Blogs & Articles - Page 5 of 11

25 April 2022 — A strong internal mobility strategy encourages employees to pursue not only new roles but special projects, volunteer work, educational advancement, professional development and more. To make that happen, however, it’s essential to have an effective talent mapping initiative that opens up a wide range of internal and external programs for career development.

Too often, though, talent mapping initiatives only target employees who are already highly self-motivated, leaving out those who may be interested in upward mobility but unsure of how to approach it. The problem is that by not leveraging this a talent mapping strategy for all employees, companies run the risk that a significant percentage of their workforce will underperform in their current roles or leave for other jobs because they feel stuck.

Furthermore, while career development should be available to all, it’s especially important to reach out to employee groups that have historically been left out of these conversations to create more inclusive career pathways for all.

The struggle, however, is figuring out how to get it right so that a program reaches all your people yet remains substantive and provides each employee with appropriate growth opportunities. Here are five considerations for creating a successful talent mapping program.

1. Create Inclusive Policies and Processes

The glass ceiling is a real and persistent problem in corporate America. While women outpace men in graduating from college and have over a 56% labor participation rate, they still hold less leadership positions than men. And this is even more pronounced among women of color.

Many women are also less likely to feel that they qualify for a job they haven’t done before. On top of that, while remote work has many benefits for women and more are opting into it, “out of sight, out of mind” may hurt their career progression.

Black Americans, too, face profound inequities at work. These include a lack of representation at executive levels, lower odds of advancement, and an absence of managerial sponsorship and allyship. Additionally, Black employees see less fairness and fewer chances to succeed, creating a trust deficit.

There are a number of steps that can help overcome these challenges, starting with awareness and acknowledgement. An internal assessment of where women and underrepresented communities stand in terms of leadership roles, promotions, pay, benefits and recognition will help identify gaps. Once the landscape is clear, it’s important to develop policies that directly address how to make the talent mapping process fair across different employee groups, including setting realistic goals and tracking progress. Creating networking and visibility opportunities, especially for those who work remotely, will also help level the field.

2. Use Technology to Actively Recruit Internal Talent

It’s not unusual to hear employees lament that it’s easier to look for (and apply to) external job opportunities than find anything useful on internal job boards. This is typically the result of fears about “poaching” between departments. But withholding these jobs from talent can mean losing them to other organizations that are actively pursuing them.

Consequently, companies should take advantage of the wide range of technology platforms that have internal talent marketplace and mobility solutions. A greater number of employees will browse different roles on their own time, at their own pace, and in private. These tools also enable people to self-explore without having to formally go to a manager or HR.

When people are ready for a discussion about a new role, they can be better prepared with questions around how to acquire the necessary skills — through training, external education, special projects, volunteer work, etc. — that would prepare them to be successful.

3. Give Employees Broad Experiences

Employers have historically placed workers in one of two groups — specialists and generalists. Increasingly, managers are interested in working with team members that fit both categories, possessing the broad experience of a generalist but also a specialized skill set that allows them to fulfill specific tasks.

It’s not always easy to find employees with this combination of experience. One solution is to use talent mapping to identify specialist employees that could benefit from learning more about the big picture. Maybe they’re marketing whizzes or IT geniuses who have management potential. An internal program can rotate these individuals throughout the organization, providing them with purposeful experiences in other departments such as HR, finance, and purchasing. Such perspectives from different departments and colleagues can help advance their careers in new directions.

4. Shift the Management Mindset

Often employees say it’s easier to quit a job than ask their manager for another role within the same organization because of fear that their boss will question their loyalty. And sure enough, Gartner research found that only 17% of candidates say their manager facilitates the process of applying for internal jobs.

It’s understandable that managers may balk at letting go of their best performers, let alone actively help in the process. Losing employees can have a negative impact on team morale, productivity, and financial performance.

Manager training is one way to help. It’s important that managers understand why talent mapping ultimately pays off and how to support their team members. The idea that the sum of the parts is greater than the whole can include prioritizing an employee’s career potential over the job they’re currently performing, helping them develop the necessary skills for new opportunities, and promoting career advancement throughout the employee’s engagement.

Of course, manager training is not going to help if the corporate culture doesn’t authentically support internal mobility. The importance of talent mapping needs to be emphasized and communicated by executive leadership. They need to walk the walk and commit to internal mobility as a cultural priority and showcase its success. They also need to develop the right policies and procedures, while making an investment in the necessary resources to deliver outcomes.

5. Create a Clear Process

One of the biggest challenges facing managers is dealing with employees who may resent a co-worker getting an opportunity over them. It’s often an unavoidable and difficult situation, but there are ways to minimize hard feelings and encourage camaraderie.

One of the best places to start is creating standard policies that clearly lay out the talent mapping process. Managers can work with HR to help employees understand that not every opportunity is for everyone, and that sometimes it comes down to timing.

They can also review the employee’s specific development goals — where they are currently, what training they need to move ahead, what roles interest them, mentors they can access, etc. Within a safe, inclusive, and transparent process, most employees can realize that there will be future opportunities that are right for them. Consequently, they’ll be willing to stay while the next opportunity matures.

Talent Mapping Helps Employees and Companies Thrive

Talent mapping is an integral part of an internal “grow your own” strategy that can be very effective for retention, which not only has financial benefits but is important for elevating the employer brand. Growing talent and the careers of your employees continues to be one of the strongest elements of the employee and candidate value proposition. Current and prospective employees want to know that a company believes in them, will invest in them, and wants them to succeed.

It’s also important to keep in mind that we live in a fluid ecosystem. That can sometimes make people feel uncomfortable and insecure, especially when the world of work is constantly changing, business problems are continuously evolving, and new skills are always on the horizon. In this atmosphere, adaptability is an important trait, and employers can support their employees by actively helping them gain new experiences and skills so they can thrive now and in the future.

Originally published 19 April 2022 in Ere Recruiting Intelligence.

