www.hrmagazine.co.uk Open in urlscan Pro
40.69.88.149  Public Scan

Form analysis
1 forms found in the DOM

/search

<form action="/search">
  <div class="pointer-events-none absolute inset-y-0 left-0 pl-3 flex items-center" aria-hidden="true">
    <svg class="h-5 w-5 text-default" fill="currentColor" viewBox="0 0 20 20">
      <path d="M8 4a4 4 0 100 8 4 4 0 000-8zM2 8a6 6 0 1110.89 3.476l4.817 4.817a1 1 0 01-1.414 1.414l-4.816-4.816A6 6 0 012 8z"></path>
    </svg>
  </div>
  <input id="search" name="query" autofocus=""
    class="block w-full bg-white border border-gray-300 rounded-md py-2 pl-10 pr-3 text-base font-medium leading-5 placeholder-gray-900 focus:outline-none focus:text-default focus:placeholder-gray-900 focus:border-blue-300 focus:shadow-outline-blue sm:text-base transition duration-150 ease-in-out"
    placeholder="Search" type="search">
</form>

Text Content

Search

Open menu
Sign up for newsletter

Topics
Boardroom Culture Diversity & Inclusion Employee Benefits Employee Engagement
Employment Law Global Mobility HR Careers HR Software Human Capital Internal
Communications Leadership Learning and Development Organisational Design
Pensions People Recruitment Reward and Remuneration Talent Technology Wellbeing
News Features Comment
Insights
Latest Insights Industry Voices Reports and Whitepapers Special Reports Webinar
Cost of living HR Most Influential Podcasts HR Excellence Awards Advertising
Topics

Boardroom

Culture

Diversity & Inclusion

Employee Benefits

Employee Engagement

Employment Law

Global Mobility

HR Careers

HR Software

Human Capital

Internal Communications

Leadership

Learning and Development

Organisational Design

Pensions

People

Recruitment

Reward and Remuneration

Talent

Technology

Wellbeing

News Features Comment
Insights

Latest Insights

Industry Voices

Reports and Whitepapers

Special Reports

Webinar

Cost of living HR Most Influential Podcasts HR Excellence Awards Advertising
Sign up for newsletter

Login
Account
Simon Lyle

Simon Lyle



View articles

30 November 2021 · 4 min read · Insights
Industry Voices


HOW HR CAN CLOSE THE TALENT GAP 


Published: 30 Nov 2021


With the search for talent more competitive than ever, just what can HR do
differently to stay ahead in 2022?

Crisis situations often accelerate changes which are already taking place. The
COVID pandemic is one such crisis, and its impacts are continuing to be felt
right across the global workplace. Even before it struck, the acquisition and
retention of talent was an issue for many firms.

Now, as the economies of the world pick up speed again, this need to recruit has
become even more serious. Other workplace trends have also added a new dimension
to this challenging environment.

Employees now have different expectations about just how and where they work,
with hybrid work patterns now the norm for many previously full-time,
office-based positions. Many employees now expect to be offered far more
flexibility, and businesses now have to factor this into their job offers. 

So HR now faces a double act of challenges: to still find the talent needed in a
much tighter market, but also having to cope with changing expectations in just
how and where we work.

This is unlikely to be solved any time soon, so just what actions can HR take
right now to stay ahead of these emerging trends? Here are three ways in which
businesses are rising to the challenge of a tighter job market for talent.

 

Look internally

The first place to seek out new talent should be within your own organisation.
There, if you are willing to change the way you look, you will find candidates
who, even if they have slightly different skills, could be redeployed internally
to meet the new challenges you face.

According to research by LinkedIn, internal candidates who have moved role are
three and a half times more likely to be engaged as employees who have not moved
internally. This has the added bonus of bringing into the frame employees who
are not only likely to be more committed, but who also have a far better
organisational understanding of the business, its goals, objectives and culture
than external candidates.

Of course it also requires you to be far better at identifying and understanding
just who within your company has the aspirations required to benefit from an
internal move – and that means developing the programmes to help you identify
them. But given the benefits to you – and the employee – it is well worth the
time investment.

     

Cast your net wider

We know that diversity is a clear goal for many organisations and one which
brings huge potential benefits to any business which actively engages in efforts
to deepen the pool of talent from which it seeks to draw its employees.

McKinsey’s Delivering Through Diversity report makes it clear that firms with
gender equal executive teams outperform those who haven’t in terms of
profitability. Those with executive teams which are ethnically and culturally
diverse are 33% more likely to deliver industry leading profitability. 

It makes perfect sense, therefore, to look for ways to open up opportunities to
the widest possible range of candidates. You might find internal candidates open
to new experiences and who could be upskilled or reskilled to take on new
responsibilities. Equally, you can actively find ways to reach out to those who
are perhaps under-represented in your business.

In the USA, IBM has an extensive programme to address diversity issues. This
includes apprenticeship schemes and a skills academy, together with ‘Executive
Councils’ which meet with a range of groups, including black and minority
ethnic, the LGBT+ community and ex-service personnel, to share career
development insights and learning from its own executives, many of whom are
themselves from diverse backgrounds.   

