearance’ in pharmaceutical manufacturing requires all traces of a previous production run to be removed before a new production run can begin. Traditionally, training involved the deliberate placement of wrong colour tablets, tablet debris, excess tablet foils, insufficient numbers of vials, etc. onto/under the production line in the hope that the trainee would correctly identify all faults/problems. This meant costly down-time (often 2-5 hours for training with line clearances either end of the training run) and was subject to biases by the trainer (e.g. setting up faults in similar positions on the production line).

The introduction of training using VR requires no down-time, enables three levels of training to be created (problem-spotting becoming getting progressively more difficult with each level), and enables ROI within four months. Lessons learned include:

• With initial reluctance by the workforce to try something new, the organization had to promote the advantages of moving to such technology
• Quality of VR headsets – a delay in playback caused nausea amongst participants, so top-quality headsets had to be sought to eliminate this effect
• The importance of optimizing realism (i.e. likeness to real production line conditions) to guarantee desired learning outcomes
• Striking the right balance between serious learning and fun.

Gamified candidate assessments

Gamified assessments are also now more common, using proven psychometric tools enhanced with game-style elements to make them more engaging. An example is cut-e’s smartPredict and chatAssess pre-hire assessment tools, which predict likely performance in job roles.

cut-e asked candidates to use and provide feedback on their mobile-enabled tests in order to understand what they liked and disliked. Likes included completing challenges, unlocking levels, receiving instant feedback, interactivity, fun assessments, and being taken seriously as a candidate. Dislikes included assessments being ‘too gamey’ (e.g. unprofessional/inappropriate and poor sound effects/visual effects).

smartPredict includes assessments for logical reasoning (switchChallenge), numeracy (digitChallenge), complex planning (motionChallenge) and executive attention (gridChallenge). The assessments are typically six minutes in length and measure different levels of capability.

chatAssess tests a candidate’s situational judgment, and has a 98% completion rate based on 35k assessments to date. Candidates receive incoming instant messages from different ‘colleagues’, with specific questions or requests for advice. In real-time, they select a text message response from predefined replies. chatAssess reacts to this and sends back another message from that colleague. Different colleagues will usually be facing different issues or challenges, and the candidate has to prioritize the various tasks and manage their commitments. chatAssess is used by cut-e’s customers to support early screening for graduate and apprentice recruitment.

Summary

During 2017, many talent acquisition professionals were sceptical about the value that VR and gamification could bring to the talent acquisition assessment space, and wanted to see how the market would evolve before committing to using the associated tools/tech.

With more providers having already launched VR and gamified candidate assessment platforms backed up with sophisticated psychometric analytics, talent acquisition professionals need to start embracing such tools/tech in 2018 to avoid being left behind.

Most organizations have probably struggled to find talent at some point, with some roles being particularly problematic to fill; cybersecurity being one recent example. Some organizations have applied desperate approaches to get hold of scarce talent, including hiking up new starter salaries (often at the detriment of those already in the wider team/breaching equal pay legislation), lowering the bar (taking in candidates lacking relevant experience/skills), and offering retention bonuses to persuade would-be leavers to stay.

These strategies rarely work. To take the examples above, existing employees become disgruntled when they find out that new hires are earning more; mismatched candidates ultimately leave (employee or employer choice); and employees who have already decided to leave will usually only stay for the minimum period required to benefit from the retention bonus. Making the assumption that organizations will be able to continue to successfully find talent by continuing as they have always done, will lead to talent acquisition (TA) failure.

Organizations need to think differently about TA, whilst still being true to their core values...

Question the Status Quo: Be More Collaborative

If organizations ask themselves “Can we do TA in a better way?” the answer is probably “Yes”. The responsibility for this, though, does not just lie with the TA team (internal or outsourced) or wider HR team. Whilst the TA/HR teams can develop initiatives around diversity, early career development, STEM, etc., these will not be successful without a collaborative approach from a range of stakeholders: hiring managers (HMs), procurement, finance, marketing, technology, and so on. The “art” of doing TA involves a personalized candidate experience. Marketing, usually responsible for corporate website content/careers page, needs to take into account the complex talent landscape (multi-generational workforce, social media preference, device preference, etc.) and tailor the organization’s employer value proposition to that varied audience. The success of TA is inter-functionally dependent. Putting it into context: if organizations invest in a third-party TA vendor relationship with the hope of forming a good partnership for finding the best talent, the success of that relationship will depend on whether other functions outside of HR embrace the knowledge and expertise the TA vendor brings.

