As the Client Engagement Director of Opus Talent Solutions, my role is to work with our existing and prospective clients to understand their hiring needs.These conversations normally focus on the immediate need for hires and then focus on the development of a talent pipeline of up to 12 months. Typical conversations tend to focus on how to attract passive candidates, the positioning of their brand in the marketplace, salary benchmarking, employer value proposition and diversity and inclusion.
However, difficulties tend to arise when I ask clients about the following:
– Have you done any strategic workforce planning?
– Have you got a long-term recruitment plan or strategy?
– Have you identified upskilling opportunities for current employees?
Less than 20% of organisations I speak with do not have an internal recruitment strategy in place.
So how do organisations address this problem?
Last week I took part in a round table event hosted by the CEO of Opus Talent Solutions and founder of _nology, Amy Golding, with over 20 HR and L&D professionals from various household brands in attendance we posed the question of “Retraining over redundancy?”.
A key takeaway from the roundtable was that only one of the organisations in attendance had an internal recruitment policy that actively identified existing employees for internal career moves.During the session, we discussed the benefits to an organisation of prioritising career progression opportunities, re-training, up-skilling and career development for existing employees. Not only do these schemes have a positive impact on retention and reducing hiring costs, but they increase employee satisfaction.
With an update from the Chancellor who announced a new £2 Billion kickstart scheme to help open up new jobs for 16 – 24-year olds who are at risk of unemployment, alongside incentives for employers to hire trainees and apprentices. What is clear is that this is only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to tackling the present jobs and digital skills crisis. With a third of vacancies in the UK deemed as hard to fill due to a lack of required skills (Luminate, 2019), organisations should be considering a longer-term skills strategy that involves upskilling current employees.
But how do organisations go about doing this?
As an organisation, you should consider developing an internal recruitment strategy to identify talent and potential.
When it comes to this, great managers, will
Identify skills gaps
Identify internal Talent
Build Collaboration and trust within a team
Consistently consider team members goals and objectives
Mentor employees to reach their goals, trying not to look at existing skill sets, but looking at growth ability.
Identify your Talent?
One of the attendees at our round table event discussed an internal careers portal and an employee database that they had developed which allowed employees to outline their personal career goals and outside interests, this built up a catalogue of every skill and experience across their organisation and helped identify employees that would be interested and suited to the differing career moves.
Talent Experience Platforms?
There are some very clever talent experience tech platforms that use next-gen AI to matchmake opportunities within a business.
Fuel60 for example, allows employees a clear view of opportunities in a business, both laterally and vertically. Roles identified within an organisation are based on the user’s inputs – their values, motivators, aspirations, skills and talents, all of which contribute to their development experience, this is all done through Gamification!
_Nology
Once you have identified the talent that you would like to upskill or retrain, don’t be afraid to get external help.
Training from non-tech to tech is _nology’s bread and butter and enabling this within an organisation brings cost savings as well as a positive impact on company culture. Empowering your workforce to believe that they can potentially do something new and giving employees that chance is progressive and bold.
_nology’s latest case study is part of an internal retraining programme within a UK Insurance client to take employees from a customer service department, training them in skills useful for Technology and Digital Marketing roles.
If you would like to hear more about this programme and ways in which Opus Talent Solutions can assist you with your workforce planning including retraining or upskilling within technology, then please do get in touch at [email protected].