There is also an opportunity here to allow employees to quickly learn new skills
and work in positions where they might not have previously been considered. Look
at external schemes too like Kickstart which allows you to tap into new pools of
potential talent, where you can give an individual the opportunity for six
months to get a feel for the role and increasing their long-term employability,
while injecting new ideas and points of view into your own organisation.

One bold consideration could be sharing talent or temporarily adopting talent
from outside your own organisation. This gives employees a chance to widen their
skills sets and to bring in talented individuals who might well have some new
ideas to share from their own organisations, exposing your company to new
techniques and shaking up what might otherwise be traditional ways of thinking.

During the pandemic, McDonald’s in Germany took the bold step to allow its
restaurant workers to join the retailer Aldi. Aldi was experiencing a surge in
demand for home delivery, while McDonald’s was having to close its branches, so
both companies benefited, but also both sets of employees gained new skills and
insights which could eventually be brought back to their own companies as the
pandemic receded.

 

Unearth the hidden gems    

There is always a danger that the people hiring for your organisation look to
find people who match their own expectations, and that the recruitment process
reinforces this hidden bias. This makes for a shallow pool in which to seek out
new talent. As well as potentially reinforcing the thought that new talent must
come from outside an organisation, this means that you risk missing out on those
internal candidates with excellent skills which they might one day take
elsewhere.

As Deloitte has shown, in a 2018 report, it can cost six times as much to hire
an external candidate than develop your internal talent. So you need to find
ways to open up the process, which in turn allows you to seek the ‘hidden gems’
which the existing process, consciously or unconsciously, may well be shutting
out of consideration.

Be aware too that all employees, wherever they are based, should be allowed
access to those opportunities. Just because someone works remotely doesn’t mean
they don’t have the same commitment as someone you see every day at the
watercooler. Visibility shouldn’t lead to advantage.

This has been proved by J R Keller, assistant professor of HR Studies at Cornell
University. He studied two ways of hiring: posting jobs on an internal
marketplace, or via a sponsoring manager.

The hypothesis was that the better appointments would come via the sponsored
route. That wasn’t the case. Analysis of 11,000 internal moves over a five-year
period showed that the internal marketplace candidates outperformed the
sponsored ones on every criteria the study measured. So beware the watercooler
moment when looking to appoint internally.   

 

It’s time to re-charge your talent acquisition  

Talent will remain in short supply and the search to find the best will continue
to be difficult. So looking further afield, assessing candidate strengths in new
ways, and opening up the recruitment process to internal candidates and removing
all biases, all are moves which make perfect sense as ways to supercharge your
talent management and acquisition.

Your best new talent may well be right under your nose, but you need to ensure
that the processes you employ can identify and encourage those candidates, not
shut them out, or worse, encourage them to seek new opportunities elsewhere.
Make the right changes, and not only will that talent stay, but it will thrive
and your business will thrive alongside it.

 

To find out more about how you can employ new ways to supercharge your talent
acquisition – click here.

 

Simon Lyle is managing director UK at Randstad RiseSmart

skills
skills gap
talent
talent acquisition
labour shortage
skill shortages



FURTHER READING

Information Technology


HOW HR TECHNOLOGY CAN TACKLE THE TALENT CRISIS

Comment
Culture


HOW HR CAN DRIVE SUSTAINABILITY

Features
Learning and development


HOW CAN HR USE NEUROSCIENCE?

Features
Talent


HOW TO MIND THE CAREER MANAGEMENT GAP

Sponsored

Boardroom


HOW BUSINESS CAN SOLVE THE PRODUCTIVITY PUZZLE

Features
Wellbeing


HOW HR CAN SPOT SIGNS OF BURNOUT

News
Sponsored by

RANDSTAD RISESMART





Please enable JavaScript to view the comments powered by Disqus.

St Jude's Church Dulwich Road
London
SE24 0PB



LEGAL

 * Terms and conditions
 * Privacy policy
 * Cookie policy
 * Accessibility

INFORMATION

 * Contact us
 * About us
 * Advertising

© Copyright 2022 Mark Allen Group | Registered in England No. 02120366






×
This website uses cookies
This website uses cookies to improve user experience. By using our website you
consent to all cookies in accordance with our Cookie Policy. Read more

Strictly necessary

Performance

Targeting

Functionality

Unclassified
Save & Close
Accept all
Decline all
Show details Hide details
Cookie declaration
About cookies
Strictly necessary
Performance
Targeting
Functionality
Unclassified
Strictly necessary cookies allow core website functionality such as user login
and account management. The website cannot be used properly without strictly
necessary cookies.

