Category: Candidate Attraction

DE&I Initiatives: Assessing Program Maturity & the Role of Talent Acquisition

Posted on by nfuqua

When people of different backgrounds with different experiences come together, they drive innovation—both in the workplace and in the world at large. In fact, there’s substantial research that DE&I initiatives bring many advantages to the workplace, including increased profitability and creativity; greater productivity; and better problem-solving, among others.

Employees with diverse backgrounds also bring their own perspectives, ideas and experiences, which help to create organizations that are resilient and effective and that outperform organizations that do not invest in diversity.

Yet, despite the obvious benefits of increased diversity and inclusion in the workplace, the reality still leaves much to be desired. For instance, research from Boston Consulting Group shows that diversity and inclusion efforts have yielded sparse results: Although nearly all companies have programs in effect, only 25% of employees from diverse backgrounds feel they have personally benefited from them.

Clearly, employers must do more, and the responsibility for diversity, equity and inclusion (DE&I) belongs to the entire organization—including talent acquisition and HR leaders. So, in this article, we’ll cover the different areas of the business that contribute to DE&I; how you can determine your DE&I program maturity; and areas where talent acquisition leaders can have the greatest influence.

So, Who’s Responsible for DE&I Initiatives?

what is de&i?

For years, talent acquisition teams have led diversity efforts within organizations. In some cases, employers hire a chief diversity officer (CDO) and provide a budget for DE&I initiatives. However, the responsibility for DE&I initiatives is much broader, and everyone from senior leaders to entry-level employees in everything from marketing to IT has a role in creating an inclusive workplace. Here, we outline the roles that different areas of the business play in DE&I efforts.

Talent Acquisition & HR

More than any other group or individual, talent acquisition and the broader HR organization are responsible for diversity and inclusion in the workplace. According to a Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) survey, in 59% of organizations, HR and talent acquisition oversee diversity efforts and, at 64%, they’re tasked with implementing diversity initiatives.

Leadership

An organization’s leadership team is responsible for diversity outcomes at 25% of organizations, according to a Deloitte report. But, leadership must play a role in the DE&I initiatives at all organizations. In fact, having a C-suite member as the diversity and inclusion program leader is one of the biggest differentiators between organizations in which diversity is not considered a barrier to progression versus ones where it is, according to PwC’s data.

However, to be successful champions of diversity, leadership needs to be fully engaged—because an inclusive and equitable culture must be present from the top down. Notably, if time and other responsibilities that accompany their jobs make it difficult for executives to be fully engaged, organizations may want to reconsider having their C-suite remain heavily involved in their diversity efforts. In this case, you might consider appointing another individual (or individuals) who is more able to focus on the work and, as a result, bring about more change.

Diversity Committees

Not every organization has the resources to support a full-time diversity role. In fact, the larger the employer, the more likely it is to have dedicated diversity staff, according to Xpert HR. However, as SHRM found, smaller organizations may be able to aid diversity and inclusion programs by taking a cue from the 17% of employers that have an advisory group/committee comprised of volunteer staff members. This can actually be quite an effective approach, as employee sponsorship corresponds with lower levels of reported bias within an organization, according to Center for Talent Innovation research.

de&i initiatives

Identifying Gaps in the Maturity of Your DE&I Initiatives and Programs 

When it comes to really progressing your organization’s DE&I program, the best place to start is by asking yourself where your organization stands today. That way, you can best identify where to place your initial efforts in order to create the greatest influence. Below, we outline the different stages of DE&I program maturity. Note that your organization may be at different levels in different areas.

Beginner: Generally, employers at the beginner level of maturity tend to be more reactive rather than proactive; they may narrowly define workplace diversity, and leaders usually have limited involvement in driving DE&I forward within the organization.

Intermediate: Employers at the intermediate level typically focus on more purpose-driven DE&I initiatives, with leadership assuming a greater role in progressing DE&I in the workplace. At this level, the definition of diversity expands to include less-visible characteristics, like disability, religion, class, age, regionalism, sexual orientation and more. Additionally, at this stage, an employer may employ a dedicated staff and provide a budget for DE&I.

Advanced: Employers at the advanced stage focus on multi-dimensionality and intersectionality when thinking about diversity. In this situation, leaders practice inclusive leadership skills and are held accountable for creating a diverse and inclusive workplace. They also often have DE&I resources and budgets distributed throughout the organization to ensure organization-wide diversity.

