Category: Talent Advisory

Neurodiversity in the Workplace: Expanding Your DE&I Strategy to Include Neurodivergent Talent

Posted on by akessler

By Tim Powell, Managing Director, APAC 

Neurodiversity in the workplace has become a much bigger part of the wider discussion about diversity, equity and inclusion (DE&I) at work over the last decade. While the neurodistinct community still experiences prejudice and misperceptions, the cultural wave of “neuroinclusion” and advocacy is driving a number of companies to change their hiring practices in order to attract cognitively diverse talent.  

Neurodiversity has taught us that diversity and inclusion are about more than age, gender, race, religion and physical ability. DE&I is about ensuring different points of view and different experiences are valued. Indeed, Nancy Doyle, an organizational psychologist and neurodiversity advocate, argues we’re all differently abled in some way. We all have different experiences and perspectives that we bring to the table. 

In this article, I’ll explore what embracing neurodiversity in the workplace means for employers and offer some practical advice for creating a neuroinclusive environment.  

What is Neurodiversity? 

Judy Singer, an Australian sociologist, coined the term neurodiversity in 1998 to promote “a political and civil rights movement” for the advancement of “neurological outsiders.” The term refers to the concept that everyone experiences and interacts with the world around them differently. A neurodivergent person’s brain may work in a different way than the average “neurotypical” person. They may have unique ways of learning, communicating, socializing or perceiving their surroundings. 

An estimated 15% to 20% of the world’s population exhibits some form of neurodivergence. While neurodiversity is often used in the context of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and Asperger’s syndrome, many conditions fall under the neurodivergent umbrella, including ADHD, dyslexia, dyspraxia, Down syndrome, Tourette syndrome, and even mental health conditions like bipolar disorder, OCD and social anxiety. However, people with these conditions may also choose not to identify as neurodivergent. 

Research Report

Identifying Recruitment Pitfalls to Improve DE&I Outcomes

Read the Report

Why Neurodiversity in the Workplace is Important 

We all understand by now that diversity at work improves business performance, and neurodiversity in the workplace is no different. While some neurodivergent traits, like difficulty with organization or sensory issues, pose challenges in traditional work settings, neurodivergent people have unique strengths that offer myriad benefits to employers. 

Neurodiverse professionals often have special skills in pattern recognition, analysis, mathematics and more. In fact, neuroinclusion is strongly tied to innovation. Cognitively diverse teams, consisting of both neurodivergent and neurotypical employees, are more creative, make better decisions and solve problems more efficiently.  

They’re also more productive. According to Deloitte, research suggests that teams that include neurodivergent professionals can be 30% more productive than those without neurodivergent members. Through their Autism at Work program, JP Morgan Chase has found that cognitively diverse employees are 90% to 140% more productive than neurotypical employees and make fewer errors. 

A diagram of what neurodiversity brings to the workplace
Source: Genius Within

In her TED Talk, “The world needs all kinds of minds,” autism activist and prominent animal behaviorist Temple Grandin says, without autism “there’d be no more Silicon Valley, and the energy crisis would not be solved.” In our world of technological advancements and automation, the advantages of neurodiversity in the workplace have never been greater. 

Neurodivergent Candidates: An Untapped Talent Pool 

Despite these benefits, neurodivergent people are far more likely than neurotypical people to struggle with unemployment. It’s estimated that as many as 85% of college-educated autistic adults struggle with unemployment in the United States. According to the Office for National Statistics (ONS), just 21.7% of autistic people in the UK are employed and are the least likely to be in work of any other disabled group. In Australia, 70% of new starters with disabilities do not survive the probation period and 65% of Australian businesses are unsure how to access this pool of workers. 

Neurodivergent individuals can sometimes struggle with interpreting nonverbal cues, facial expressions or tone of voice. Sometimes this means they display what may be considered inappropriate behavior for the workplace, like excessive honesty or difficulty maintaining eye contact. This runs contrary to what many corporate cultures think make a good employee—having good communication skills, emotional intelligence and relationship building capacity. 

Most hiring processes are built for neurotypical candidates. Whether we’re conscious of it or not, interviews tend to focus on evaluating social skills and confidence. This may be relevant for some job roles but may not be a genuine need for others. This puts some neurodivergent applicants at a great disadvantage, particularly when high emotional intelligence isn’t required for success in the role.  

In the next section, I offer some practical changes you can make to your hiring program and recruitment processes to support the success of neurodivergent talent. 

“Inclusion is a social, moral and economic imperative. We all lose when human potential is squandered.”

Dr. Nancy Doyle, CEO and Founder, Genius Within CIC 

How to Foster Inclusion for Neurodiversity in the Workplace 

So, how can you make your workplace more neuroinclusive and create a recruitment process that ensures neurodiverse candidates are more likely to be successful? Here are some tips: 

Make Neurodiversity Part of Wider DE&I Strategy 

At the vast majority of organizations, hiring people with disabilities or cognitive differences is often a sporadic initiative rather than a structured program. To achieve success, it can’t be a pet project of HR or any one person. Rather it should become a part of your larger workplace DE&I initiative. 

Objectives 

The first step in building out a sustainable neurodiversity hiring strategy is to be clear on your objectives. It could be to support corporate social responsibility with an inclusiveness focus; to access a wider talent pool in a tight labor market; or to enhance workforce efficiency and effectiveness. Whatever the objectives, the whole organization must buy into the program and have the right expectations. So, communicate your goals and objectives widely and secure strong, visible and consistent support from senior leadership.  