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26 April 2022 — In our recent blog, Accelerating the energy transition – Recruiting for transferable skills, we shared our thoughts on how the commitment to ‘keep 1.5°C alive’ means we face enormous challenges, including the need to ‘triple the investments in renewables’ and ‘more than triple the workforce in the renewables sector by 2030’ (IRENA). To give ourselves a fighting chance of rising to these challenges, we need to embrace the idea of recruiting for transferable skills and drop the existing notion that prior experience in the renewables industry is required to succeed.

In this blog, we’d like to share our high-level thoughts on an alternative way that we can accelerate the energy transition. That is, if we embrace a diversity-led approach to attracting talent into the renewables sector, we can bring whole new diverse categories of talent into the sector to help accelerate the energy transition.

As it stands today, within the renewables sector, only 32% of employees are women (UN Women and the UN Global Compact Office), and 11% are non-white. Equally, women are more likely to be employed in lower-paid, non-technical and administrative roles than technical, managerial or policy-making roles. The numbers are even worse if we look at the wind power sector, with only 20% of the workforce being women.

Not all the data is discouraging, though. Taking an industry comparison, through a gender diversity lens, we can see that the renewables sector fares relatively well compared to other industries, outperforming the likes of the military, automotive, and oil and gas sectors, and fares quite well against the financial services sector.

_{Source: SeekOut}

However, a note of caution here. We know from our earlier blog that the renewables sector recruits heavily from industries such as the military, automotive, and oil and gas, so unless the net is widened, there could be a risk of potentially worsening the picture. This means that renewables companies need to diversify the sectors from which they source talent in the future. A similar story emerges from the data on ethnicity (except for the military). This further reinforces the point that we need to look for transferable skills across various sectors to ensure the future renewables workforce is as diverse as possible.

We know that 16% of all entrants into the renewables sector come straight from education, so to understand the future pipeline of talent, we must look at the education sector in more detail. To assess the current level of diversity within renewables-focused education, AMS conducted analysis of the 2022 graduation year in 30 leading universities in the UK, US and Europe for pure engineering-focused degrees and those with a renewables’ focus. Encouragingly, the analysis shows that renewables-focused university courses attract nearly twice as many more women than pure engineering courses, with around half (48.5%) of students in the renewables-focused courses being women, compared to just 24.9% of students in the pure engineering courses.

Around half of the students on renewables focused university courses are women instead of around a quarter in pure engineering courses.

If we take another look at the data through an ethnicity lens, the results are less encouraging. We see that fewer Asian and Black candidates are enrolled on renewables-focused courses than pure engineering courses.

Our analysis also shows that the number of universities offering renewables-focused courses has grown significantly between 2011-2021, with the most encouraging statistic being that there has been a 55% increase in the number of universities in the US offering renewables-focused courses.

Change in the number of universities offering renewables focused courses 2011-2021:

_{Sources: Britishuni.com, Studylink.com, Educations.com}

These results raise some interesting questions. Is the nearly 50/50 split (male/female) on renewables-focused courses enough, or should we push for the majority to be female to start correcting the sector imbalance? What can we do to ensure we attract more ethnically diverse participants in renewables-focused courses? How can we ensure that more courses and places are available at more universities, remembering that the renewables workforce needs to triple by 2030 to ‘keep 1.5°C alive’?

Some universities are leading the way in this regard, and the institutions with dedicated research centres or easy access to renewable energy sources are ideally positioned to drive the agenda. For example, the University of Loughborough is the largest renewables educator in the UK, with 7.1% of the UK’s talent pool coming from there. This shows the clear focus; their students make up 0.75% of the UK’s total university population (commonslibrary.parliament.uk), but 7% of the renewables’ graduates. Loughborough University also runs the oldest renewables Masters in the UK. The program is designed and delivered by experts from the Centre for Renewable Energy Systems Technology (CREST), the UK’s largest sustainable energy engineering research centre. Likewise, in Scandinavia, the University of Agder in Norway makes up 1.6% of the total student population for the region (Statista), but 15% of the renewable’s graduates. So, it is no surprise that the Norwegian Centre for Offshore Wind Energy (NORCOWE) is based out of the University of Agder.

Over in the USA, we see that Oregon Institute of Technology has supplied 2.9% of the market of candidates whose studies have focussed on renewables, despite making up only 0.025% of the total university population (National Centre for Education Statistics). This is because Oregon Institute of Technology’s renewables courses are designed by the Oregon Renewable Energy Center (OREC). In addition, Oregon is unique with its access to wind, wave, hydro, and solar energy. These natural resource advantages position OREC to be a unique centre for collaboration.

These pioneering examples need to be championed, and as other institutions see increasing enrolments, they will hopefully add their own renewables-focused courses to their offering.

Summary:

Our analysis clearly shows that the renewables sector is already better positioned from a diversity perspective than the sectors it primarily draws talent from, so to not dilute its current position, the industry needs to turn to alternative sources of talent. This can be provided by the education sector to a degree, with some encouraging analysis on the relative attractiveness of renewables-related courses compared to pure engineering courses, but this only takes care of 16% of recruits.

What is required now is to make sure the renewables sector is as attractive as possible to talent from all sectors and all kinds of talent. This means the sector will need to ensure it is more than competitive when it comes to pay and benefits and offer excellent long-term career opportunities and development for candidates.

With everything happening in our world right now it is clear that there is even more need to accelerate the energy transition.

In our final blog in this series, we will analyse how the renewables sector compares from an attraction perspective and discuss what factors need to be focused on to ensure it stands out from its competitors.

If you would like to talk to us about recruiting for the energy or renewables sector, please get in touch.

_{Source of research data is SeekOut unless otherwise stated.}
_{Data accurate as of March 2022.}

Authors:

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25 April 2022 — Incorporation of Services Procurement into Contingent Labour programmes to develop a complete external workforce view is nothing new. What is not as well-developed is the depth of management applied across constituent elements of the Services Procurement process. Investment in these elements contributes significantly to the ability to achieve an effective procurement strategy and to aid broader organisational objectives alongside maximising procurement’s value.