Leading: Employers at this level take a sustainable approach to DE&I, in which leaders are expected to lead holistically and inclusively; be key DE&I initiatives change agents; and hold the organization accountable. In addition to their internal resources, they often have external DE&I advisory boards that guide them on leading practices.

de&i meaning

Identifying your organization’s DE&I maturity level allows you to better measure your progress on key areas of workforce diversity, including communication, employee education, company culture, resource investment and the involvement of leadership. This will help guide your next steps toward creating a more diverse, equitable and inclusive workforce, as well as allow your organization to focus on interventions that are targeted and specific. Plus, in organizational environments facing a multiplicity of DE&I issues at once, the ability to pinpoint current state, plot out the desired state and craft the roadmap to get there is critical.

What is DE&I? The Role of Talent Acquisition

While the responsibility for DE&I is spread across an organization, talent acquisition still plays a major role. Recruiters, sourcers, hiring managers and HR leaders are powerhouse roles that must work together to find the right candidate for the job, while also demonstrating an organization’s commitment to DE&I from the company’s first interactions with employees.

As talent acquisition leaders, you also play a key role in bringing to life diversity and inclusion as values that are deeply embedded in an organization. More precisely, your team plays a particularly critical role by sourcing, engaging and eventually hiring candidates from underrepresented groups.

Does your organization have a talent pool of diverse candidates? Do your interviewing practices reduce unconscious bias? Do you have a strong reputation for being a diverse workplace? These are some of the critical questions that you and your teams should attempt to answer to deliver on the organization’s diversity agenda.

By understanding your role and performing it effectively, talent acquisition teams can work with leaders in other areas of the business to build a truly holistic DE&I program. Here, we discuss some of the tactics that talent acquisition can adopt to overcome diversity sourcing, selection and hiring challenges.

Championing Diversity

Once your talent acquisition team establishes awareness and accountability, members should become champions of diversity hiring; you have a tremendous opportunity to drive the diversity agenda by reinforcing the case for diversity hiring. For instance, engaged recruiters can champion diversity and make it an everyday dialogue with hiring managers. That’s because recruiters are responsible for ensuring that all candidates are treated fairly and equally in a process that removes bias. They’re also the first step in demonstrating how the organization appreciates and celebrates its diverse employees.

Diversity Sourcing

Diversity at work

To ensure that your talent pool is representative of diverse candidates, source your candidates from a variety of talent channels. Clearly, you can’t rely on the same sources repeatedly when seeking out new candidates; focusing only on the sources that you know best can result in a talent pool of similar candidates and a lack of diversity.

Instead, seek out opportunities to source candidates from underrepresented backgrounds. For example, there are many online and offline groups dedicated to women in technology. This could be a great opportunity to meet and connect with high-caliber, female candidates directly—instead of waiting for them to find you through platforms like Indeed. And, the more initiative you take to find these channels, the more likely it is that your talent pools will be diverse.

What’s more, if you’re struggling to find diverse talent, reach out to employees from diverse backgrounds and encourage them to share your job ads with their networks; then, give them the tools they need to promote open roles within your organization. As a result, your employees and candidates will both feel that your company values their opinions and contributions, which is fantastic for team morale and engagement.

DE&I Initiatives: Building Inclusivity

Building an inclusive workplace is central to creating a workplace environment in which every employee feels valued. Granted, every organization is different, so the content and structure of an inclusion program needs to meet the conditions of your organization. To get you started, SHRM offers an inclusivity checklist for HR that provides a good place to start:

  • Make sure that company leaders understand that inclusion is about ensuring that everyone’s voice is heard, opinions are considered, and value to the team is evident.
  • Train managers to show that inclusivity is a core competency—and hold them accountable.
  • Form an inclusion council with genuine influence and power.
  • Value differences and create an environment in which people can feel comfortable bringing their authentic selves to work.
  • Identify the needs of underrepresented groups, and give them the necessary support and resources.
  • Provide workers with a safe space to voice their concerns.
  • Benchmark key aspects of your organization’s culture and understand the employee experience before making changes to promote inclusivity.
  • Remember that daily interactions are the most telling sign of whether your company has an inclusive culture.

Unconscious Bias & Candidate Selection

One of the key reasons companies lose out on diverse talent is unconscious bias, which can have detrimental effects on the diversity hiring process. The concept of unconscious bias or implicit bias was first introduced in 2006 as “the new science of unconscious mental processes that has a substantial bearing on discrimination law.”This challenged the longstanding idea that people are guided only by explicit beliefs and conscious intentions.