Audience 

Often, we see that organizations don’t think through how a person with a disability might perform their duties. When organizations define a talent persona for each job type, and target those individuals from the outset, employees are much more successful. This in an opportunity to test your assumptions about job roles and explore the impact if an employee didn’t certain skills. Your selection criteria must be justifiable and define what is essential to succeed in the role. 

Once you’re clear on the skillsets you’re looking for in each role, targeting the audience becomes easier. To help with sourcing neurodiverse candidates, you might consider seeking help from an outside partner who can help you think through the art of the possible and drive informed choices. 

Train 

Education and diversity training in advance of a neurodivergent colleague starting, or in the very early stages of onboarding is important to ensure they’re successful in their new role. Talking to managers and other team members about the characteristics and preferences of a neurodiverse person is entirely appropriate if it’s done in a way that is sensitive to that individual’s privacy and dignity. In fact, it’s critical these conversations take place, so your teams understand in advance what they can expect with their new colleague. For example, throwing a person with autism into a group meeting and asking them to say something about themself is likely not going to be a comfortable experience for them. If managers know this ahead of time, they can make informed decisions about how to introduce their neurodiverse new hire to the team. Moreover, when employees know that their new neurodiverse co-worker may not make eye contact, they’re less likely to take it personally.  

Rethink Your Recruitment Process 

One reason I’ve seen neurodiversity in the workplace fail is because the recruitment process is not sufficiently tailored to the needs of neurodivergent candidates. The focus must be on assessing basic competencies and characteristics as well as a candidate’s capacity and willingness to learn, rather than how well they interview or even their previous job experience (as neurodivergent candidates often have less employment history).  

I caught up with our UK-based Assessment Design team, comprised of organizational psychologists, to understand more about how they’re helping clients create more equitable assessment experiences. They shared that because the interview and assessment process can often be complex—varying by role and company—there is no “silver bullet” and each situation should be addressed on a case-by-case basis, especially since many neurodivergent people are undiagnosed or may choose not to reveal their diagnosis to potential employers. 

Interviews 

Interviews in particular can be a challenging prospect for neurodiverse candidates. While most organizations won’t eliminate interviews altogether, they shouldn’t be the only consideration. They should be balanced with other evaluation techniques, and, for candidates who require adjustments, you might consider weighting interviews so they count for less in the overall candidate appraisal.  

Prepare to offer reasonable adjustments for the recruitment process as neurodivergent candidates in particular will likely need to deviate from established processes. This could mean changing the location or of an interview or allowing for a screen reader during an online assessment exam. Another example of an adjustment is to put the interview question into the chat during virtual interviews to make the experience more accessible. Keep in mind that any adjustments you make for the recruitment process should be adjustments you’re prepared to offer in the workplace as well.  

At PeopleScout, we provide experienced assessors who can act as a neutral third-party in interviews which can help to reduce bias in the scoring. 

Blended Assessments 

The PeopleScout Assessment Design team recommends a blended assessment approach consisting of multiple styles of question, allowing candidates different ways to show their potential. These blended assessments have the added benefit of giving candidates a realistic preview of what the role and organisational culture is like. For example, for a large international airport, the bespoke 1XP experience we created an immersive experience in which security officer candidates had complete various tasks, including “spotting the difference” between images, to test their ability to catch potential security issues in the airport.  

Communication 

Regardless of whether candidates have requested adjustments or not, should always clearly communicate with candidates the steps of the recruitment process, what’s expected of the candidate at each stage and what’s coming up next. All candidates appreciate this, but neurodivergent candidates in particular may benefit knowing what to expect upfront. 

Adjust the Working Environment 

Beyond experiencing issues with workplace etiquette, neurodiverse employees often struggle with sensory challenges, like sensitivity to light or sound. Modern office environments with open floor plans or noisy warehouses or shop floors can prevent neurodiverse employees from being successful in their work. 

Consider offering flexible seating arrangements, quiet places for breaks or noise cancelling headphones. When feasible, remote work is a great option for some neurodivergent employees. Be prepared to adjust lighting or make adaptations to a neurodiverse employee’s workstation. Even changing a uniform to have a softer fabric can make all the difference for a neurodiverse worker. For employees with learning disabilities, assistive technologies, like screen readers, or video trainings can help them complete onboarding modules and job tasks.  

There is no one-size-fits-all approach here. Just like neurotypical people, disabled and neurodiverse employees each have their own unique requirements and preferences for maximizing their productivity. 

Consider Career Paths 

Taking a long-term view of the development of disabled and neurodiverse employees is key to continued success of your program. One idea is to give neurodivergent employees a “buddy” or mentor that they’re comfortable with—outside of their direct manager. Having this extra person checking in on them is invaluable in retaining neurodiverse employees beyond the first three to six months. 

It’s also important that organizations engage with their disabled and neurodiverse employees directly about what support they need and how they feel about their experience. Sometimes employers are uncomfortable asking those questions, but people with disabilities generally want to engage and are open to talking about what support they require. Of course, these conversations should happen in a way that honors the employee’s privacy and dignity.  

Conclusion 

My experience tells me that making disability and neurodiversity part of your DE&I strategy isn’t easy. If it was, more organizations would be further down the path. But it is worthwhile, not only to meet societal expectations, but because it makes good business sense. Start small, build confidence and scale. Neurodiversity in the workplace is a wonderful journey if you’re committed to it and plan appropriately. 