Simply tracking activity to provide a level of visibility is the starting point for many programmes. However, far too often that is as far as the programme develops. Only in recent years, however, has the inclusion of strategic procurement activities, like scope definition, end-to-end sourcing and contract management become part of the conversation.

An organisation’s ability/appetite to capture the greatest possible value depends on several elements including the size and complexity of the market, their relative influence, existence of appropriate in-house expertise & capacity and internal category prioritisation.

The case for change is commonly focused on gaining a level of governance (driven by risk mitigation concerns) and realising a level of process efficiency, often at the expense of fully exploring the underlying drivers of value.

Our experience at AMS provides insight that far greater value commercially and operationally is achieved via:

Controlling demand management and adopting the right route to market
Gaining access to category expertise and real-time market insights
Investing in expertise and technology to define the supporting SoW
Defining the appropriate commercial construct
Devoting energy to an expansive and competitive sourcing activity that includes but not limited to market analysis, sourcing process and contract & negotiation
Enabling processes to drive efficiency across with focus on time-consuming & administrative in nature
Managing supplier performance & investing effort in strategic relationships to develop deeper collaboration & innovation

Beyond the scale of these savings, they also tend to be the most sustainable over the long term and recognised long after any initial process efficiencies are realised.

With the scale and complexity associated with these programmes, it is difficult to envisage a solution not underpinned by technology.

AMS is seeing an increasing number of technology providers creating and developing their product suite to support external workforce. It is no coincidence that Beeline and Fieldglass are now going to market as Extended Workforce platforms, dropping the well-established, but perhaps now outdated, VMS reference.

Alongside this, AMS is engaging new entrants that offer interesting alternatives and/or address specific challenges. Most notably:

Deployed. Simplification of SoW creation via its intelligent platform that supports real-time collaboration, write, review, and manage SoWs together.
Workday. Particularly with its recent acquisition of VNDLY, it further develops its capability to manage permanent and external workforce in a holistic solution. This builds on the integration of Scout RFP (Workday Strategic Sourcing), to accelerate Workday’s ability to deliver an interesting source-to-pay solution.
Coupa. Driven by its continued development of its Contingent Workforce solution, it enables the management of contingent workers and complex services at scale alongside its well established spend management capability.

Our view is there will be increased recognition of the value opportunity within the external workforce over the next two years. Along with the technology advancements we are seeing, we expect to see a further increase in Services Procurement spend under management within Contingent Labour programmes, combined with far more strategic solutions.

The journey to realise the full value of external workforce requires an investment of time to fully explore the underlying drivers of value, develop a clear roadmap and a well-articulated business case for change.

AMS can partner with you on this journey. If you would like to learn more, please get in touch with me.

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13 March 2022 — What’s the most effective strategy for making your organisation more inclusive and diverse? A data-driven strategy? Or a programme-driven strategy?

In a region as diverse and highly complex as ours, the response to this question has to be a resounding “both”.

Below, we offer practical advice on developing an approach to DEI that contains the ideal blend of these two key elements – data and programmes. But, first, let’s examine the case for each.

Why is data so important?

One of the reasons companies struggle to move the dial on diversity and inclusion is because they fail to target the root causes of inequality. It is hard to be objective when assessing familiar, well-established processes. In-built flaws and biases can be overlooked. A significant proportion of the workforce may not even recognise there is a problem.

According to a recent survey report from Workday, half of companies in Europe are monitoring their workforce and/or job applicants by age and gender. By collecting and analysing disaggregated demographic data from job applicants and employees, organisations can start to build a more accurate picture of where and how they are falling short. How do promotion, retention and engagement rates differ based on gender, ethnicity, disability status, geographical location? Are there any hidden patterns? What are the deeper cultural discrepancies that need to be addressed?

Data doesn’t just make it easier to identify the real issues and formulate an effective response – it also makes an inarguable case for action, turning a potentially emotional conversation into one based on facts.

The importance of DEI programmes in Europe

While the collection and analysis of data is a critical starting point, it is just
that – a starting point. To create workplaces that are truly inclusive and diverse, organisations must move beyond measurement to concrete action and accountability.

What’s more, the diversity data organisations are able to collect may be limited due to the varied and often complex regulations that exist across Europe. Twenty-three percent of respondents to the Workday survey said they don’t collect more data because of compliance concerns.

For all these reasons, DEI programmes should be a core part of your DEI strategy and be incorporated into all aspects of an organisation. This may include the introduction of new DEI policies or targeted training interventions or ongoing initiatives and events. The key is to build your programmes around the data and to work hard at sustaining engagement and excitement in the programme over time. After all, research has shown time and again that organisations committed to DEI programmes see increases in innovation and job performance and reductions in employee turnover.

Six steps to achieving the ideal balance

Ready to begin building your well-balanced data- and programme-driven approach? Here are six simple steps you should consider:

Strategy

Before doing anything else, you need to clearly set out your core strategic objectives. What are you trying to achieve as an organisation in terms of diversity, equity and inclusion? These objectives will determine your approach and shape the actions you take in each of the steps that follow.

Analyse

The second step to creating an effective DEI strategy is to uncover patterns, gaps and shortfalls in your existing structures and processes and identify ways in which these issues can be resolved. This means not just collecting demographic data but, more importantly, conducting rigorous analysis so that it offers you the insights you need. This can also feed into a revision of the strategy subject to your findings.

Set goals

Understanding the issue is one thing. Resolving it is quite another, especially when the processes or behaviours you need to change are woven into the fabric of your organisation. To make sure insights are turned into action, it’s important to create realistic goals and timelines for increasing representation in all the areas you’ve identified, whether it’s ethnic minority career advancement or women on the board.

Localise

Of all the different areas of your business strategy, diversity and inclusion is one where there is definitely no room for a one-size-fits-all approach. Global companies, and companies operating across multiple countries within Europe, will need to adapt at a regional (and sometimes country) level. They will also need to tailor the strategy to local context and needs. You may also need to adjust how you gather data, as some countries have regulations preventing demographic data being collected.