Experiment

Organizations need to embrace experimentation in TA and not be afraid to fail. The oil and gas industry, for example, typically having a high proportion of babyboomers and Gen X workers coming up for retirement, and not known for being leading edge in TA tech, needs to appeal to a new generation of graduates to meet their talent needs. Some large organizations in the sector have taken themselves out of their comfort zone and leveraged TA tools (video, etc.) on their corporate websites to story tell the benefits that a project-dominated working environment brings: international mobility; teamwork; early responsibility. Deploying a range of strategies for a particular TA assignment, such as advertising on a range of social media sites, with analytics giving insights on to the relative success of the various sites, enables organizations to establish what works well for them, and discard the less successful strategies.

Look at the Big Picture

PESTLE factors intertwined with more types of employment category (permanent, contingent, contractors, gig, etc.), and demand for more timely TA processes require organizations to take a holistic approach to TA: an integrated or total talent approach. Organizations can start by having single talent pools/talent communities of candidates for particular functions/skillsets, etc., rather than having two of each: one for permanent candidates; the other for contingent, contractor or gig candidates (as many candidates may sit in both). With candidates more willing to consider different employment categories, why double the work for the TA/HR function? Where available talent in the market is particularly scarce (for example, ten candidates comprising mostly contractors and a handful of permanent candidates) in a multi-country region, and TA budgets are tight, organizations must have highly collaborative discussions (with TA/HR, HMs, finance and procurement) as to the most cost-effective hiring strategy to deliver the right business outcome. Whilst organizations might prefer permanent employees, if permanent candidates in other countries demand excessive packages to relocate, a cheaper contractor willing to be more internationally mobile or redeployment of an internal employee (creating an easier to hire back-fill) may be an easier and cheaper option. These more collaborative ways of working will negate the need for organizations to revert to out-dated, and soon-to-be illegal (under GDPR) ways of bringing in talent under the radar, behavior typified by a siloed functional mentality (where organizations do not have the full picture of who is working for them).

The challenges faced by organizations in finding the best talent are not going to go away. Those organizations that are reaping the rewards of a successful TA strategy have been embracing collaborative working for a number of years. For them, collaboration really is king.

The RPO market has traditionally been dominated by vendors who were established in the U.S., the U.K., or Australia, the first countries to embrace the concept of RPO. The majority of their clients were large organizations headquartered in those regions, who typically had high-volume permanent hiring requirements, and as those organizations expanded internationally, the RPO vendors also grew their headcount and expanded across the globe.

However, in ‘next generation’ RPO, smaller vendors have emerged with significant capability, allowing them to take on the traditional players. Here I look at three such vendors: PeopleStrong, Accolo, and Singular.

Indian RPO market: PeopleStrong

Significant investment in IT by the Indian government over the past twenty years (coinciding with many global organizations expanding into India to reduce labor costs) has led to the IT sector growing its contribution to India’s GDP from 1.2% in 1998 to ~ 8% in 2017, creating a generation of tech-savvy entrepreneurs. 

It was the desire to be an entrepreneur, a background in HR, a stint in sales, and the recognition that there was a lack of recruitment technology in India, that enabled PeopleStrong’s CEO to secure investment to develop the recruitment software PeopleStrong Alt. 

And while there is now an established population of home-grown millennial talent in technical roles, this group only makes up a small proportion of the workforce needed, making the war for talent as strong in India as it is in the U.S., U.K. and elsewhere. Hence, PeopleStrong has leveraged the opportunity to support organizations in the sourcing of scarce talent.    

