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Our CEO’s predictions for hiring practices in 2021

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Our CEO’s predictions for hiring practices in 2021

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Darren Lancaster predictions fpr 2021
Darren Lancaster shares his predictions for 2021 in his interview with Changeboard

Against a backdrop of COVID vaccination campaigns, economic uncertainty, and a range of social issues, our CEO for the Americas and EMEA region, Darren Lancaster, shares his predictions for hiring practices in 2021 in his interview with Changeboard.

How will businesses address DE&I in their strategy, and what do virtual recruitment processes mean for candidate experience? How can HR benefit of the knowledge and experience recruiters have gained in the pandemic for their workforce planning, what will our return to the office look like?

Read Darren’s predictions and the full interview here:

Hudson RPO

Content Team

The Hudson RPO Content Team is made up of experts within the Talent Acquisition industry across the Americas, EMEA and APAC regions. They provide educational and critical business insights in the form of research reports, articles, news, videos, podcasts, and more. The team ensures high-quality content that helps all readers make talent decisions with confidence.

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Post-pandemic prediction 2: The Gig Economy on the Rise

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Post-pandemic prediction 2: The Gig Economy on the Rise

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In our post-pandemic predictions report, our second prediction was the rise of the gig economy. Prior to COVID-19, the market for temporary and contractor employees was already growing faster than the market for permanent staff. Post-pandemic, permanent headcounts will be considered a risk factor, and a gig-style or contingent workforce will offer organisations more flexibility and cost benefits while saving jobs. With future uncertainty, effectively managing and growing the contingent workforce will be a top priority, and more organisations will consider an MSP (managed service provider) solution.

The gig economy is an economy in which the market will be characterised by a contingent, or temporary, short-term contract workforce. The contingent workforce includes freelancers, independent professionals, temporary contract workers or consultants. An MSP solution, or managed service provider, can help an organisation manage this contingent workforce. MSP solutions are often looked for when a business requires temporary workers or freelancers, needs to ensure legal compliance, or wants to control hiring costs and mitigate talent risks.

MSP Staffing Solutions in the Gig Economy

MSP solutions offer various benefits. They can lower workforce costs, mitigate talent risks, but they can also help capture management information data and intelligence, manage efficient on- and offboarding processes, and ensure compliance with fast-changing labour laws and regulations.

  • Contingent workforce intelligence and data
    An MSP solution can help identify the right technology to enable automation of processes like pay, onboarding and offboarding, but can also help capture important management data for performance reviews and other metrics for continuous improvement.
  • Improved access to contingent talent
    MSP solutions can also help align contingent and permanent workforce strategies, increase access to the right talent, and help enable the transition between temporary and permanent employees.
  • Workforce agility and scalability
    An MSP solution can offer competitive and scalable models that are flexible in response to demand while complying with rapidly changing labour laws and regulations. There can be large fluctuations in the seasonal use of contingent labour, as well as in response to market and economic factors.

MSP Staffing Models

There are different MSP models to suit different organisations and goals. An MSP solution can be adapted and set up in many different ways, but the three most common models are the Sole Service Program, the Hybrid Solution, and the Vendor Neutral Model.

several people gathered in hallway
Different MSP models offer different benefits.

In the Sole (or Master) Service Program solution, the company engages a single MSP to oversee the end-to-end contingent workforce process. The solution is reliant on a single provider to manage contract labour, but also offers the most cost savings.

In the Hybrid Solution, an MSP is engaged to manage contingent workforces for a particular job family, business unit or geography. Risk is spread among other suppliers or processes, but the method still drives significant cost savings.

The Vendor Neutral Model is a model in which the MSP does not source contractors, but services only as a governance entity, managing the end-to-end process and overseeing performance. Whilst it does not deliver quite as many cost savings as the prior models, it does provide the most objective and optimised contingent workforce process.

Your Contingent Workforce

If you are wondering if an MSP model could be right for your organisation, we listed 10 questions to ask yourself to see if your contingent workforce programme is operating effectively:

  1. How many contingent workers are you paying across your organisation today and what is the cost?
  2. What is their location, role, reporting line, start and end dates?
  3. Do you have robust processes for hiring, on-boarding, managing and off-boarding contingent workers?
  4. Do you have the right technology in place to streamline the end-to-end management of this workforce?
  5. What is the total cost of each worker, including what they are earning versus the other costs you are being charged, such as supplier mark-ups and statutory on-costs?
  6. How do their salaries compare to employees in equivalent permanent roles and/or the external market?
  7. How are your contingent workers performing for your business? Are you ensuring low performers are exited quickly? Are high performers given opportunities to apply for your permanent roles?
  8. Do you know how often contingent workers run over their contract period, or your reutilisation rate?
  9. Does your business classify contractors correctly as PAYG, Independent Contractors and SOW?
  10. Do you have the right checks in place to ensure you are compliant with all legislative requirements?