How to Scale Candidate Engagement for Total Talent Acquisition 

Posted on by akessler

By Mark Fita, Global Vice President of Implementation 

An extensive amount of time and energy is put into candidate engagement, as candidate-centricity continues to dominate in a labor market of inverted supply and demand. However, the engagement strategy often focuses solely on full-time hiring. But why?  

Contingent labor is critical for responding to the fluctuating supply and demand of today’s talent market. Many organizations have increased contingent labor spend to decrease costs and increase liquidity amongst our uncertain economic environment. A total talent acquisition strategy—encompassing both full-time and contingent workers—helps organizations reduce agency costs and improve fulfillment to meet the most critical business demands. 

In our recent study, Inside the Candidate Experience 2023 Report, we found that just two in 10 candidates rate their most recent recruitment experience as positive. Candidate ghosting, long application processes, and long delays in between hiring steps have become the norm.  Clearly, organizations must improve how they’re engaging with candidates to improve outcomes across all their hiring programs.  

Keep reading to explore the differences between the permanent and contingent candidate journey, and to learn how investing in candidate engagement as part of total talent acquisition strategy improves recruitment outcomes.

A Tale of Two Candidate Journeys: Permanent and Contingent Workers

Let’s take a look at the recruitment processes for permanent and contingent workers.

Recruitment process workflows for both permanent employers and contingent workers

The strategies for engaging with and acquiring both permanent and contingent talent are often siloed.  

Typically, Procurement leaders oversee contingent labor spend, while talent acquisition leaders look after full-time hiring. Contingent hiring is also sometimes decentralized, with hiring managers taking responsibility for their own departmental hiring. The two sides are often competing for similar talent, with each side paying a premium to get workers in the door. 

Permanent hiring typically involves thorough vetting with recruiters responsible for moving candidates manually through the process.  

The contingent hiring process includes various stages and handoffs, especially as suppliers pass along the candidate to the hiring manager. 

The Importance of a Total Talent Acquisition Strategy

We often see senior leaders go to their internal stakeholders to plead for 50 or even 100 workers in a particular job type to keep up with growth. Think of software developers, commercial drivers, nurses and more. These leaders are so desperate for talent that often they don’t care about the workers’ classification.  

This makes having a comprehensive total talent acquisition strategy that includes both full-time and contingent labor hiring even more critical. Silos between these recruitment processes result in poor candidate engagement. Full-time and contingent workers end up engaging differently with your brand, leading to ghosting and drop-off—and higher costs for the business. 

While employers understand the importance of the candidate experience, there is still room to grow. Some of the common pitfalls we see are: 

  • Delivering one directional communication to candidates 
  • Not tailoring the outreach and message to different target audiences  
  • Spreading the talent attraction budget too thinly across job boards and aggregators 
  • Not asking for feedback  

Now, let’s contrast that with what candidates want:  

  • A mobile-first experience  
  • Cultural immersion, regardless of worker classification 
  • Job flexibility, including remote work options 
  • A quick and easy application processes 
  • Fewer interviews and shorter assessments 
  • Real-time status feedback (No recruiter phone tag!) 

The Candidate Engagement Pyramid

So, how do you create an engaging candidate experience that gives both full-time hires and gig workers what they want? I like to think of the candidate engagement pyramid: the recruiting process, talent engagement technology and the worker value proposition. 

the candidate engagement pyramid

Why a pyramid? Because each level is built on the one below it. Organizations that focus on one area at the expense of others don’t have a solid foundation for their talent acquisition program.

Streamlining the Recruitment Process

At the base of the pyramid, an optimized recruiting process engages talent every step of the way. Candidates should drive the process and be able to self-progress throughout the recruiting workflow, regardless of whether they’re applying for a permanent or contingent role.

Focus on Your Candidates, Not Your Company

Start by focusing on the targeted talent personas. Your recruitment marketing campaigns and job postings must feature thoughtful messaging that resonates with this audience and highlights what’s in it for them—not just what your organization needs.

Make Your Career Site Work Harder for You

Over 90% of job seekers globally use career sites to search for opportunities. Streamlining your career site to provide more information and eliminate candidate confusion goes a long way to increasing application rates for full-time and contingent roles.

Is your career site easy to navigate? Have you eliminated job duplicity? For example, let’s say a large retailer is hiring across 20 locations in a major metropolitan area. If I apply to one location, will I be considered for all, or do I have to apply to each location separately? Do I need to apply for the part-time role if I already expressed interest in the full-time role? Consider adding FAQ content to your site that answers these types of questions and lays out the process for each job type.

Move to Mobile-First Applications

Next, a mobile-first, quick-apply process is a must-have. Over 90% of candidates have used a mobile device to apply for jobs. Yet less than half of employers are taking advantage of a one-click application tool. When a candidate can complete an application in less than three minutes, completion ratios are as high as 80%.

I recognize there are regulated jobs that require specific information. However, I’d encourage you to work with your legal teams to determine what you must know upfront and what you can move to a screening step or to the formal paperwork in the post-interview or offer phases.

Streamline Interviews

The shelf life of an engaged candidate is short. Phone tag leads to disengagement. If you can’t connect with candidates quickly, they’re gone. Technology is a great way to connect with candidates and speed up the vetting process. You could introduce pre-recorded digital interviews, screening questions delivered and answered by text message, or even automated interview scheduling tools.

The more interviews a candidate must complete the more likely they are to drop out of the process. Obviously, if you’re looking for a senior executive, they need to be thoroughly vetted. However, a panel interview for a hospitality worker wouldn’t make sense, so make sure your recruitment stages match the type of role.