However, PeopleStrong finds itself in two opposing worlds: one where the concept of RPO is still relatively new in India, and the evolution of RPO services lags behind that of the mature RPO regions; the other being a world of RPA/AI-driven platforms, disrupting the talent acquisition space.  PeopleStrong’s mobile-enabled and consumerized Alt technology suite comprises a range of HR modules, underpinned by strong analytics/messaging capability, but its Alt Recruit talent acquisition platform offers something distinctive compared to other platforms from more established vendors.  

Currently at least 90% automated, using process bots and chatbots, Alt Recruit should be fully automated in 2018, becoming the first fully-automated recruitment platform available in the market. PeopleStrong has just acquired GrownOut to add a referral platform to its ecosystem, to develop its AI and machine learning capability, which will help it reach its goal of being a fully DIY recruitment platform.

PeopleStrong’s evolving technology and India’s growing demand for RPO services has enabled PeopleStrong to grow exponentially. Whilst it is currently a small vendor compared to the well-established global RPO vendors, it is confident that exponential growth will continue for a few years yet, as long as it continues to innovate. PeopleStong’s Alt technology has made a market impact, with it being sold independently as well as Alt Recruit being used by about 90% of its RPO clients.

The rise of mid-market & niche RPO vendors: Accolo & Singular

As the global skills shortage intensifies, the well-established RPO vendors have increasingly focused on offering their services to the mid-market space in addition to supporting large organizations, with just a handful focusing on smaller clients too. However, it has also enabled other recruitment providers to create a new RPO division or re-invent themselves as niche RPO vendors to make an impact in this market. Two such vendors are Accolo and Singular.

U.S.-centric Accolo has carved out a niche by focusing specifically on the SMB space. Its Elevated RPO service is a complete RPO solution comprising a fully outsourced RPO service underpinned by an unbranded proprietary recruitment platform. It has automated processes for initial sourcing, screening and ranking of candidates, and AI built in to improve automation after every recruiting instance. With many of Accolo’s clients not having a dedicated in-house talent acquisition team or IT team, leveraging a platform which enables visibility of talent data with analytics can be transformational for those clients. This enables organizations who would not otherwise have the capacity to engage with larger RPO providers to access an end-to-end RPO solution.

Singular, established in 2016, is the new managed solutions division of Airswift. Singular focuses on very specific industries: energy (especially oil and gas), process manufacturing, and infrastructure. Working in industry sectors often deemed by potential candidates as unattractive (being dominated by a work culture of long-term projects typically 3 to 10 years in duration), while demanding internationally mobile permanent and contingent workers, Singular is well-positioned to source highly- or niche-skilled workers from across the globe to work on very specific projects. It is adding a different RPO offering to the mix, suited for clients with more transient workforces.

This is just a quick overview of how small RPO vendors are making an impact on the big stage, and the signs are that this will be a continuing trend, with smaller players challenging the big established RPO vendors on several fronts, including geographically, technically, by market size, and by industry sector.

NelsonHall’s HR Services clients can find out more in my latest market analysis report, Next Generation RPO, published in January 2018 – or contact Guy Saunders for further details.

There has been much hype about the growth of the gig economy in the U.K., but when you take a closer look, is it really anything new? And how is it likely to grow and change over the next few years?

According to the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD), March 2017, gig workers are defined as those workers who ‘trade their time and skills through the internet and online platforms’, providing a service to a third party as a form of paid employment. This definition suggests that a gig worker is simply anyone who uses tools and technology (websites, social media pages, freelancer or gig platforms) for self-promotion. But since websites and social media have already been around for at least a decade, this definition doesn’t help much. A gig is usually a single project or task (of short duration from a few hours to days) for which a worker is hired on demand: but haven’t freelance workers using the aforementioned tools and technology been doing this for years?

Of the 32m in work in the U.K. (ONS, July 2017), the CIPD estimates that there are ~ 1.3m people (4%) working in the gig economy. However, CIPD’s research suggests that 58% of gig economy workers (754k) are permanent employees engaging in gig economy activity on top of their more ‘traditional’ employment, indicating that this type of work is used to top-up income. Topping up income by having a second job is nothing new, though. That leaves 546k (1.6% of the working population) – maybe these are the real gig workers?

Is there any evidence of growth of the gig economy in the U.K.?

