June 2022 - Animo Group

Matt Adler, Producer, and host of The Recruiting Future podcast joined us in the latest episode of our podcast. As an independent consultant who’s worked with large organisations on innovation projects for talent acquisition, he’s at the centre of everything that’s going on in recruitment technology, tele-acquisition, employer branding, and recruitment marketing. He spoke to us about the developments in these areas and shared his take on how he thinks the recruitment market is set to turn.

You’ve recently released a book called Digital Talent. Tell us a little bit about that.

Yes, I co-authored the book with my very good friend Mervyn Dinnen, who does a lot of writing and speaking about the HR space. Digital Talent is a follow up from our previous book, Exceptional Talent, only we now wanted to explore what was going on in the market with a particular focus on companies struggling to find the right skills to accelerate digital transformation in their businesses.

We decided to pause the writing when the pandemic hit because we realised a lot of the things we were writing about that we thought might happen in the future, were actually already happening right in front of our eyes. Of course, digital transformation sped up dramatically. We saw a huge uptake in the use of technology across all aspects of talent acquisition and it as a really interesting period because it allowed us to compare people’s pre-pandemic thoughts on what was going to happen with what actually happened.

It’s gone from zero to one hundred. Some candidates won’t even consider a position unless it gives them the option to work remotely.

Exactly, we’re in a market at the moment where the employees have the power and they’re voting with their feet. It will be interesting to see how that develops because a minority of organisations have gone remote first, most are exploring the hybrid option, but it’s making organisations change the way they think about their employees.

It’s an interesting time because companies are pandering to what talent needs because there’s such a labour shortage that they need to be competitive. So, at the moment, employees have the upper hand. Do you see the market turning any time soon?

It’s difficult to make generalisations across every single industry in every single area. If we focus on the crisis in digital skills, it stems from education systems and governments and companies not being prepared to invest in the necessary training, coupled with the speed at which technology evolves. So, the conclusion we come to in the book is that the shortage of digital skills in particular, is only going to get worse, because the reskilling and training of people needs to keep pace with the changes in technology – organisations need to upskill people quickly. And I’m interested to see how organisations will respond to that; will they automate more of what they do and start to think of talent in a different way?

Ultimately, a lot of the challenges we’re seeing companies face now will continue into the future, and because of that, we need to rethink how companies think about talent, technology, learning, development, talent acquisition, and their employer brand.

You can listen to the full episode here.

On Talent & Growth we speak to talent leaders about the challenges they face and their solutions for attraction and retention. If you’re interested in hearing about how companies are building a more diverse talent pool, how you can attract top people from the big players, ways to create a more inclusive interview process or learn about the latest and greatest automation software to make your life easier, then this is the podcast for you.

In a recent episode of our podcast, we were joined by Chelsea Foxwell who is the Head of People at Uptake Strategies, a healthcare consultancy whose clients are amongst the top twenty pharma brands. Uptake Strategies help clients with their brand launch, their strategy and planning, their capability development, and their internal teams; all aimed at enabling clients to make a bigger impact on patients’ lives.

She tells us about the importance of company culture for both a candidate’s and an organisation’s perspective and shares some useful tips for candidates looking to identify how they can assess their cultural fit with a company from the outside.

What’s your perspective on the importance of culture and values for attracting and retaining talent?

Both are incredibly important for retaining and attracting talent. Candidates ought to spend more time exploring the culture of an organisation before they join, and organisations should spend more time explaining their company culture and the ways in which they work.

I would encourage anyone who’s interviewing to find out how the company is testing their cultural fit. It’s not necessarily a reason not to hire someone, but it can make a candidate’s onboarding and their chances of success more challenging if some of their behaviours aren’t aligned with the company culture.

In the past, I had a member of my time tell me they felt like an “organ rejection,” they felt so different to the culture of the company that they felt as though they were being rejected every day. Eventually, they left, after eighteen months. So, I think it’s probably one of the important factors when considering talent retention.

I think the key thing many leaders don’t think about is the shadow of a strong culture. In one of my organizations, we had a huge culture of family orientation, but it got to the point where people didn’t challenge each other because they were afraid of breaking up ‘the family.’ So, there is a dark side in the shadow system of the strongest cultures, and I think it’s important for people to understand both sides.

What can a candidate do to assess the culture of a business from the outside?

It’s not easy. When I coach people for interviews, I ask them questions like “what does success look like to you in three years’ time?” and “what happens if you make a mistake?” The answers they give tend to give an indication as to what they value and their mindset when it comes to learning and failure.

In turn, I’d encourage candidates to ask recruiters those sorts of questions too; “what’s the company’s response when things go wrong?”, “what happens when things go well?”, “how will they assess my performance?” This way they can assess what the team relationships are like, whether there’s a growth mindset or not, and they’re questions I rarely hear from candidates. Candidates need to spend more time thinking about culture, and less time thinking about the technical aspects of the job; they wouldn’t be in the room if they hadn’t already demonstrated they could do those.

What sorts of questions do you ask candidates during interviews to ensure the company maintains its culture of kindness as it grows?

We ask them quite pointedly; “what are the three qualities that you value in other people?”, we ask them to “give us an example of when they’ve helped somebody else succeed in their role,” we ask them to describe a time when they gave difficult feedback to a colleague, a client, or somebody who works for them; we ask them about a time when they made a mistake, and what they learned from it. Also, questions about the future and their aspirations; what their perfect job and perfect environment looks like.

Every question is aimed at helping us identity what type of environment they’re likely to succeed in, how they take and give feedback, because humility is a big part of who we are; there’s no space here for individual heroes. Ultimately, these questions help us identify whether they’re likely to flourish at Uptake Strategies.

Click here to listen to the full episode.

Month: June 2022

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