Engage

Moving the dial on diversity and inclusion requires an ongoing change in management focus – and people will be less inclined to change if programmes are imposed from on high. Active involvement of managers and employees at all levels in the review process is key. You should also aim to invite feedback on what’s working and what needs to be improved and, if possible, encourage suggestions for programme design and implementation. The more you can include your workforce on the transformational journeys, the better.

Review and refine

So, you’ve collected your data and used your analysis to design and implement programmes targeting your core DEI challenges? That’s great – but it’s only the start. To create a truly diverse and inclusive organisation, you will need to constantly measure and re-evaluate your strategy, adjusting tactics and goals to match the changing realities of your workforce.

Need help getting started? At AMS, we keep diversity, equity and inclusion top of mind in everything we do, from sourcing candidates to creating technology solutions. We also work with clients to identify career barriers and design talent processes that are equitable and inclusive. Find out how we can help you meet your DEI goals.

Authors:

Brett O'Connor
Client Director

Stella Steigleder
Senior Manager, Client Services

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31 March 2022 — Our recent paper, Four Critical Talent Priorities Defining the New Workplace part-authored by Meghan M. Biro and the TalentCulture team, highlights the challenges facing HR and Talent leaders as they navigate the fast-changing expectations of organisations, their employees and a newly defined workplace. Specifically, the pressure on organisations to find and nurture talent in a more employee centric market; one where available talent is considerably more scarce than available roles and where candidates are seeking opportunities that offer them high quality engagement, flexibility and opportunities for growth.

The paper gathers thoughts from four HR leaders, including myself, and we aim to address these issues and offer insights on how to define a new workplace amidst rapid change. If you haven’t managed to read the paper yet, I feature a summary below of one of the four critical priorities: the role that sourcing plays.

To understand the importance of sourcing it’s best to understand the difference between a recruiter and a sourcer. The answer centres largely around having an internal vs external remit. Essentially, a recruiter is the person that holds the relationship with the hiring manager. They are the project manager for the hire and expertly manage the process from application to interview, through to negotiation and hire. A sourcer role is more outward looking, focusing on building a talent pool, understanding the competition and changes in the marketplace and making sure their company is perceived as a good place to work. The two roles should dovetail perfectly together.

Why sourcing, rather than purely recruiting, is a key priority.

Sourcers can influence key organisational challenges such as diversity, digitisation and specific technical needs.
Sourcing can open opportunities for organisations to look at recruiting from new locations, new markets and for new skills.
Sourcers should bring a value proposition to life and ensure that prospective candidates are convinced that a company is a great place to work.
Sourcers focus their efforts on the candidate experience and engagement of prospective employees.
Sourcers have a natural curiosity for what’s going on in the market and can spot market trends and recognise how those trends might create both challenge and opportunity for a business.
Sourcers actively market a role and build a brand within the market, translating a job description into a wider more meaningful proposition, building relationships and candidate trust.
Insights are key to a good sourcing model. Using insights for sourcing help shape location and attraction strategies, particularly key for reaching those from non-traditional backgrounds.
Sourcers and recruiters alike have a role in convincing internal clients to reevaluate the types of talent they are recruiting and different places to search for candidates.

Leveraging the strategic advantages of sourcing is just one of the essential pillars of the new approach to modern talent management. Our clients tell us that sourcing is hugely important in this market and offers much more than a transactional service; allowing them to recruit more strategically and to shape the candidate experience.

To read more about the importance of sourcing, and the other three themes our experts believe leaders should focus on to drive business success, head over to the full paper, Four Critical Talent Priorities defining the Workplace.

To learn more about how insights can be used within sourcing to gain competitive advantage, please contact our Advisory Team.

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16 March 2022 — As part of my role as a Consulting Partner in the AMS Talent Advisory team, I was recently enlisted to contribute to a white paper titled Four Critical Talent Priorities Defining the New Workplace. The paper dives into four key talent trends, and whilst some of them are not entirely new, what we have seen recently is renewed interest, fresh perspectives and accelerated adoption within this fast-changing workplace. With additional comment from the globally recognized HR analyst, author and speaker, Megan M. Biro and her team at TalentCulture, the paper is a must read for anyone trying to navigate successful talent management today.

In the paper I talk about Internal Mobility, and I’d like to share a summary of my thoughts with you here.

The need for internal mobility

The benefits of internal mobility have long been documented. With an average of 41% longer employee tenure (LinkedIn), three times lower likelihood of leaving (SHRM), up to six times less costly to recruit (Josh Bersin) and higher speed-to-productivity, there is a clear business case for creating strong strategic and operational foundations for internal mobility. It is also well documented that a lack of career progression is one of the main reasons that employees will leave their role, and many say that it is easier to find employment externally than to move internally (HR Research), indicating that there is still plenty of room for improvement.

The sharp, unexpected rise in demand for talent that has caught many organisations off-guard means they are having to compete on two fronts: Filling new ‘growth-related’ roles, as well as backfilling vacancies created by the infamous Great Resignation, and the generally buoyant labour market.

Organisations are therefore not only trying to scale up their external hiring, but they are also turning their attention to what they can do better to identify and engage passive and active internal talent, to create a focus on critical skills and talent retention, and to pave the way for more diverse career paths.

Understanding your baseline and setting your vision for internal mobility

At AMS we work with a vast range of organisations and support an equally vast range of approaches to internal mobility, from more ‘reactive’ approaches that put the onus firmly on the individual to actively search for and apply to roles of interest, through to smart, technology-driven solutions that proactively suggest roles and career paths, facilitate and simplify the selection process and even overlay white-glove candidate support via specialist teams.

