In a recent webinar sponsored by Morgan McKinley Talent Solutions, The HR World brought together Ross Crook, Global Managing Director of Morgan McKinley Talent Solutions, Lee Shaw as Head of Talent and Engagement at Shawbrook Bank Limited, and Cindy Rubbens as Chief People Officer for premium chauffeur service Blacklane to discuss the challenges surrounding securing talent.
Future Ready Talent Acquisition: Balancing Innovation and Efficiency provided viewers with a wealth of information on recruitment practices. It also offered them insights into market trends, and how to move forward. The panelists answer two more questions that were asked during the webinar.
Are you finding that TA needs to work more closely together with L&D / Training, given the importance of onboarding? What type of handover exists between TA and L&D (e.g. What are the results of skills tests / assessments?
Ross Crook In principle, I believe that TA and L&D need to work more closely together. However, in practice, I am not so sure. Understanding retention, or why people leave is important to managing attrition. You can take action if you know what’s going on. Training could help to address a management lack of skills. It could be a problem with the recruitment process or even the management and leadership style. You can also use an assessment model to find out which personalities work well in a business, and who should be recruited or what makes someone good for the company. If you are able to assess the skillsets that work for the business, you can reduce attrition. People will be more engaged and want to stay.
Lee Shaw For me, it is important to have a consistent message about employer branding throughout induction and onboarding. It is also crucial to build capability once onboarded.
Cindy Rubbens We encourage people at Blacklane to take ownership of their own training and development, identifying what skills they require to reach their career goals. They need to be the drivers. We don’t want people to be passive in their career. AI can also help in this area. New employees can choose to receive more training in certain areas as part of their onboarding. AI tools help them identify relevant courses and alerts them to new options when they become available. The information belongs to the individual, so that they can take full control of their careers.
To build a workforce that is future-ready, TA and L&D must work together.
As part of an initiative, we are evaluating the company values and have identified that a greater emphasis should be placed on data-driven decisions. L&D’s internal evaluations, along with feedback from our employees, led to this insight. It has influenced how we conduct recruitment. TA has aligned with L&D to ensure that “data-drivenness”, a concept embedded in our recruitment process, is now embedded. We can now assess the level of data literacy of candidates right at the beginning, allowing us to make an informed decision about whether or not they are a good fit for the company.
This is a great example of how L&D can serve as a compass to inform TA about the skills and traits needed for the business’s evolution. TA can then adjust its strategies in order to hire and attract talent that is not only aligned with the immediate needs of the company, but also positions employees for long-term success.
While TA acts as the “gateway”, L&D’s insights define the skills and abilities the business requires. This is a feedback loop – L&D identifies the skills and capabilities needed by the business, TA recruits the right talent, and L&D comes back to upskill the talent and nurture the pipeline once they are onboarded. The collaboration between these two departments ensures that every hire is not only the best fit for today, but also for the future.
What are the benefits of outsourcing certain parts of your Talent Management process?
Lee Shaw : A client’s perspective. It is possible to scale up or down quickly (less fixed costs), and it’s easier to do so with the help of embedded recruiters, who have proven expertise in their specialties and markets, and a network.
Ross Crook RPO allows your organization to focus on its core competencies and function while others handle the recruiting. Outsourcing certain aspects of your business allows you to focus on the things that make you money, without having to increase your headcount. You need to choose a partner who is flexible and willing to scale up at your pace. You can use the market’s expertise, technology, AI and best practices to help you reach your goals.
Cindy Rubbens We outsource talent acquisition when, for instance, we identify experience or expertise that we don’t have in our own network for a particular role.
We are a relatively new player in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia with a growing team, and external experts on the ground support our mission to add exceptional talent to Blacklane. We are relatively new in Saudi Arabia, with a growing staff, and we work with external experts to support our mission to bring exceptional talent to Blacklane.
We make a strategic choice to outsource certain parts of our recruiting efforts in order to meet specific needs. This is especially true during periods of high activity or when we need specialised expertise. In the past, organisations would turn to external partners for help with hiring spikes. In recent years, the outsourcing model has evolved dramatically, and Embedded recruitment is one of the most innovative solutions.
With Embedded recruitment, companies can hire a recruiter externally who will operate as a fully-integrated member of our internal Team for Talent Acquisition. This recruiter, instead of handling isolated projects or roles, works with our existing team at a fixed rate, and manages as many roles needed during the contract. They function as though they were a member of our internal team, which aligns them with our culture, goals, and processes.
This approach has several advantages. It offers flexibility. Unlike full-time TAs, Embedded Recruitment lets us scale up or down our efforts based on the current demand, without committing ourselves to long-term hiring. This is especially useful during busy periods or when we are running recruitment campaigns.
We reduce the risk associated with traditional hiring. We are relieved of some operational burdens by the agency, who manages the performance of the embedded recruiter. The agency will provide a seamless replacement if there are any performance issues, or if a recruiter becomes ill and is unable work. This ensures that our hiring process is not disrupted.
While the cost of embedded recruitment is higher than hiring internal staff, in certain circumstances, the benefits can outweigh this expense. The benefits of Embedded Recruitment include increased agility, the ability to access experienced recruiters, and peace-of-mind knowing that resources can quickly be adjusted as requirements change.
We use Embedded recruitment as a targeted solution to help us manage large volumes of work or fill specific roles without having to commit long-term resources. We can achieve a balance between operational efficiency and cost-effectiveness, while still maintaining flexibility to respond to changing hiring needs.