Make Faster Decisions

Close the candidate. Today’s competitive market requires you to make fast decisions.

If your candidate is “the one,” make them feel special and respect their time. Candidates will not wait for you, so get the offer paperwork out quickly.

candidate engagement for contingent workers

Leveraging Technology for Total Talent Engagement

Talent engagement technology is closely tied to the recruitment process. The right tools at the right point in your process can further streamline the candidate journey and prove that you value their time.

Here are some examples of how our clients leverage technology to improve their recruitment process.

  • Full-Time Candidate Journey
    Raquel submits a three-minute application via her mobile phone and receives an automated text-based assessment. Built using natural language processing, the assessment deems her a good fit against the scoring rubric. Raquel then gets a text with a link to self-schedule an in-person interview with a hiring manager as soon as two hours later. This entire process takes about 15 minutes. Raquel has an offer by the end of the day.
  • Contingent Candidate Journey
    Mario is a contractor who has worked on an assignment at your company before. He received glowing reviews and prefers short-term assignments due to the flexibility it offers him and his family. Your company has an advanced direct-sourcing platform that manages all current and former workers. This makes it easy and fast for Mario to find and apply for jobs because his information is pre-loaded. Mario was also pre-onboarded through your organization’s preferred supplier for this labor category. Now he can sign up for a variety of shifts without going through the formal vetting process.

Invest in Your Talent Tech Stack for Candidate Engagement

Here are a few tools to consider adding to your talent tech stack to create scenarios like these that will keep your potential full-time and gig workers engaged:

  • Chatbots: Chatbots help candidates submit applications, vet passive talent and even automate some of the screening process. They also support candidates by answering common questions and can even be linked to a standby live resource to assist with queries that fall outside of pre-determined content.
  • Interview Scheduling: Self-scheduling tools help the candidate take charge of their experience by allowing them to find interview slots that suit them. It cuts the lengthy back and forth of coordinating calendars, saving time and creating a frictionless experience for candidates, hiring managers and recruiters alike.
  • Digital Interview Tools: There are many options for virtual interviews, including on-demand phone interviews, text interviews as well as live and pre-recorded video interviews. Virtual interviews are mobile-friendly. Plus, they are perfect for remote workers and those with variable work schedules as candidates can record their interview responses when convenient for them.
  • CRMs: CRMs help with regular delivery of relevant communications and content to keep candidates engaged throughout the recruitment process. You can also keep permanent and contingent talent pipelines warm and ensure they’re informed about your latest vacancies and opportunities.
  • Analytics: A talent analytics suite aggregates data to empower you to increase fulfillment, decrease costs and reduce the time it takes to put a worker on the job. There are times when it makes sense to bring on a contractor or someone with less experience who can get trained in the same amount of time it takes to find the ideal permanent candidate. Recruitment analytics provides insights to power decisions like this and increase your agility in a competitive market.

Many providers offer a broad range of capabilities or act as a middle layer that brings together the best-of-breed tools to help you stay ahead. Whether you go with a technology suite or choose to leverage integrations to connect your systems, your selection should support a consistent and compliant set of workflows.

Employer value proposition for total talent acquisition

Expanding Your EVP to Include All Job Roles

Candidates today have greater expectations when it comes to work culture, flexibility, DE&I and pay equity—regardless of their working arrangement. While these expectations carry on well past onboarding, for the purposes of this article we’re going to focus on talent acquisition.

Change Your Perspective

We often talk about the employer value proposition (EVP) and how important it is to sell workers on a company’s proposition. But does yours apply to both your gig workers and permanent employees? Have you formally defined the value proposition for contractors?

Rather than using the term EVP, which implies the value is only experienced by those you employ directly, I like to use Worker Value Proposition (WVP) to make it more inclusive. Your WVP captures the essence of your uniqueness as an employer and the “give and get” between you and your workers—regardless of worker classification.

So, how do you move from EVP to WVP?

  • Boost Your Cultural Inclusion 
    First, make sure that the workers are culturally immersed in your brand. Where applicable, do your contractors get one-on-ones with managers? Are they included in company events and celebrations? Can they join ERGs? What about access to paid time off or flexible schedules? Be mindful that a person’s worker classification doesn’t change the need to do things like dropping off the kids at school, attending doctors’ appointments or running errands.  
  • Create Growth Opportunities
    Demonstrating growth opportunities is a struggle for many employers, for both contractors and employees. Has your organization invested in creating formal career paths for all its departments? Have you mapped out how workers, regardless of labor type, impact the organization and how their skillsets can translate into long-term mobility and growth?
  • Communicate Consistently
    You may be doing some of these things already, but are you communicating it during the recruitment process for both full-time and contingent roles? It’s not enough to tuck it away at the bottom of a job description. We’re helping our clients get more creative in showing their WVP through employee spotlight videos, realistic job previews, community spotlights and more.

One final note, WVP is not just a marketing exercise. The responsibility also sits with talent acquisition. Recruiters are often the first direct point of interaction between talent and your WVP, so make sure they understand their role as brand ambassadors.

Choosing a Total Talent Partner for Better Candidate Engagement

You may find yourself in a position where you need some help from a talent partner to achieve your total talent hiring goals. Here are three key things to look for:  

  1. Look for a partner with a holistic purview of the total talent landscape coupled with demonstrated success in hiring in your required labor categories. A partner should be prepared with the right market intelligence to map your talent personas against your talent market and identify, engage with, attract, and retain the talent that you need.  
  2. Your partner should have a tech stack that brings the right balance of open web sourcing, AI, and automation. Plus, these tools should introduce more candidate engagement and recruitment optimization.  
  3. Your talent partner should create a total workforce solution unique to your business that goes well beyond the traditional means of direct sourcing. They need a track record of creative problem solving, leveraging their in-house resources to enhance your social media presence, your employer brand, your DE&I strategies, and more. 