Therefore, it is important to start off with a clear understanding of not only your current internal fill rates, but also things like:

What is your internal candidate experience? Is the process seen as fair? How do internals currently go about their internal job search? And are those looking internally already looking externally as well?
Who has overall accountability of internal mobility? Given the close relation with areas like succession planning, and other talent practices that typically sit outside of TA, how do TA, HR and Talent Management create a coherent, integrated approach?
What is your current culture and appetite for internal mobility, both with hiring managers and candidates? Is it seen as ‘acceptable’ to apply and be unsuccessful? Are the benefits of hiring internally, like already existing internal networks and institutional knowledge, understood and valued by hiring managers?
What internal policies are in place that enable or inadvertently hinder internal mobility?

Developing a clear vision is equally important. You must ask yourself, what do we want to achieve with better internal mobility?

Is this mainly a retention play, or is it a key enabler for growth?
Is it linked to significant upskilling & reskilling initiatives across all employees, or mainly aimed at high potentials or critical talent segments?
Is it focused on permanent moves, or do we include projects and assignments?

Given the business model, sector and functional alignments of our organisation, what percentage of internal hiring is actually healthy, desirable or realistic?

Internal mobility as a driver of DEI

Internal mobility needs to be a key pillar of any organisation’s DEI strategy. Whilst many companies are still looking to talent acquisition as their main enabler for achieving a more diverse workforce, they often fail to turn their attention towards talent movements within the business, the experience of diverse talent and their perception of equity and access to opportunities.

Where internal movements are still left to managers’ perception of who may be suitable or based on who you know, diverse talent can quickly find themselves disadvantaged, especially where they have a more limited access to a network of decision makers. Whilst finding a senior sponsor can sometimes help overcome some of the challenges and increase visibility, especially at the more senior end, this may not be enough if foundations aren’t in place: Equal and transparent promotion and access to internal opportunities, and the perception of ‘fairness’ in the selection process.

Closing thoughts

Given the current nature of the talent market, the scarcity of available external talent across a range of skill sets, the increasing costs of recruiting externally and the ever more important balancing act of ‘buying’ and ‘building’ talent, overhauling the strategic and operational approach to internal mobility should be a key component in any organisation’s 2022 talent & DEI strategy.

Head over to our paper, Four Critical Talent Priorities defining the Workplace to hear more from me on this and additionally, the insights offered by the other SMEs who reflect how DEI, sourcing and digital transformation are all important areas to focus on when managing talent in our fast-paced modern workplace.

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AMS launches Ethical AI in Talent Board to ensure fair, unbiased AI use in recruitment. Experts will guide ethical AI adoption across the talent lifecycle.

Whitepaper

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Learn how to reframe talent for the future. Don’t miss the opportunity to unlock organizational potential and meet tomorrow’s challenges, starting now.

Blogs & Articles

What is Contingent Staffing, and What Are the Benefits?

Learn what contingent staffing is and explore its benefits, from flexibility and cost savings to access to specialized skills.

1 March 2022 — We recently launched a white paper titled Four Critical Talent Priorities Defining the New Workplace. With summary from Megan M. Biro, a globally recognised HR analyst, author and speaker, it aimed to help HR and talent leaders understand their priorities for the coming year amidst a time of rapid change. I contributed to the paper to share how digital transformation is an essential pillar when optimising talent effectively in the modern workplace.

The paper shared insight from McKinsey which reported that 60% of global customer interactions in 2020 were digital, compared to just 20% back in 2017. That is a huge leap and indicative of the impact that digital transformation is having on the workplace and in turn, on talent management.

Grab a cup of coffee and read the paper to understand all four of the talent priorities we discuss, but until then, I’d like to share a summary of my thoughts on the impact of digital transformation and how to be ready for the future now.

How hiring and talent management are being changed by digital transformation

The privilege of working with a company like AMS is that we get to work with such a wide range of organisations across different sectors in all different parts of the world. This gives us great insight to the trends developing within talent management. In summary:

We are seeing significant investment in HR technology budgets to transform TA efforts. This is largely being driven by demand for talent, rising attrition rates and critical hiring needs.
Organisations are replacing or optimising existing tools and focusing on end-user interactions to analyze reasons for drop-off and to ensure they are aligning with key business initiatives, such as DEI. Companies that are not currently investing in enabling tools or optimising what they have based upon personas, need to be doing so if they want to stay competitive!
There is an increased focus on internal mobility rather than external talent, with upskilling programs and an emphasis on skills analysis and competency matching.

Digital transformation is shifting requirements for roles and for candidates

The tech skills crisis is real, and the current skills deficiency is projected to grow. New digital roles that did not exist five years ago, or even three years ago in some instances, are being created. Jobs that typically wouldn’t have used technology now often involve using laptops or apps for operational purposes.
Most organisations are coming to realise that all staff need a fundamental set of digital skills regardless of their role, and there is an increasing expectation that all candidates will have a base level of digital skills.
There is a shift in what constitutes the ideal candidate. While organizations might still aim to hire an experienced person with the right level of digital skills, they will also look for agile learners who have the cognitive ability and curiosity to learn new skills with the right training and mentoring.

Talent shortages and challenges caused by digital transformation

It’s clear from our work within the AMS Talent Advisory team that digital transformation is putting extreme pressure on a current talent and teams. Organizations are having to lean on consultants like ours to support them with technology implementations and optimising tools. Organizations are having to move very quickly, and employees are having to adapt to new ways of working.
Fast-pace digital transformation, even with the best change processes in place, can be challenging for existing staff who have been with the organization for many years and are not used to that pace of change. These are valuable employees with key organizational knowledge, and they need to be nurtured on the change journey, particularly if surrounded by new employees with high expectations of digital enablement.
Predicting the pace of change and the future skills that will be needed can be difficult but is necessary. Establishing these plans allow companies to evaluate current the skills and determine which employees are suitable to be reskilled. Industry data insights can also be used to establish whether it is realistic to recruit externally.
Despite many companies anticipating a return to ‘normal’ following the pandemic almost all know that they will have to continue to offer a level of flexible working, requiring a level of digital capability to support the new fluid workplace.