Cookie report Name Provider / Domain Expiration Description ARRAffinitySameSite
Microsoft Corporation
.hrmagazine.co.uk Session When using Microsoft Azure as a hosting platform and
enabling load balancing, this cookie ensures that requests from one visitor
browsing session are always handled by the same server in the cluster.
_dc_gtm_UA-17229687-6 .hrmagazine.co.uk 1 minute This cookie is associated with
sites using Google Tag Manager to load other scripts and code into a page. Where
it is used it may be regarded as Strictly Necessary as without it, other scripts
may not function correctly. The end of the name is a unique number which is also
an identifier for an associated Google Analytics account. CookieScriptConsent
CookieScript
.hrmagazine.co.uk 1 month This cookie is used by Cookie-Script.com service to
remember visitor cookie consent preferences. It is necessary for
Cookie-Script.com cookie banner to work properly. ARRAffinity
Microsoft Corporation
.hrmagazine.co.uk Session This cookie is set by websites run on the Windows
Azure cloud platform. It is used for load balancing to make sure the visitor
page requests are routed to the same server in any browsing session. ARRAffinity
Microsoft Corporation
.www.hrmagazine.co.uk Session This cookie is set by websites run on the Windows
Azure cloud platform. It is used for load balancing to make sure the visitor
page requests are routed to the same server in any browsing session. sp_t
Spotify Inc.
.spotify.com 1 year Required to ensure the functionality of the integrated
Spotify plugin. This does not result in any cross-site functionality. sp_landing
Spotify Inc.
.spotify.com 1 day Required to ensure the functionality of the integrated
Spotify plugin. This does not result in any cross-site functionality.
ARRAffinitySameSite
Microsoft Corporation
.www.hrmagazine.co.uk Session When using Microsoft Azure as a hosting platform
and enabling load balancing, this cookie ensures that requests from one visitor
browsing session are always handled by the same server in the cluster.

Performance cookies are used to see how visitors use the website, eg. analytics
cookies. Those cookies cannot be used to directly identify a certain visitor.

Cookie report Name Provider / Domain Expiration Description _gid
Google LLC
.hrmagazine.co.uk 1 day This cookie is set by Google Analytics. It stores and
update a unique value for each page visited and is used to count and track
pageviews. _ga
Google LLC
.hrmagazine.co.uk 2 years This cookie name is associated with Google Universal
Analytics - which is a significant update to Google's more commonly used
analytics service. This cookie is used to distinguish unique users by assigning
a randomly generated number as a client identifier. It is included in each page
request in a site and used to calculate visitor, session and campaign data for
the sites analytics reports.

Targeting cookies are used to identify visitors between different websites, eg.
content partners, banner networks. Those cookies may be used by companies to
build a profile of visitor interests or show relevant ads on other websites.

Cookie report Name Provider / Domain Expiration Description mc
Quality Unit LLC
.quantserve.com 1 year 1 month This cookie is usually provided by Quantserve to
track anonymous information about how website visitors use the site. YSC
Google LLC
.youtube.com Session This cookie is set by YouTube to track views of embedded
videos. __gads
Google LLC
.hrmagazine.co.uk 1 year This cookie is associated with the DoubleClick for
Publishers service from Google. Its purpose is to do with the showing of adverts
on the site, for which the owner may earn some revenue. IDE
Google LLC
.doubleclick.net 1 year This cookie is set by Doubleclick and carries out
information about how the end user uses the website and any advertising that the
end user may have seen before visiting the said website. uvc
Oracle Corporation
.addthis.com 1 year 1 month Tracks how often a user interacts with AddThis loc
Oracle Corporation
.addthis.com 1 year 1 month Stores the visitors geolocation to record location
of sharer VISITOR_INFO1_LIVE
Google LLC
.youtube.com 6 months This cookie is set by Youtube to keep track of user
preferences for Youtube videos embedded in sites;it can also determine whether
the website visitor is using the new or old version of the Youtube interface.
__qca
Quantcast Corporation
.hrmagazine.co.uk 1 year This is a cookie usually associated with Quantcast, a
digital advertising company. They provide website rankings, and the data they
collect is also used for audience segmentation and targeted advertising.

Functionality cookies are used to remember visitor information on the website,
eg. language, timezone, enhanced content.

Cookie report Name Provider / Domain Expiration Description __atuvc
Oracle Corporation
www.hrmagazine.co.uk 1 year 1 month This cookie is associated with the AddThis
social sharing widget which is commonly embedded in websites to enable visitors
to share content with a range of networking and sharing platforms. It stores an
updated page share count. __atuvs
Oracle Corporation
www.hrmagazine.co.uk 30 minutes This cookie is associated with the AddThis
social sharing widget which is commonly embedded in websites to enable visitors
to share content with a range of networking and sharing platforms. This is
believed to be a new cookie from AddThis which is not yet documented, but has
been categorised on the assumption it serves a similar purpose to other cookies
set by the service.

Unclassified cookies are cookies that do not belong to any other category or are
in the process of categorization.

Cookie report Name Provider / Domain Expiration Description ep201 .wufoo.eu 30
minutes ep201 .wufoo.com 30 minutes _splunk_rum_sid markallengroup.wufoo.com 15
minutes

Cookies are small text files that are placed on your computer by websites that
you visit. Websites use cookies to help users navigate efficiently and perform
certain functions. Cookies that are required for the website to operate properly
are allowed to be set without your permission. All other cookies need to be
approved before they can be set in the browser.

You can change your consent to cookie usage at any time on our Privacy Policy
page.
Cookies consent ID:
Cookie report created by CookieScript