Did you answer all these questions with ease?

If not, now is time to revisit your contingent workforce strategy. If you are interested in learning more about MSP solutions, please get in touch.

Hudson RPO

Content Team

The Hudson RPO Content Team is made up of experts within the Talent Acquisition industry across the Americas, EMEA and APAC regions. They provide educational and critical business insights in the form of research reports, articles, news, videos, podcasts, and more. The team ensures high-quality content that helps all readers make talent decisions with confidence.

Follow Hudson RPO on LinkedIn

What is RPO?

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What is MSP?

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6 Questions about employer branding answered

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6 Questions about employer branding answered

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In a competitive talent market, where despite the challenges presented by the pandemic and the downturn of business operations, the demand for talent still consistently outstrips supply, employer branding is increasingly coming into focus. Where companies already found themselves trying to sell their workplace to candidates much like a consumer brand sells its products, the pandemic has shifted the mindset of many employees and interview candidates to wellbeing. Organisations will have to respond to questions regarding their support to employees in the pandemic, their diversity and inclusion goals, and their flexible working options. Putting out a job description is no longer enough, and employer branding and employee value propositions are becoming competitive tools in the race for talent. But what exactly is employer branding, and how does it contribute to a recruitment strategy? We answer these and more questions for you below:

1. What is an employer brand?

An employer brand is much more than an explanation of the company’s strategy, markets, and products. It is an expression of an organisations’ corporate culture and its work environment, and the perception of the organisation as a workplace by current and potential employees.

2. Why is an employer brand important?

A good consumer brand alone is not enough anymore. Recruiting leaders agree that employer brand has a significant impact on hiring and will continue to be an increasing area of focus. 91% of candidates seek out at least one resource to evaluate an employer’s brand before applying. A strong employer brand can help reduce the cost to hire and time to fill by increasing candidate attraction, engagement, and employee retention. However, an employer brand that needs improvement does the opposite: 55% of job seekers abandon their application processes after reading negative reviews. 

3. What does an employer brand have to do with my recruitment process?

Most candidates consider the overall experience that they receive in the interview process as an indicator of how a company values its employees. It is important not to forget that candidates are often our customers too, and the recruitment process is the first opportunity for them to interact with your organisation. According to Glassdoor, 93% of employees and job seekers say it is important to be thoughtful and informed about all aspects of a company, including culture, values, mission, business model, future plans and the pro’s and cons of the workplace, before accepting an offer.

questions about branding graphic
Before accepting an offer, candidates consider many elements
of an organisation, including culture, mission, and vision.

4. What is the difference between an employer brand and an employee value proposition (EVP)?

If an employer brand is the perception of what your organisation is like as a workplace, the EVP is the way you make this perception a reality for your employees. An organisation’s employee value proposition (EVP) is the company’s promise to employees about the rewards and benefits they will receive in exchange for their performance. Defining the EVP so that this promise is clearly understood by all is critical to workplace culture, career management and employee retention. Strong EVP’s combine extrinsic motivators such as pay, bonuses and benefits with intrinsic motivators like learning and personal development, work environment and flexibility.

5. How do I go about setting up an employer brand?

Every organisation is different, which is why we design our employer branding solutions to your specific needs. Overall, essentials for building a high-value employer brand are:

  • Be authentic.
    Build your employer brand based on input from your existing employees.
  • Focus on your region and industry.
    What matters most to talent can vary across sectors and regions.
  • Align your employer brand to your customer brand.
    A clear connection between your employer brand and customer brand supports its authenticity.
  • Your employer brand should be accessible.
    Your employer brand should be easy to find through your career website, marketing, and on your social platforms.
  • Use actionable analysis.
    Track the results of your employer brand so you can adjust and improve.

6. What are the common challenges with employer branding?

Employer branding initiatives need to be aligned to HR policies, if an employer brand states certain expectations, they must be delivered to prevent disengagement and lack of trust. Other challenges may be that an organisation is not sure yet how to communicate the employer brand, or how to manage the additional workload. Other than that, setting up an EVP or employer branding strategy requires input of employees across departments, geographies, and seniority levels, which can prove to be a challenge.