How talent acquisition has changed

There has been shift with talent technology to one of self-service and we are now seeing organizations adopt AI, automation and deeper integrations which offer a more bespoke user experience along with more joined-up data and reporting.
There is a move to more consumer-like systems and ones which focus on the overall employee journey not just on the hiring process. Candidate and employee expectations mean that the experience should be aligned throughout their journey with content, communications and information available centrally.

How the digital transformation can help with talent shortages

Without doubt the candidate experience is being much improved by digital enhancements, making things seamless and straightforward with a layer of intelligence applied that streamlines the applicant process.
Transformative technology allows the candidate to understand the company culture and values so candidates can make informed choices as to whether the company is one they want to work for.
That said, we urge our clients to ensure that the transformative processes in place are weaved into all ways of working and that the positive experience is representative of what actually goes on within the business. Equally for all the positive things happening within the business we encourage them to make sure this is reflected in the hiring process. Technology can enable this.

Digital transformation efforts should be enablers for both talent acquisition as well as wider talent management priorities, but organisations need to move at pace without losing sight of the fact that both the candidate and employee experiences should be completely authentic to the organisation. I talk more about this in our paper, Four Critical Talent Priorities defining the Workplace and there we also share the other three key priorities that will enhance the employee experience, forge a better work culture and drive business success.

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8 March 2022 — Climate change is with us and we all know that the energy transition from fossil fuels to renewables must be accelerated for us to ‘keep 1.5°C alive’. According to IRENA’s World Energy Transitions Outlook: 1.5°C Pathway, employment in the Renewable Energy sector will need to more than triple, from 12 million in 2020 to 38 million by 2030. These are astonishing and ambitious growth numbers and if they have any chance of being achieved, they will need to be supported by a whole host of strategies. These will include, transformational policy change, government funded training and investment schemes, strategic reskilling programmes and a change of mindset when it comes to recognising suitable talent for the sector.

In our series of blogs over the coming weeks we will be discussing some of these topics. For this blog we are going to focus on this ‘change of mindset’.

IRENA estimated that there were 12 million people employed in the Renewable Energy sector in 2020 which gives us a very strong indication of the size of the existing talent pool. There are also many people who categorise themselves as having skills in ‘renewables’, and while some of them are directly employed in the sector, many may not be. IRENA reports that there were 838,000 people employed in the US Renewable Energy sector in 2020, but according to our own research, carried out on SeekOut in December 2021, there were just short of 1.2 million people who categorise themselves as being skilled in renewables (nearly 45% more than are actually employed in the sector). Meanwhile, across the pond in the UK, IRENA said that 138,000 people are employed in the sector but again, according to SeekOut, those who categorise themselves as skilled in renewables could be as many as 365,000 (more than 2.5 times the number of people employed in the sector). These numbers are very encouraging, reflecting the potential transferable skills that are available in the market. However, even if all of the self-assessment of skills is accurate, and all of these people want to be employed in the sector, we will still struggle to get near to the growth numbers required for the 1.5°C compatible global pathway to become a reality.

What role can Talent Acquisition play in the talent challenge?

If we simply recycle the existing pool of talent and supplement this with school and college-leavers we will be nowhere near to achieving the growth that the Renewable Energy sector needs. Barriers to entry exist for strategies such as transformational policy change and it will take time before significant funds are raised by government or the private sector for training and re-skilling programmes. We must respond to the challenge by changing the mindset of hiring managers in the sector so we can access talent that has transferable skills.

The nature of work in the Renewables sector offers plenty of opportunity for ‘transferability’ of skill and there are of course, transferable skills evident from oil and gas to renewables.

The 2021 UK Offshore Energy Workforce Transferability Review from the RGU Energy Transition Institute found that 70% of the UK oil and gas workforce have medium skills transferability to other energy industries, principally onshore wind, and another 20% have high transferability.

This is particularly evident in the off-shore wind sector as high levels of transferability exist in manufacturing, planning, maintenance and operations – all aligned to some of the major challenges associated with large engineering projects in deep sea environments. While it is less of a challenge convincing hiring managers that they should consider these candidates, there is still hesitation. There needs to be a compelling reason why someone should leave the Oil and Gas sector and join the Renewables sector. Growing concern in the Oil and Gas sector around future career prospects provided by OGJS (illustrated below) supports this, but remuneration and reward need to be comparable. It is the job of talent acquisition professionals to explain these nuances to hiring managers and provide them with the insights to build business cases for offers they are making.

Source: OGJS

IRENA’s Renewable Energy and Jobs Annual Review 2021 shows that around half of all jobs in the sector only require minimal formal training and a non-degree level education, meaning that they are very accessible. This means that people with practical problem-solving skills and a good level of manual dexterity should be deemed as having highly transferable skills, and this talent pool could be available from a variety of industry sectors. Moreover, if we assume that between 10 and 15% of all roles within Renewable Energy companies will sit in corporate and administrative functions (20/22% according to The US Department of Energy) there is much more likelihood that this proportion of roles can be filled with people who have no previous experience of the sector (with the possible exception of highly specialist regulatory or legal roles). Once again, it falls on the talent acquisition teams to influence the beliefs and pre-conceived notions of hiring managers that for these corporate and administrative roles, Renewable Energy experience is not a ‘must-have’ requirement.

What are the skills most in demand in Renewable Energy?

Our own research on skills in the Renewable Energy sector carried out via SeekOut and TalentNeuron to establish trends in talent requirements and candidate profiles shows interesting results.

At 28.6%, ‘Project Management’ is the skill mentioned most often in professional profiles of candidates working in the UK Renewables sector. ‘Management’ is listed third at 27.8%. These two skills are universal and not specific to the Renewables sector. Other skills making up the top 10 include ‘Engineering’, ‘Project Planning’, ‘Business Development’, ‘Business Strategy’ and ‘Customer Service’. All of these skills are attributed via self-assessments and not necessarily listed as requirements by decision makers in the hiring process. However, if talent acquisition teams were able to highlight trends of this nature they could open up new pools of candidates outside of the sector.