Webinar On Demand

Boosting Candidate Engagement with a Comprehensive Talent Strategy

Watch the Recording

5 Essential Elements of a Positive Candidate Experience

Posted on by akessler

By David Macfarlane, Head of Employer Brand and Insight

Candidates have never had higher expectations. They are more well informed than ever, and today’s candidate-led market means they’re less tolerant of poor experiences. With 83% of candidates sharing their poor experiences with friends and family, and 54% taking to social media to voice their discontent, organizations who create a positive candidate experience will achieve better recruitment outcomes.

Yet, in our recent research report, Inside the Candidate Experience, we found that the gap between what candidates want and what they get still remains wide—but it can be made smaller. While there is no such thing as a perfect recruitment process, improving the candidate experience will improve your organization’s ability to attract and hire great talent.

Through our work with some of the world’s largest brands, we’ve distilled the candidate experience into these five essential elements.

Research Report

Inside the Candidate Experience

Read the Report

A best-in-class candidate experience:

1. Is Differentiated from Competitors

Your candidate experience should set you apart from other employers at every stage of the candidate journey. In addition to being a crucial component of the hiring process, the candidate experience serves as a sales tool that persuades top talent to join your organization.

Your candidate experience should be unique to your brand and help you stand apart from other employers hiring for similar roles or skills. For example, does your situational judgement test put the candidate in the work environment they’re applying to join? For candidates, the pre-employment experience is a test drive for what it’s like to work at your organization, so make sure you’re bringing what makes your culture exceptional to your candidate experience.

2. Elevates the Employer Brand

Your candidate experience should be distinct from your consumer experience by reflecting your employer brand—the perception and lived experience of what it’s like to work for your organization. That means all of your candidate communications should be branded—not just with your logo and brand colours, but it should be written in a way that reflects your culture.

Your tone of voice, your career site, your photography and design should all reflect what it’s like to work at your organization. For example, for our client, The AA, we created AAbot, a chatbot with expressive animations and cheeky banter that brings The AA’s playful personality to life. By seeing your employer brand reflected consistently across each interaction with your organization, candidates gain confidence in your employer value proposition.

positive candidate experience

3. Is Informative, Clear and Direct

Candidates want to know upfront what to expect during the application and recruitment process before they apply. Yet, our research found that only a third of organizations (34%) had career sites that featured frequently asked questions (FAQs) or advice to support candidates throughout the candidate journey (31%). Less than a third (28%) gave an overview of the key stages of the recruiting process.

This is about delivering the right message at the right time in the right way to help them understand where they stand and what happens next. Plus, you should express this information in plain language. Make sure you’re using verbiage that your candidate would use rather than your internal terminology. A candidate looking for a hotel job is more likely to search for “housekeeper” than “environmental services engineer.”

4. Embraces Technology

Increasingly, employers are taking a page from the consumer experiences created by e-commerce brands. Many organizations are embracing social media tools (like the one-click apply option on LinkedIn) to increase the simplicity and convenience of applications.

At the very minimum your application should be mobile optimised. But really, with over 90% of candidates using a mobile device in their job search, your candidate experience should be designed for mobile first.

A mobile-first application means the candidate doesn’t have to fill in information contained in their résumé or CV. This may seem basic, but we found that nearly 40% of organizations ask candidates to duplicate information that was already contained in their résumé or CV.

In our modern world, a great candidate experience means a candidate can submit an application while standing in a queue—with one hand, via their mobile phone—before they’ve reached the front. Can your current tech stack do this?

5. Puts Candidates in the Driver’s Seat

Something that many talent acquisition teams don’t appreciate is that candidates don’t perceive the recruitment process as a funnel. They’re the main character in their own story, and they want to be treated that way.

Candidates want to engage in their job search on their own terms. So, anytime they encounter a roadblock to getting the information they want, especially if they don’t know what to expect in the next stage, means they’re more likely to drop out of your process. By creating transparency within your recruitment stages, you empower candidates to opt in or out from recruitment process—ultimately improving your hiring outcomes.  

For more insights into create a positive candidate experience, download the Inside the Candidate Experience 2023 Report.

Who’s Down With OVP? Getting Your Office Value Proposition Right

Posted on by akessler

By Joe Mongon, Head of Recruitment Delivery, PeopleScout EMEA

From Twitter going hardcore, to protests at Apple, returning to the office is the working culture story that won’t go away.

The BBC reported on the potential disparities between employer and employee expectations on this topic as far back as June 2021. Right now, there is evidence that the expectation gap may be growing, with the supply of remote work options shrinking while demand increases. U.S. job market data from LinkedIn shows remote job listings have decreased to 14% of available opportunities, but they still attract 52% of all applications.

In this context, it’s surprising that so many blunders continue to be made. Plus, there is little reporting of companies getting this process right and virtually no discussion on how to achieve a win-win position. Instead, we hear about the clumsy tactics some organizations are using, like pointing to ‘job requirements’ as the primary reason employees must return to the office or trying to limit fully remote work to what employers perceive as ‘must-have’ talent.

How can talent leaders move forward and break the deadlock?