Our employer branding experts can help you if you are facing challenges with your employer branding strategy, but also if you have yet to get started on your employer branding, or just want to have a further chat to discuss your questions. Contact us for more information.

Hudson RPO

Content Team

The Hudson RPO Content Team is made up of experts within the Talent Acquisition industry across the Americas, EMEA and APAC regions. They provide educational and critical business insights in the form of research reports, articles, news, videos, podcasts, and more. The team ensures high-quality content that helps all readers make talent decisions with confidence.

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Post-Pandemic Prediction #1: What worked online will stay online

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Post-Pandemic Prediction #1: What worked online will stay online

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In our post-pandemic predictions report, our #1 prediction was: What worked online, will stay online. Virtual processes are here to stay and will even be the preferred method. Initially, many of us expected to work from home only temporarily, but as time passes more and more companies are rethinking their work from home strategies. Working from home for as long as we have, has likely already brought you many insights, but how to prepare your business for long term remote working?

Virtual Interviewing

Globally, organisations had to rethink their recruitment processes overnight. In our post-pandemic predictions report, we explained how organisations disclosed little to no impact on the experience associated with virtual recruitment. Organisations will benefit from virtual interviewing in cost and time optimisation, and the ability to interview international candidates more easily. Virtual interviewing will also positively impact candidate experience, with interview scheduling being more flexible with less travel and time arrangements.

woman in virtual meeting
Organisations will benefit from virtual interviewing
in cost and time optimisation.

Still, in spite of many benefits to virtual interviewing, a long-term virtual interview process does not come without its challenges. Examples of challenges experienced in virtual interviews are the requirements for a digital set up that might not be available to every candidate, and less ability to read context and social cues as well as in a face-to-face interview. Most virtual interviews are also shorter than face-to-face interviews. So how can organisations prepare for a long-term virtual interview process?

Most organisations have answered to this in two ways. One being involving more people into the interview process, and the second one is an increased focus on preparation. Involving more people in the interview process, for example in an extra interview, helps in decision-making. Impressions and conclusions about an interview can be shared and evaluated together. Additionally, recruiters have spent more time and resource in preparing both hiring managers and candidates for their online interviews.

Remote Onboarding

Overnight changes to the interview process brought overnight changes to the onboarding process. The post-pandemic predictions report explained how many organisations embraced remote onboarding with a keen eye on maintaining, or even elevating the new starter experience. Many of them have even noted that new hire satisfaction scores had increased, remarking that new hires felt an overwhelming sense of team and camaraderie in these unprecedented times of social adjustment. But what is important in onboarding processes when remote onboarding is here to stay?

  • Setting up the home office.
    Many organisations have chosen to courier out the necessary equipment to employees, others have made budget available for new starts to purchase the items they found necessary to set up to work from home. As part of welcoming new hires and employee engagement, many organisations have also sent out care packages to their employees.
  • (Re)Define performance expectations.
    Without cross-desk discussions, the ability to do a quick demonstration or to ask a question in the hallway, it is natural for new recruits to take a bit longer to adapt and get up to speed. It is important to ensure plenty of pre-start touchpoints, emphasise the support available, and to adapt and communicate performance expectations.
  • Create opportunities for social interaction.
    The first weeks in a new role are often a stream of information and new impressions. Without watercooler breaks to break this up, it is easy to unintentionally overwhelm your new recruit. Ensuring that informative meetings and tutorials are broken up by social interaction and introductions can help make the onboarding process easier and more effective.

If you would like to learn more about interview and onboarding processes, or about the recruitment technology needed to support you, please contact us to learn more.

Online Collaboration & Communication

Across all industry sectors, companies have cited a considerable increase in collaborations tools like Zoom, Office365, Teams, Yammer, and Workplace. With employees removed from their face-to-face and office interactions, collaboration now relies on digital platforms.

Although many organisations have seen an increase in productivity, it is not easy to keep teams engaged or to track collaboration without being able to rely on seeing each other in the office, especially long term. It is easy for online collaboration to lose sight of context or social cues, and brainstorming and debating with many people on one call can be very difficult.

Now more than ever it is important to be clear on the structure, goals, and deliverables of your teams. It helps to implement the right communication tools and to integrate those to encourage effective communications and collaboration. Some companies require video and audio to be on in virtual meetings, increasing focus and interaction.