The top five skills featured in the job adverts posted by the top US Renewables employers (January 2021 to January 2022) were Communication 71% (of all adverts), Analysis (41%), Written Communications (34%), Verbal Communications (34%) & Planning (30%).

Data: TalentNeuron

Finding candidates who are already applying these skills in a Renewable Energy setting would naturally be ideal, but at what cost? In future blogs we will investigate the reward element within Renewables to understand the extent to which companies competing for the same pool of talent is inflating salary levels in the industry. If hiring teams can be more creative, sourcing candidates with the above skills, the reward levels may be subject to less inflationary pressure. The Renewables sector also has an opportunity to attract a far more diverse range of people than what we see in the likes of Oil & Gas. Understanding the core skills required will allow the sector to be more accessible and be supported by a diversity of thought that is potentially lacking in other energy sectors.

Where can we find these skills?

Five of the top Renewables employers in the US are already looking for ways to identify sources of talent outside the existing Renewables marketplace. Having experience in the Renewables sector, although valuable, is secondary to identifying candidates with the relevant skills and competencies.

Our own research on which industries candidates worked in prior to joining the Renewables sector in the US, UK, Denmark, Norway and Sweden revealed, fairly unsurprisingly, that the Oil & Gas sector featured at the top of the list. There are several reasons for this; candidates may have worked offshore, in safety critical environments, in energy and in many cases worked for a company transitioning from Oil & Gas to one that provides an energy mix. In these cases candidates are able to move internally and are likely to adapt more quickly as they already understand company processes, values, systems, communications styles and may have established relationships with colleagues. However, The Society for Human Resource Management’s report ‘Preparing for an Aging Workforce, shows that approximately one-quarter of the current energy sector workforce is over 55 years-old and within 7 years’ time will retire. The Oil and Gas talent well will eventually run dry.

Second on the list of potential sources for Renewables sector candidates are those coming straight from education, followed closely by those from engineering consultancies. Candidates from engineering consultancies are often already embedded within client organisations so can transfer into renewables with relative ease.

Notably, other sectors that feature high on the list are, the Military, Finance, Automotive, Defence and IT.

Data: SeekOut

As per the above chart, industries that in part require candidates with good technical competencies are good sources for transferable skills. This is demonstrated when, using research from the AMS Insights team, we analyse the fastest growing role requirements in the Renewables sector (taken from job adverts in US).

Over the course of the last 12 months, the required skill, ‘Technical Direction’ has increased by 1592%. ‘Statistical analysis’ has gone up by 677% and ‘Analytics’ by 510%. On the flip side, the requirement for ‘Renewable energy technologies’ knowledge dropped by 21% and ‘Renewable energy industry’ dropped by 4%. The biggest increases were seen in ‘Electric grid’ (1729%) and ‘Electric power systems’ (1637%).

This demonstrates that US companies are aware of the challenges in attracting existing renewables experience and are already searching for the relevant skills, over sector experience. There are of course some roles which will require specific experience but if companies can hone in on the most crucial, core skills and identify where those skills exist in other sectors they will open up new talent pools, and open the doors of the Renewables sector to the next generation of the Renewables workforce.

This focus on recruiting transferable skills is just one strategy which the industry can take to meet the predicted demand for jobs in the Renewable Energy sector. In our futher blogs in this series we will also talk about reward schemes, DEI opportunites and early careers strategies and how these can help boost talent acquisition activites for the sector.

If you would like to talk to us about recruiting for the Energy sector then please do get in touch.

Authored by:

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8 February 2022 — My colleagues at AMS came together to shine a spotlight on shifting priorities facing HR and Talent Leaders as they navigate how to define a modern-day workplace amidst rapid change. We partnered with globally recognised HR expert, Meghan M. Biro of TalentCulture, to explore the biggest challenges facing people leaders today – the result is a digital paper, Four Critical Talent Priorities Defining the New Workplace.

As Senior Vice President of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Advisory for AMS, I was thrilled to share some of the work I do every day to keep advancing the DEI conversation. If you haven’t already, I encourage you to explore the digital paper to see how all four priorities come together. If you’re most interested in the role DEI plays in shaping today’s workplace, here are some highlights around why I see DEI as a critical component to optimizing talent today.

Working at the forefront of the talent sector for decades affords us the privileged position of partnering with a vast number of market-leading and fascinating organizations. In my experience working with these companies, I’ve seen that achieving diversity hiring goals can be an easier first step on the way to creating a fully inclusive working environment in all areas of the business. First, let’s get on the same page about what these terms both mean:

Diversity deals with all the ways we are different from one another; including dimensions such as race and ethnicity, age, gender, religion, and disability (both physical and neurological), and it also includes political views, geography, thinking styles, and socioeconomic status.

Equity relates to treating employees fairly. It’s about offering equal opportunities and access to growth and most importantly, the individual support that is needed to help a person thrive and achieve in their role in an equal way to other colleagues.

Making the most of diversity, inclusion is about empowering people and making sure they feel they belong. We need to respect and celebrate employees’ differences and actively encourage and support their contribution to the business. Inclusion and belonging are about ensuring they feel valued and that they have a voice.

Challenge lies in working towards a mix of diverse employees that is right at each level – and in ensuring everyone is treated fairly and has the same level of opportunity. When it comes to inclusion it’s not just okay to be in the meeting, leaders need to work to make sure everyone is being heard in the meeting. Focus not just on what is being said and by who, but what is not being said and who is not being encouraged to speak. Inclusion happens at both the organization and team level and those leaders that allow employees a voice and give them a sense of belonging will be achieving greater levels of retention and engagement than others. Research shows that diverse and inclusive teams make better business decisions.

When it comes to talent acquisition, a thoughtful talent acquisition strategy can have a positive impact on improving DEI across the workforce.