Paid employment (full- or part-time) remains by far the most dominant working model in the U.K., accounting for 81.9% of those in work (26.2 m). Paid employment has only dropped 1.6% (from 64.6%) in the last twenty years (most notably after the last recession), so this indicates that there is more appetite for secure work with regular income and employment rights. Zero-hours contracts (ZHCs), a form of paid employment with limited employment rights, are usually used for piece work or on-call work and represent the working model for 2.8% of those in work. The majority of ZHCs are for part-time work, with 20%-30% being either the 16-24 age group or in education, and are often taken as a life-style choice to fit around other commitments. ZHC work seems to bear the closest similarity to gig work (excluding the contractual benefits afforded under ZHC work), because of the element of choice in whether the job-holder accepts or rejects the work offered at any point in time.

In terms of the remaining working-age population, self-employment currently represents about 15%.  Self-employment was 12% at the start of the last recession, so has only grown by 3% over the past nine years. The rise in self-employment following the 2008 recession may be attributed to the higher unemployment rate which resulted in the years following. About 3% of the working-age population (~1.6 m) are agency temps (REC, 2017), this number increasing following periods of recession and falling when employment opportunities pick up – a pattern demonstrated since 1997. Potential evidence of gig work in this population may arise as workers initially embark on self-employment, when work is likely to be more sporadic.

18.1% of the working-age population are not employed, and this has changed very little as a proportion over the past ten to twenty years. Made up of a mix of students, stay-at-home carers, the long- and short-term sick, retirees, etc., ~76% do not want a job, but the rest would like to work. This 24% may represent another cluster who could embrace gig work.

In summary, the more traditional ways of working in the U.K. have changed very little since 1997, and where there is some evidence of gig work being undertaken, it seems like the majority has been to create secondary income, though there are smaller pockets of the population (ZHC workers, self-employment start-ups, etc.) who more closely match the common perception of gig workers.

Could the Taylor Review boost the gig economy by 2020?

The CIPD suggests that the gig economy will continue to grow, with 12% of U.K. working-age adults who have not participated in gig economy activity during 2016/17 saying they are thinking about doing so in 2017/18. Is this going to be more of what we have already witnessed, or will other factors come into play?

The aim of the Taylor Review, published July 2017, was to make recommendations to the U.K. Government on how current working practices should change to give workers greater flexibility, rights and protections. If the changes are embraced, the U.K. may see growth in the gig economy. The review’s specific recommendations include:

• Redefining ‘workers’ as ‘dependent contractors’ and giving them maximum flexibility about how they go about work, whilst being afforded baseline rights (such as having a written statement as a dependent contractor, receiving the National Minimum Wage, following piece rates legislation, etc.)
• Alignment of employment status and tax law
• Incentivizing employers to rely less on last-minute scheduling of ZHC workers/agency temps by getting employers to offer certainty of hours/income, so ensuring flexibility can benefit both parties
• Extending the pay reference period for calculating baseline benefits and rights from 12 to 52 weeks for calculating holiday entitlement for those on ZHCs
• Increasing the permissible break in employment to be one month, not one week, for those on ZHCs for determining continuous employment
• In employment tribunals, the burden of proof should be on the employer to prove that the employee is not entitled to the relevant employment rights, rather than the employee having to prove a right to receive them.

Whilst the Taylor Review made other recommendations affecting the future of work, if the recommendations listed above are actioned by the U.K. Government, then increasing proportions of the U.K. workforce may take up the gauntlet as ‘dependent contractors’ and enter the gig economy.

I have doubts as to whether the recommendations will be actioned quickly, and don’t expect that by 2020 there will be much difference in the proportion of the U.K. workforce engaged in the gig economy.  If employment status/employment models changed by only a few percentage points in the last twenty years, it’s certainly questionable whether there will be much change in the next two and a half years.

There is so much hype around RPA and AI technology that RPO, MSP, and Total Talent vendors could get carried away in the race to launch the latest RPA or AI technology feature at the expense of delivering excellent customer service. 

Cielo has a more grounded approach to technology, suggesting that “Technology is only as valuable as the human experience it improves” and is reflected in its current technology strategy to improve customer service. Here I take a look at Cielo’s TalentCloud, which comprises 3 elements: SkyRecruit, SkyAnalytics and SkyLabs.