Furthermore, it is important to encourage regular check-ins and social interactions to prevent a social disconnect. Many organisations have also reported this increased frequency of internal communications in our post-pandemic predictions report, providing transparency across the business and connectivity between organisations and their employees. An increased focus on staff engagement and motivation has been predominantly sustained through an increased focus on regular managerial catch-ups with direct reports.

What worked online will stay online.

What worked online will stay online, but with an unpredictable year ahead, time will tell how organisations and industries will adapt to changes. Whether they make their return to the office, adapt to working from home indefinitely or a combination of the two, many processes are likely to be optimised by a mix of online and face-to-face. For example, for interviewing, onboarding, and collaboration, but likely also for physical and mental health initiatives for employees.

Hudson RPO

Content Team

The Hudson RPO Content Team is made up of experts within the Talent Acquisition industry across the Americas, EMEA and APAC regions. They provide educational and critical business insights in the form of research reports, articles, news, videos, podcasts, and more. The team ensures high-quality content that helps all readers make talent decisions with confidence.

Follow Hudson RPO on LinkedIn

What is RPO?

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What is MSP?

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What to look for in an RPO provider

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What to look for in an RPO provider

Content Team

Once you have decided that a recruitment process outsourcing solution is the right way forward for your business, it is time to select an RPO provider. But how to select the RPO that is right for you? We have listed some key considerations for you below.

How does the RPO operate?

Firstly, RPOs can specialise in particular industries, skill-levels and regions. An RPO with multiple clients, or long working relationships in a particular industry, will have an excellent understanding of the marketplace, its challenges, and the competitive landscape for talent. Often, these types of RPOs will be able to present examples and case studies of best practices in your industry.

Secondly, RPOs can vary in size; some RPOs are associated with larger recruitment consultancy businesses and others operate independently. Both options bring their own advantages, for example in their market intelligence, cost savings, and client portfolios. The right RPO for you is one that cares about your business and is able to reflect your individual requirements and culture in their service. An RPO with a clear understanding of their business strategy and unique differentiators will be transparent about if and how they can help you. Staff retention, the ability to mobilise at the required pace, and implement the solution with minimal disruption to day-to-day business are all important factors to consider.

What has the RPO achieved?

RPOs who have shown the ability to nurture partnerships over the longer term, generally do so because they can show operational excellence, outstanding relationship management, and a drive for continuous improvement and innovation.

RPO companies who have achieved relevant results and long-term partnerships will be able to reference to best practice examples and case studies of their clients and previous projects. RPOs with strong partnerships in place will be happy to introduce potential new clients to their existing ones, and encourage support and collaboration between clients and their wider network.

If you think an audit or review of your recruitment technology could be a relevant part of your RPO solution, talk to your potential RPO partner about how they have previously supported and implemented the set up of new tools and technologies for their clients, and how they train their recruiters in this area.

What do you hope to achieve in your partnership with an RPO?

If you are looking for a bespoke solution that you can scale to your hiring needs and circumstances, it is important to look for an RPO that has the ability to think outside the box and create something they have not previously. According to Darren Lancaster, our CEO of EMEA & Americas, the strength of an RPO is in the pick-and-mix approach to talent acquisition, building a solution by choosing the value-adding elements that you need.

Service Level Agreements (SLAs) should be agreed individually with each client to reflect the bespoke solution, rather than part of a one-size-fits-all approach to implementation and service delivery. Another consideration when choosing an RPO partner is whether the RPO has the ability to serve you on a global or region-specific level. For example, can an RPO offer the language capabilities and local market knowledge you need by providing onsite or multilingual recruiters?

What would you like your relationship with an RPO to look like?

Trust between an RPO provider and your business is everything as you continue to work on improvements, and recruiters will be closely aligned to your business and internal teams. Your RPO provider will be responsible for the engagement of one of your company’s most important asset: its people. Therefore, it is important to make sure your values are aligned and to find an RPO that reflects a digital presence, team, and level of innovation that you would like to see in your own business. Be clear about what you are looking to achieve through an outsourced solution and be open to the additional benefits that an RPO could bring to your business.

If you are interested in learning more about how Hudson RPO could work for you, contact us today.