Introducing the OVP

TALiNT Partners and PeopleScout recently hosted and published a strategic discussion among TA leaders and introduced me to a new concept—the Office Value Proposition (OVP).

This term immediately resonated with me. The journey my own teams have been through over the last 12 months, from simply trying to make the office a safe place (think sitting at opposite ends of big meeting rooms, obeying one-way systems, putting up dividers) to considering ways in which we optimize team days shows the value of making an effort.

Making OVP Part of Your EVP

My broader experience in RPO has shown me that an effective Employer Value Proposition (EVP) can do much of the heavy lifting in candidate engagement and experience. Employers with poorly defined and managed EVPs are left behind in the competition for talent with candidates drawn to organizations with EVPs that align clearly with their own personal values.

PeopleScout has a strong track record of thought leadership and results in this area, and we’re making a call-to-action for talent acquisition and resourcing teams:

Post-pandemic, your EVP is almost certainly out of date. It must incorporate a clear OVP that lays out the benefits of a higher degree of proximity to your office spaces.

There are two things employers must get right when it comes OVP:

  • Identify and communicate all the things your physical workplace offers that enhance the employee experience
  • Consciously create time on-site for teams to interact, socialize and learn together.

Some time ago, Gallup identified the ‘four Cs’ for shaping a compelling workplace value proposition: connection, collaboration, creativity, culture. Use your office space to maximize the personal, professional and competitive advantages office time provides them at every opportunity.

The value of office working is no longer a given—it must be defined and re-defined. In the recruitment space, the OVP (just like your EVP) provides clarity to potential employees on organizational expectations and demonstrates the extra effort needed to engage talent. When it comes to bridging the office vs remote work expectations gap, it’s employers who should make the first step.

Global Banking School: Increasing Offer Conversion to 87% for a Suite of Hard-to-Fill Roles

Posted on by akessler
Global Banking School: Increasing Offer Conversion to 87% for a Suite of Hard-to-Fill Roles

Global Banking School: Increasing Offer Conversion to 87% for a Suite of Hard-to-Fill Roles

Global Banking School (GBS), a higher education provider offering a range of sector-relevant courses, turned to PeopleScout for project RPO to fill 35 professional and academic roles across eight campuses in London, Manchester, Birmingham, and Leeds.

87 % Offer acceptance rate across all roles
Increased diversity within roles filled through targeted messaging and sourcing
Increased diversity within roles filled through targeted messaging and sourcing
Enhanced candidate and hiring manager experience
Enhanced candidate and hiring manager experience

Situation

GBS needed to fill 35 roles across a range of job families and levels, including professional and academic positions. They had a challenging timescale of just four weeks to go-live.

GBS was facing several challenges:

  • Some of the roles had been out to market several times, in some cases for up to a year, with little traction.
  • As an educational institution, face-to-face teaching is a vital part of the student experience, and therefore essential for the client. GBS needed this to apply to staff availability as well and wanted to avoid a two-tiered approach for academic and non-academic roles. This meant the client was unable to offer remote or hybrid working models. In a market where candidates have more choice around how and where they work, this resulted in a low interest from candidates.
  • Sourcing from other higher education institutions and universities meant the audience was hard to engage.
  • Hiring managers were disengaged due to high workloads. Plus, the previous recruitment processes were transactional and didn’t keep candidates engaged.
  • The hiring managers also had competing priorities, which meant the overwhelmed internal recruitment team were struggling to obtain the required information to fill the roles.

Solution

Our dedicated and skilled recruiters became an extension of the in-house team, optimizing and managing GBS’s recruitment process from attraction to offer for a four-month project RPO solution. PeopleScout managed each position in its entirety, from briefing through to verbal offer acceptance, including creating a sourcing and attraction plan for each role.

Our team seamlessly integrated into the organization’s culture, mapping the end-to-end candidate journey in collaboration with hiring managers. PeopleScout very quickly became trusted colleagues with the in-house recruitment team, and through our consultative approach we offered recommendations based on our labor market research and feedback.

A dedicated PeopleScout recruitment marketer was brought in to reimagine the organization’s messaging, job descriptions and attraction channels. GBS received a suite of copy, both bespoke to individual roles and templates which they could use into the future. Our recruitment marketing strategy included a social media attraction campaign featuring a one-click application.

On top of these attraction efforts, we directly sourced passive candidates to raise GBS’s profile in the market. Throughout the project, we gathered market feedback and tracked hiring metrics, presenting it through customized dashboards to guide hiring decisions. GBS received weekly analysis of market insights, salary benchmarks and candidate feedback.

Result

Our consultative approach to hiring and tailored strategies for each role resulted in:

  • An 87% offer acceptance rate.
  • An enhanced candidate and hiring manager experience.
  • Increased diversity within roles filled.

At a Glance

  • COMPANY
    Global Business School
  • INDUSTRY
    Higher Education
  • PEOPLESCOUT SOLUTIONS
    Recruitment Process Outsourcing, Talent Advisory
  • ABOUT GBS
    Global Banking School (GBS) is a higher education provider with campuses across the United Kingdom. GBS offers a range of courses in banking, management and healthcare designed to enhance students’ career prospects in the financial services industry.
Let’s Connect

The UK Talent Shortage: How to Engage & Support the “Missing Million”

Posted on by akessler

By Joe Mongon, Head of Recruitment Delivery, EMEA

When Dame Sharon White, former Chief Executive of Ofcom and current Chairman of the John Lewis Partnership, was recently interviewed on BBC radio, she said: “One area that I think has not had enough attention is what has happened in the jobs market over the last 18 months.” Not enough attention? The UK talent shortage, and the tightness of the labour market, has been at the heart of many mainstream news stories in the UK over the past year: petrol shortages, queues at air and sea ports, and general “skimpflation” in the customer experience.