SkyRecruit

SkyRecruit is Cielo’s CRM platform. Launched in 2015, it has been rolled out to all its global clients and is Cielo’s operating engine, with the advantages of its employees being able to work with different clients using a common platform.  Having a choice of 13 modules, its two most popular modules are sourcing and events. Candidate nurturing is one module which Cielo sees as essential for building candidate engagement. Whilst there are core modules, the majority are taken up by clients once they are ready to do so according to their business needs. Cielo has recently enhanced SkyRecruit in several ways.

Firstly, Cielo has introduced a process bot for automated sourcing. This is particularly effective where there are high recruitment volumes, such as in retail. The process bot finds a high number of suitable candidates and uploads those details into SkyRecruit – a process now taking one minute compared to 15 minutes by a human. Candidates are automatically sent jobs of interest to them, candidates can engage with a recruiter and move through the hiring process. Whilst talent pools can then be created by the process bot, the real value comes in how the process bot organizes the talent pools and communicates with candidates on an ongoing basis through social media, etc. taking into consideration candidate preferences for working with certain client brands.

Secondly, Cielo has introduced Celia, its intelligent job search chat bot. Celia starts a conversation with a candidate to find out what type of job/location they are looking for, and then can pinpoint relevant jobs and answer questions from candidates. If the chat bot cannot answer a specific question, it then escalates the question to a human recruiter to engage in the conversation.  Celia learns the answer from the escalated question, so that next time the same question arises, Celia can answer it. Celia will never replace humans, but will answer an increasingly complex range of questions, releasing humans to focus on more value-add activities.   

Thirdly, Cielo has introduced assessment as part of the hiring process. This includes DISC profiling. As soon as a candidate applies for a role, a series of questions is asked (taking just over two minutes of candidate time), the answers to which build up a DISC profile of the candidate. Suitable jobs are sent to the candidate, based on their results. For example, a candidate with a “high D” profile would be advised of sales roles. For customer service roles, assessment focuses on emotion recognition to determine how well candidates can read its potential customers.

As SkyRecruit is mobile-enabled, candidates can apply via smartphone. A candidate can go through all stages of the hiring process in one transaction – be sent a job, apply and go through a series of assessment questions (DISC, emotion recognition, etc.) and be screened by an interviewer. Using voice tools gives a 75% application completion rate compared to a 30% completion rate when using video interviewing as part of its hiring process. Currently, feedback on performance is given to the candidate by the recruiter. The aim in the future is to automate the entire process.

SkyAnalytics

This is a relatively new addition to Cielo’s portfolio, and has already had a major enhancement – now built on the Birst platform – which is being rolled out to its clients. All client data, irrespective of its source, is visible on one platform.  But rather than Cielo presenting a plethora of graphs in a single view, bombarding the client with too much information, it has had a re-think. Cielo now only presents the key measures that are important to a client, yet has built more depth into the analytics, so that a client can drill down into those key measures. The data shows where the hiring manager and recruiter need to focus their efforts to enhance hiring performance.

SkyLabs

SkyLabs is the formalization of Cielo’s researching and testing of new tools and technologies in the areas of RPA, AI, natural language processing, etc. The features already discussed have come via SkyLabs. Cielo is learning as it innovates and monitors items which impact progress. For example, RPA requires stable technology systems and volume process repetition, so if a client decides to change its ATS after 3 months, it has an impact on the progress of RPA. Cielo is also looking at micro-automations, where simple process steps are automated. Cielo’s employees are at the heart of this automation. The process bot can learn from videos of Cielo’s employees completing talent acquisition tasks, such as uploading a file. Processes that can be replaced by automation free up Cielo’s employees to undertake roles that add more value to its clients. Cielo has also made some progress in the use of voice interfaces with the Amazon Echo. Cielo can ask Alexa a range of questions about the talent acquisition process, such as the number of interviews booked on a particular day of the week.

