Fireside Chat: The State of the Recruitment Industry

On Friday 4th October, Ben and Robert took the ZEST stage at the Delta Summit to deliver a constructive speech on the current state of the recruitment industry.

As the digital skills gap continues to grow, how do we manage recruitment strategy and employee retention?

The presentation was powered by tech.mt, who are driven to expand the value of the technology industry, as well as promote and position Malta as a creative, tech-savvy, quality country.

Ben Pace Lehner, from Rocksteady, a cutting-edge Digital Agency, was joined by Rob Delia, from Broadwing Placements, to have an informative discussion about recruitment and more importantly, retention of employees.

It goes without saying that though there are many benefits of living in the digital age, there are also some challenges. The key question is the following: how can your business attract talent and retain said talent?

Rob engaged the audience with his description of how the digital skills gap continues to expand, due to the development and improvement of technology.

According to Ben, and to the delight of many a business-owner, there are solutions. He believes that the answer to employing the right talent, as well as retaining them lies in investing in technology, which simplifies the hiring process.

“The need to recruit and retain top tech talent shows no signs of slowing down, but by taking an innovative, holistic approach towards employment branding and flexibility in your workplace culture, you can acquire and retain highly skilled talent dedicated to growing your business”

First Up: Employer Branding and Social Media

Employer branding refers to the promotion and branding of your company ethics, mission and people, as opposed to solely that of your offered products or services. Thus, making it more likely for employees to recommend their organization and feel prouder of their workplace. This investment is also likely to attract new customers.

With regards to using social media as a brand ambassador and recruitment tool, Ben mentioned a series of useful tools. LinkedIn Recruiter, Facebook Business and Xing, for instance, may all help you and organization in the process of employment. For larger companies, investing in a solid career portal, as well as recruitment videos, can only stand to aid the process.

SEO

Though you may perceive the investment of career portals and the like as long and painstaking, on-going SEO tactics lead to organic results.

Targeted recruitment ads

Using targeted recruitment ads, via career portals has a number of benefits. Primarily, job searchers are only shown career opportunities that are relevant to them, their experience and preferred industries.

Secondly, the number of quality candidates is increased. All in all, the entire process saves you an abundance of time, which you would have otherwise spent filtering countless CVs and irrelevant candidates.

Artificial Intelligence

The implementation of AI is beneficial for a hiring process that is both smarter and faster. By means of Natural Language Processing and Machine learning, the process is facilitated greatly. AI has the power and ability to assess everything, ranging from empathy and politeness of a candidate and employee, to their cultural fit or attention to detail when completing a task.

It goes without saying, however, that with the benefits of AI come some pitfalls. Fast and easy, it may lead to potential bias and thus, the prevention of diversity.

The process may also weed out accomplished potential candidates due to their lack of qualifications. Just like in the case of Steve Jobs, this could lead to a huge missed opportunity!

Finally, time is lost on the hiring and training of staff for use.

The human element

Engaged, inspired and motivated personnel will undoubtedly, perform better in the workplace and adapt to technology shifts faster and more productively.

There seems to be a trend in recruiting IT talent, shifting towards the hiring of candidates according to behavior rather than talent.

Employers must make it their priority to walk the walk when hiring, and deliver on their promises to new employees, as well as those who have been there for a while.

This is where the concept of retention comes into play.

According to Rob, the trick is to hire talent for new ideas and retain employees to attain consistency. That’s easier said than done, however!

It’s helpful to keep in mind that, according to a Deloitte survey, employees are six times more likely to leave their place of employment within a year, when compared to companies that are more digitally mature.

Many organizations focus solely on the employment of new talent, thus ultimately spending more time and money on training.

However, investing in retention effectively lowers the tangible, as well as intangible costs of recruitment. Finding the balance between the two processes is imperative for the success of your organization.

Tricks for retention

There’s a tendency for employees to value personal fulfillment, appreciation and pride, even over monetary rewards. They want to connect with their employers, feel respected and appreciated.

Flexibility

In this day and age, employees value flexibility and agility in their workplace. They are undoubtedly more likely to stay if they feel as though their company trusts them and allows for remote-working. The more agile a company, the more engaged their employees.

Ben offered even more tricks for retention of your employees, including:

Short-term goals

The setting of short-term goals, as opposed to those that will be reviewed in a year from now effectively keep employees motivated and incentivized. It also promotes communication with their peers and employers as they complete and move on to other goals.

Communication is KEY

As the saying goes, communication absolutely is key, especially when it comes to keeping employees engaged. Have genuine discussions with your employees.

Hold regular, short meetings with your staff to promote inclusion, as well as to have a more organized approach towards tasks, thus resulting in a more motivated employee.

HR Analytics

HR analytics are a great tool, that should be utilized by your organization for a multitude or reasons. Primarily because the data is already available and thus, is accurate and can be obtained quickly.

Such analytics, which include an employees’ targets, performance levels, tasks completed and the like can aid you greatly in learning why people are leaving. This will allow you to implement countermeasures and ultimately, improve retention.

For future reference, working out why employees choose to leave will enable you to help recruit new employees with the right cultural fit.

Is there a need for upskilling?

In the next portion of the keynote speech, Ben and Rob tackled the concept of upskilling, in an ever-evolving technological environment.

It cannot be denied that there is a critical need to upskill on a regular basis and multiple schemes and incentives have been made available. Companies can invest in training and ultimately, upskilling their employees.

How can companies integrate upskilling into their retention strategies?

Companies bet and rely on people rather than strategies and therefore, hiring good talent and working on their development is the most practical approach.

Everyone learns in different ways and identifying the ways in which people learn is the way forward, says Rob. It would be helpful to consider a variety of learning options to create an even more adaptable workforce.

That is where micro-learning comes in. Allowing your employees to learn at their own pace and schedule and adopting the combination of online learning and face to face learning will increase their engagement and push their productivity levels through the roof.

Employee training

To end their talk, Ben and Robert raised the issue of employee training. Seeing as we live in an age of job hoppers, is it financially beneficial to train our employees?

In a word – definitely. The cost of training an employee is actually much less, when compared to having them disengaged and showing signs of low productivity.

On that note, Ben and Robert’s speech was brought to a close, to the applause of the Delta Summit’s attendees; attendees who will leave the arena with a fresh outlook on recruitment and employee retention, which ultimately, will only serve to strengthen their businesses.