Hudson RPO

Content Team

The Hudson RPO Content Team is made up of experts within the Talent Acquisition industry across the Americas, EMEA and APAC regions. They provide educational and critical business insights in the form of research reports, articles, news, videos, podcasts, and more. The team ensures high-quality content that helps all readers make talent decisions with confidence.

Follow Hudson RPO on LinkedIn

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4 signs telling you an RPO solution could be right for your business

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4 signs telling you an RPO solution could be right for your business

Content Team

RPO (recruitment process outsourcing) partners can support a variety of business landscapes. Hudson RPO has supported clients in many different industries from pharma to finance and manufacturing to music distribution. Clients have been supported in transitions, times of growth, as well as times of challenges and uncertainty.

Your enterprise may have experienced many changes in 2020, and with a mostly unpredictable year ahead, chances are that you have also seen changes to your usual operations and hiring practices. These are the four tell-tale signs that an RPO partner could be right for you, especially now.

person in zoom meeting
The right RPO partners can mitigate business
disruption when hiring needs fluctuate.

1. Fluctuating hiring needs impact your operations and recruitment costs.

Now more than ever, the need for talent can rise and fall. Sometimes in tandem with a shifting marketplace, or with the unique requirements and opportunities of your enterprise. Today’s rapidly changing market especially can cause companies to overspend on hiring, for example by reactive hiring, leading to low quality hires and low retention rates.

An RPO partner can stop the cycle of overspending on hiring and offer the flexibility to scale to your needs and circumstances. Through expertise and insights into your recruitment process and the talent market, an RPO can help you predict your hiring needs, improve the quality of hires, while reducing your time to fill and recruitment costs. You can find an example of some or our insights and predictions related to the current market situation in our postpandemic predictions report.

2. You experience high turnover of recruiters.

Recruiters are often the first point of contact a candidate has with your organisation. They sell the opportunity to work for you day and in out. Ideally, a recruiter should be with the business long enough to develop the understanding that comes with time and commitment. Particularly when your recruitment functions lean on recruitment agencies, this can be difficult to achieve. Also, it can be hard to keep track of hiring spend, quality of hire, recruitment timelines and the accountability for hiring results.

The benefit of an RPO partner is that whether our recruiters work inhouse or onsite, they get to know your business over the long term. This enables key insights that help drive effective, tailored hiring with an improved candidate experience.

3. It is a challenge to attract and/or retain niche talent.

  • Finding Talent
    Talent acquisition takes industry-specific knowledge and insight into local markets, this is particularly true for competitive roles. RPO speaks the language of hard to fill roles (literally!) and combines this with the expertise of our international team and the local knowledge of onsite recruiters in various regions.
  • Attracting Talent
    What is your employer brand telling potential candidates if it appears outdated, unpolished, or is non-existent? The combination of the market insights and the knowledge of top employer branding strategies and campaigns an RPO can provide, can help you compete for niche talent more effectively.
  • Retaining Talent
    Without guidance, training, and one-to-one attention, even the best of new hires can disengage quickly. Unfortunately, many companies lose sight of the vital function of onboarding processes during high-growth phases or uncertain times. An RPO partner can help design consistent and effective onboarding processes across departments and regions, helping new hires to be effective in their roles more quickly and reduce employee turnover.

4. Your overall recruitment strategy could do with an update.

With the world changing quickly, it is important to check in to see where your recruitment strategy needs an update to stay relevant to the market and future talent. Questions that could arise are how your recruitment function stands up against the competition, how cost and time to hire can be reduced, or how to improve your quality of hire. Or perhaps you need assistance to keep your recruitment process up to date with the recent transition to working from home with new recruitment technologies and tools, or to renew your commitment to Diversity, Equality, and Inclusion.

An RPO can help complete and implement these critical assessments and brings expertise and insights into the best-fit technologies, strategic and predictive talent management, industry trends and engaging diverse talent.

When to consider RPO partners

Do you identify with one or more of the signs above? It might be time to seek extra support. RPOs are prepared to hit the ground running and are flexible to your needs and circumstances. They can scale to support your business with a single recruitment challenge in a short time frame or even refresh your entire talent acquisition function if requested.

Hudson RPO

Content Team

The Hudson RPO Content Team is made up of experts within the Talent Acquisition industry across the Americas, EMEA and APAC regions. They provide educational and critical business insights in the form of research reports, articles, news, videos, podcasts, and more. The team ensures high-quality content that helps all readers make talent decisions with confidence.

Follow Hudson RPO on LinkedIn

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What is MSP?

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