In this case, White touched upon an interesting factor in the dynamic between an oversupply of job vacancies and an under-supply of job seekers—the “missing million” in the UK workforce who have left employment all together since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic in March 2020.

Who Are the Missing Million?

White identified that there are “1 million fewer people in work,” adding that, “Some think about it as the ‘great resignation’. I think about it as the ‘life reappraisal’, because this is predominantly people in their 50s.”

This latter point is broadly correct: four-fifths of the recent rise in economic activity is among older people, and while the concerning increase in long-term ill health negates the idea that this is most often the result a positive “reappraisal” of life priorities, growth in early retirement started in summer 2021 and remains persistent.

White rightly called for government action to address the challenge of encouraging early retirees back to work, and it’s possible that “flexible retirement” will in the future be discussed as often as “flexible working.” In the meantime, there is much that employers can do directly to support and re-engage early retirees including approaches to recruitment, job design, workplace support, and – yes – flexibility.

How to Attract and Retain Older Workers

A clear and informative job profile that brings the role to life and amplifies these factors can be the first step to finding the right candidate, including engaging overlooked or under-engaged audiences like the missing million. Job seeker priorities are often straightforward and are typically unaffected by age. Salary and flexibility—especially work from home considerations—lead the way when it comes to potential job switches.

To succeed, employers must recognise that temporary solutions to business problems, such as hybrid working, have turned into ongoing employee preferences and expectations. If you can’t advertise jobs as flexible and leverage that advantage due to the type of role, investment in pay or upskilling offers may be the answer.

At PeopleScout, we are certainly giving the UK talent shortage our full attention. We’re offering our clients bespoke strategies and tactics to overcome these challenges. By helping organisations understand their audiences—including the missing million—we’re able to support targeted candidate attraction efforts that create real results.

Early Careers Recruitment: Hiring for True Potential

Posted on by akessler

By Joe Mongon, Head of Recruitment Delivery, EMEA

School’s out for the summer, but in the world of our RPO partnerships this is the time of year where we focus on early careers recruitment, in anticipation of entering apprentice, undergraduate and graduate markets in the autumn. Right now, we’re talking with clients both established and prospective about their needs in this area and, as ever, the focus on using EC programs to correct or balance diversity of workforce and (future) leadership remains a priority.

Most organisations will not necessarily view themselves as having a “diversity crisis” of the kind described in a recent article highlighting research into consulting and finance hiring in the City of London. However, many will benefit from accepting its key takeaway that, “employers are more likely to hire black candidates if they rely on anonymised, ‘skills-based’ assessments in the hiring process”.

In my experience, employers have long moved on from the most “traditional methods”. It’s certainly been a decade or more since I’ve heard of an early careers program requiring a cover letter or making space on an application form for candidates to list all the University societies of which they were definitely the President.

But my experience is not universal. I’m not a graduate looking to start my career, and I’m lucky enough to work in a recruitment business with an award-winning assessment consultancy arm, partnering with clients who take hiring for true potential seriously. That doesn’t mean there’s not more work for us to do within these partnerships—even for those who’ve taken positive steps in this area. Each year brings a new implementation cycle, and new opportunities to improve. 

Here are some solutions we’ve developed, launched or refined in our early careers RPO partnerships:

Assessing for Skills & Strengths in Early Careers Recruitment

Over time, many employers have reduced focus on abilities in favour of strengths- or behaviour-based testing, which is considered more conducive to measuring potential. Organisationally we broadly agree, but, where appropriate, we continue to recommend reasoning tests covering verbal, numerical and cognitive ability.  

The key here is not to use them in isolation as a blunt tool. Benchmark or cut off scores should be set only within the parameters of adverse impact analysis using anonymised candidate diversity data, and ability tests should be followed up with strengths or behavioural assessments. The link RPO expertise can create between recruitment technology, recruiters, and business psychologists is critical in this space.

Recruiting for Role Fit to Enhance Diversity

Predicting workplace performance and potential through behavioural assessment is often seen by early careers talent acquisition leaders as a smarter approach to hiring. Experiential tests, backed by data and research, producing personal interview guides for final stage assessment often leads to better outcomes and maintains diversity in the process. 

This approach highlights candidate suitability against role fit over culture fit, the latter being a potential barrier to creating a more diverse workforce (the concept of aligning new recruits with a prevailing culture or mindset being an obvious denial of the need for organisational change).

Focusing on Culture Add Rather than Culture Fit

I am not yet aware of any early careers programs where assessment is now 100% anonymised. Whether online via video, as part of a wider virtual assessment experience, or in a traditional face-to-face meeting, an interview is going to happen before a hire is made. Removing anonymity can introduce bias, and we promote two key mitigations.

Firstly, design and deliver structured interviews which are competency-based and/or focused on culture add (what the candidate can contribute to your organisation’s culture) over culture fit. Our teams often partner with hiring managers on best practice in this area, even facilitating or assessing directly where needed. This helps maintain consistency and relevance, avoiding questions on personal interests or previous experience—instead asking specific questions on working styles and preferences. 

Secondly, put candidate experience first and learn from feedback to provide support and guidance, setting the stage for success. By hearing the candidates’ voice, and measuring their experience across, we’ve been able to improve outcomes for employers.