Cielo’s commitment to continuous improvement is demonstrated by sharing its Cielo TalentCloud three-year roadmap with clients. This allows clients to see other interesting developments scheduled, and while Cielo continues to focus on improving processes, candidate experience, hiring manager experience, etc., clients can be assured that Cielo will maintain its focus on providing a personal touch.

By Nikki Edwards & Gary Bragar

In recent industry discussions around talent acquisition, we have identified a number of interconnected trends that are having a significant impact on talent acquisition markets. Here, we take a look at three key trends, and at how HRO vendors in the talent acquisition space are responding.

Socio-economic trends

An ageing, yet multi-generational workforce made up of Baby boomers, Generation X, Generation Y/Millennials and Generation Z (all of whom have different views on how they should work), is complicating the war for talent: it is no longer just focused on permanent hires and contingent workers, but incorporates more complex models such as Statement of Work (SOW), Independent Contractors (ICs)/Freelancers, and the rise of the ‘gig economy’ (where an individual may be working on multiple gigs at any one time).

Vendors are responding by focusing on creative pooling for talent acquisition outsourcing (both RPO and MSP), looking across gender, diversity, veterans, alumni, women returners, university, sectors, geographies, skills, etc. Some MSP vendors are offering services procurement management solutions (managing SOW, ICs, direct sourcing), and offering services around clients’ employer value proposition, and strategic workforce planning, to attract talent.

Talent acquisition trends driven by market maturity

The availability of larger corporations with whom to initially engage in talent acquisition outsourcing is nearing saturation point in the mature markets of U.S., U.K., much of Europe, and Australasia.  These corporations, having been the first to consider talent acquisition outsourcing , are now three or four generations into an outsourcing model and no longer offer the growth opportunities they once did. Consequently, new opportunities lie in the mid-market space, and in newer territories (Latin America, Malaysia, China, etc.).

Cost savings made in first generation contracts are more difficult to achieve in subsequent generation contracts. Eking out further cost savings has led buyers to seek ‘total talent management’ (using one provider to manage all talent acquisition, rather than two separate providers for RPO and MSP) or more blended/tailored models (by geography, industry, business function, etc). However, with the levels of cost savings in decline, being innovative and adding value become the key drivers.

Vendors are responding by:

• Shifting towards the mid-market space and/or new territories
• Shifting towards total talent acquisition/management or blended/tailored models
• Enhancing client operational effectiveness/program optimization
• Adding extra services (consultation, insights, client engagement, training, high-touch, legal/compliance, security clearance)
• Shifting the focus of metrics to measure the effectiveness of talent acquisition outsourcing services (including rate management, innovation, strategic guidance, quality, diversity, talent retention).

Technology trends

There is no ‘one-size-fits-all’ talent acquisition technology – rather, there’s a plethora of siloed talent technologies (ATS, VMS, FMS, gig platforms, talent pooling) for different segments (RPO, MSP, Freelancers, etc.) developing at different rates and with multiple providers in each segment (some of whom will fall by the wayside). Consequently, there’s a growing trend for talent acquisition outsourcing vendors to become system integrators to access relevant data across many systems. In some cases, they are developing proprietary APIs to sit across different technologies via a single interface to access relevant data across systems. However, there is also a trend among vendors for establishing technology partnerships with providers of the latest talent technology, rather than develop proprietary solutions from scratch.

But, of course, the big technology story in HR is RPA and AI, with cognitive capabilities emerging. Cognitive tools, including IBM Watson Talent, can help recruiters prioritize and work on filling requisitions based on complexity, skill requirements, data from talent systems, how the job was filled in the past, external market insight, and what the talent supply looks like. RPA and analytics/AI are increasingly being applied to MSP and RPO to improve candidate targeting and quality. This includes analysis of candidate profiles on social networks to determine who is more likely to be receptive to solicitations for jobs, and analytics that show which combinations of words in a job posting generate the most response (and linking them to the quality of the candidates who were ultimately hired).

Nikki, Gary, and NelsonHall’s other lead HRO analysts, Amy Gurchensky and Pete Tiliakos, will be keeping you abreast of all major developments in HRO throughout 2017. To find out about NelsonHall’s extensive research plans for HRO in 2017, contact Guy Saunders.