A few things to think about:

 TA leaders should demonstrate from the get-go that DEI is important to the organization, not just a tick-the-box exercise. Right through the recruitment process, from initial intake meeting to onboarding they have the opportunity to show they are being inclusive.
We are seeing TA leaders encourage hiring managers to rethink their qualification requirements as these can limit the intake pool. They are challenging the way job descriptions are written to increase the use of inclusive language, i.e. are the words, ‘demonstrate superior skills in X or Y’ necessary? Or is ‘demonstrate competence at X or Y’ sufficient? What types of people may be getting put off unnecessarily?
Organisations need to look at their entire hiring process; are there diverse people involved in every part of the sourcing and selection process; from attraction to interviewing and final selection?
Interviewing and onboarding can be a different experience for diverse candidates, so training is needed to understand how this experience differs and how tailoring your process can better meet their unique needs. The use of cultural ambassadors from an ERG, for example, is a good way to guide diverse employees through the onboarding process.
A robust TA strategy recognises that people make decisions about whether they plan to stay with a company within the first weeks of employment, so the whole recruitment and onboarding process is a key time to amplify engagement.

Talent acquisition can also help to close equity gaps within a workforce. Here’s how:

Stop looking at previous salary history. Data shows that certain diverse candidate populations have, historically, had lower salaries. Many companies are now ignoring this and focusing on offering the most equitable salary for the role based on market conditions
We also encourage our clients to recruit from within, where they will often find more diversity than from the external candidate pool. It results in increased diversity within teams and has a profound impact on engagement and retention. Lack of career opportunity is regularly cited as the reason that people leave their current employer.
The internal culture is also key. If existing employees from diverse backgrounds feel included and valued, they will become advocates for the business and are very likely to talk openly and positively about their experience in their networks.

Having a strong internal culture of inclusion and an environment where diverse employees are thriving and feel they have the same advantages as others, can only be a positive advertisement for any organization. We are now working with organizations who have dedicated diversity teams in their sourcing process who are actively engaging diverse candidates very early in the hiring process. Those with thriving cultures are also ensuring current employees are given the same opportunities and assignments as external candidates and are encouraging them to succeed. It is heartening to see DEI becoming embedded throughout organizations’ talent acquisition priorities – long may this continue.

I explored these topics, and more, in 'strategy #1' of the digital paper, Four Critical Talent Priorities Defining the New Workplace.

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21 January 2022 — A holistic workforce does not just refer to the employees on your payroll, it also includes the external workforce who play a pivotal role in your organisation’s success. Industry research suggests that 58% of total workforce spend is on employees with 42% spent on the external workforce. As your organisation grows, it becomes increasingly demanding to track and manage your total workforce and their engagements effectively.

In our client conversations, we learn that many leaders find it challenging to track the progress of Statement of Work (SoW) engagements often due to poorly constructed or conceived SoWs. This leads to buyer's expectations not being met, missed delivery dates/milestones, budget overrun, excessive change orders and scope creep. What if there is a way for you to optimise all your SoW engagements?

Only 33% of leaders effectively track service providers’ progress against milestones & deliverables. Are you one of them?

If you’re struggling to get started, you’re not alone.

According to the SIA MSP 'Global Landscape and Differentiators' report 2021, SoW accounts for 88-93% of total external workforce spend, with the majority of industry insight suggesting the external workforce will continue to grow in size and importance. Our expectations is there will be increased alignment and understanding of SoW in the next 12 months, — along with the technology advancements we are seeing — we expect a marked increase SoW spend under management within Contingent Workforce programs over the next two years.

Gaining visibility of your SoW workforce will enable you to truly leverage the strategic advantage an external workforce offers. It is the critical first step in ensuring you can articulate the business case to evolve the management of your SoW engagements.

Not sure what your holistic workforce really is? Let’s take a closer look.

Here are some tips to help you embark on that journey of visibility:

Establish benefits. Be clear on the organisational benefit you are looking to achieve through gaining visibility of your SoW population. Being able to clearly articulate the ability to manage risk, reduce cost, maximise ROI or support strategic decisions will help you get buy in from key stakeholders.
Define. Align the definition of SoW in your organisation. Does this refer to time- and materials-based workers provided via a third party as well as those on deliverables-based contracts? Does this include or exclude your consultancy spend and your strategic outsourced deals? Are there clear worker definitions to enable categorisation of workers into the correct engagement type?
Collaborate. Recognise that collaboration across procurement, finance and talent acquisition/HR is pivotal to successfully identifying your total workforce. This tripartite approach will ensure consistent messaging to business users and provide a more holistic picture of SoW workers/spend and the level of control you have in your organisation today.
Analyse your data. Never underestimate the varying sets of data that requires analysis. Accounts payable data, lists of suppliers, to workers with access to buildings and/or systems are just a few examples of the types of datasets you may want to consider when trying to consolidate the hidden SoW workers.
Set data review timeframes. Determine a set window of time for data analysis as SoW is a constantly moving beast.
Track requirements. Ensure you have a mechanism for tracking net new requirements during the analysis phase, otherwise, your dataset will likely be outdated from 'day one'.
Data management. Consider when you have the data, where you are going to store it, who is going to own it and how will you refresh it, before you commence your analysis. Do you have a technology platform to track workers and associated spend in the future?
Be realistic. Don’t set out on this activity expecting to achieve 100% visibility of your entire external workforce. Remember that SoW management is a journey, and every journey begins with a single step.
Align your resources. Ensure you have the right resources aligned to this journey. It is not always obvious from looking at the data, how you should categorise resources and determine the strategic direction to apply moving forward. It is crucial to involve subject matter experts to help navigate the nuances!

With an increasing reliance on SoW engagements, fragmented workforce management processes can be a significant stumbling block for organisations to leverage the strategic value of their holistic workforce. Research shows that companies with a highly aligned SoW strategy grow revenue 58% faster and are 72% more profitable than those with a fragmented approach! It’s time to evolve the management of your SoW workforce for successful business outcomes.

If you are struggling to gain visibility and control of your SoW engagements, we can partner with you to tailor and scale our solutions according to your needs. If you would like to learn more about SoW, please get in touch with me.

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