We’re looking forward to seeing how these solutions progress, and what improvements they bring as we take early careers RPO from now to next, supporting the diverse workforces of the future—identifying and unlocking true potential wherever it exists.

Learn more assessment best practices in our ebook, Candidate Assessment: Bringing in Better with Passion, Purpose and Mindset.

[On-Demand] Hire Quality vs Speed: Finding the Perfect Balance

Posted on by akessler

[On-Demand] Hire Quality vs Speed: Finding the Perfect Balance

 

We have all seen the stats. It’s a candidates’ market. The demands from hiring managers are acute – they need great hires and they need them now.

But when you need volume hires fast, how do you guarantee quality of candidate? How do you ensure your process is fit for purpose? What could you cut back and what is essential?

Talent acquisition professionals and hiring managers are facing unprecedented pressures and they need to understand which industry innovations they could you use to meet their hiring objectives.

This Personnel Today webinar, in association with recruitment process outsourcer PeopleScout, will look at how talent acquisition professionals and HR generalists can keep their hiring managers on-side, maintaining speed and agility without damaging quality of hire.

Personnel Today Rob Moss is joined by a panel of professionals with a wealth of experience in this area, including Mark Wright, customer services operations manager at VirginMediaO2 and Paula Simmons, director of employer brand and communications strategy at TMP Worldwide, together with Andrew Weston, solutions director at PeopleScout, and Kate Law, membership and learning director at the Call Centre Management Association.

The webinar covers:

  • What the main drivers are for the candidates’ market
  • What these mean for employers
  • How to avoid risking quality when trying to recruit fast
  • Strategies to maintain ED&I targets when talent pools are limited.

 

Quality of Hire: The Gap from Good to Great is Bigger Than it First Appears

Posted on by akessler

By Vanessa Hawes, Senior Employer Brand & Communications Strategist

So, a company has accidentally hired the wrong person or made a rushed hire due to business needs. Does quality of hire matter in the long run?

Yes. Bad hires are expensive for a whole host of reasons. They are likely to generate less revenue than good employees, or even cost an organisation money due to their errors or complacency. Plus, it’s contagious since they impact the productivity and morale of the employees around them.

Further, the employer may have to invest over the odds in additional training or performance management. If and when the employee does leave, the employer will likely need to invest more in finding an urgent replacement. It’s clear that hiring the wrong people can cost a company a lot of money.

Quality-of-Hire Boosts the Bottom Line

Getting great people rather than good people into an organisation is not just nice to have—it has a profound impact on business performance. Great employees are valuable in themselves, but they also drive wider team performance, inspire others and make recruiting other great people easier.

McKinsey completed a study of more than 600,000 researchers, entertainers, politicians, and athletes, and found that high performers were 400% more productive than average performers. In highly complex occupations such as software development, high performers were found to be an astounding 800% more productive.

Roles described as having low complexity, such as a packing job at a large distributor—unfortunately, the kind of work that for many organisations does not merit special focus in terms of recruitment—demonstrate a productivity gap of 50% between average performers and high performers. The impact on productivity increases as the complexity of the role grows, with an extraordinary jump between high and very high complexity roles.

Clearly, employers would do well to actively recognise and retain top employees, especially when the cost of replacing them is so great.

Quality-of-Hire: What to Look for

Organisations looking to drive the best results and value from employees would be wise to consider the economies of scale that come from an improved selection process for low complexity roles as well as reaping the benefits from hiring the most able candidates for highly complex jobs.

So, what does this mean in reality? A great hire will be highly motivated, and they go above and beyond to do their work. Poor performers go through the motions, are not proactive and may encourage colleagues to adjust to these lower standards. After all, if everyone is being paid the same, why go the extra mile?

As such, using an assessment process that is able to identify (and ideally excite) great candidates at all levels of the organisation is well worth the investment.

Post-Pandemic Workforce: Think ‘Great Reflection’, Rather Than ‘Great Resignation’

Posted on by akessler

By Robert Peasnell, Head of Growth, EMEA

We all love a pithy phrase. But whilst the ‘great resignation’ neatly captures what all employers are experiencing currently—1.3 million vacancies in the UK, 33% of employees allegedly planning to look for a new job in 2022 and 26% having already called recruiters or shared their CVs online—it explains the symptom, not the cause.

At PeopleScout, we’re seeing a fundamental shift happening in how people are reflecting on their lives and work as the COVID-19 pandemic endures into 2022. Conversations with employees across all ages and sectors indicate that people have developed a new sense of awareness and worth for themselves and the world around them. This is prompting them to demand more personal value and purpose from both life and work. 

Changing Employee Expectations

In one study, 65% of participants said the pandemic had made them rethink the place that work should have in their life, and 56% said it made them want to contribute more to society. 

Smart employers will acknowledge this truth and respond with a more human and purpose-driven employment offers.

Today’s REC/KPMG report on UK jobs, highlights the ongoing pressure on salaries with wage inflation at it’s highest for mover 20 plus years. However, rather than just paying staff more, employers need to develop a more human employer value proposition (EVP).

The era of the employment contract, in which a worker provided services purely in exchange for monetary compensation, is over. Employees want organisations to recognise their value and provide value back to them on a human level. Monetary compensation is important for surviving, but deeper relationships, a strong sense of community and purpose-driven work are essential to thriving. 

This is the value that employees expect their employers to provide.  

Is your EVP based on legacy conditions and thinking? Or does it deliver the personal value and sense of purpose demanded by a post-pandemic workforce?