One example of unconscious bias is that a candidate’s last name—which implies their ethnic background—can adversely affect their chances of landing a job. Unfortunately, studies by Ghent University show that the last name appearing on a candidate’s résumé can reduce the possibility of receiving a call back by 25% in Germany; 29% in Sweden and the UK; and 50% in the U.S. Accordingly, to address unconscious biases, some companies mask candidate demographics while presenting them to the hiring team in order to shift the focus from ethnicity to experience and skills.

In another strategy highlighted by DiversityJobs, a large utility company in the U.S. moved away from the practice of long interviews with a few leaders and started exposing candidates to more interviewers in multiple, short interviews. This reduced the chance of a single, biased assessor significantly influencing a hiring decision. Additionally, the organization was also able to showcase a more diverse selection team to all new hires.

Diversity at Work: Converting Candidates From Underrepresented Groups Into Employees

However, winning over diverse candidates goes beyond just locating them and ensuring that they’re treated fairly during the hiring process. Rather, to win diverse talent, organizations should demonstrate the authenticity of their commitment to DE&I by leveraging their employer brand through career sites and social media channels, as well as by showing how diverse and inclusive they are through their employees and leadership.

Furthermore, talent acquisition can also play a role in reinforcing these messages by:

  • Adding a link to diversity and inclusion policies and practices in job advertisements and recruiters’ email signatures.
  • Minimizing adverse effects of recruitment discrimination by complementing recruiters with talent acquisition technologies like PeopleScout’s AffinixTM.
  • Ensuring job-related information is accessible to all groups. (For example, ensure your career site is accessible to those with visual impairments through design, alt text and screen readers; and ensure presentations and videos include subtitles or sign language.)
  • Scheduling interviews in locations that are accessible and convenient for all candidates, such as parking for people with disabilities; Braille script on elevators and signage; and female, male and gender-neutral restrooms.
  • Sharing relevant stories about a diverse set of employees in the organization and involving diverse employees and senior leaders in the interviewing process.
  • Respecting candidates’ gender identity. Because gender identity is internal, a person’s gender identity is not necessarily visible to others, so asking candidates what pronoun(s) they prefer to use in interviews and other communications can make a difference.

DE&I Initiatives: Talent Technology

The right talent acquisition technology can be a powerful tool for reaching your DE&I initiatives and goals. And, as you begin to recognize and fix disparities in hiring processes and work environments, data can be an important tool in determining the effectiveness of those efforts. No DE&I initiative can be successful unless it can be measured.

To that end, diversity dashboards—like those available in PeopleScout’s Affinix Analytics—can break down your hires by gender and ethnicity. Then, with that information, you can identify where the most diverse hires have been found. From there, you can focus on which recruitment strategies are most effective in bringing in candidates form underrepresented groups. And, once those initiatives are in place, you can track your success over time.

The goal of diversity, equity and inclusion in the workplace should be a central pillar in any organization’s journey. Embracing a multitude of viewpoints and cultures drives innovation; improves decision-making; increases employee productivity and retention; and leads to better-served employees—and, by extension, customers. While responsibility for diversity, equity and inclusion is shared across an organization, talent acquisition leaders have a significant influence.

DE&I Insights for Talent Acquisition Leaders

Posted on by nfuqua

Getting inclusivity and diversity right for talent acquisition teams means properly sourcing, interviewing and hiring candidates from underrepresented groups. What’s more, talent teams must understand not only where different candidates search for jobs, but also the factors important to those candidates.

To that end, a PeopleScout survey of job candidates focuses on inclusion and diversity, found important differences in how diverse groups find, research and apply for jobs, and employers can use these insights to make their recruitment process more equitable and inclusive. The survey focused on job candidates throughout the U.S. from a wide variety of backgrounds. However, due to the relatively small sample size, these survey results should be taken as purely directional. Below, we share the most important insights.

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Data and Diversity: Using Technology to Achieve Your DE&I Goals

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Inclusivity and Diversity: Candidates From Underrepresented Groups Find & Research Jobs Differently

Racial and ethnic minority candidates are more likely to hear about a job opportunity through word of mouth than white candidates. More precisely, nearly half of Black or African American candidates report learning about their most recent job through word of mouth, while only 35% of white candidates found their most recent job in the same way.

inclusion and diversity

Black or African American candidates are also the most likely group to research an employer or job opportunity by talking to people in their communities—at more than double the rate of white candidates.

inclusivity and diversity

Inclusivity and Diversity: What This Means for Talent Acquisition

Your current employees from underrepresented backgrounds are important partners in sourcing and recruiting diverse talent; they understand your culture and values and can share both job openings and their experience at your organization with other candidates.

Women Rely on a Larger Range of Sources When Researching Employers

Notably, women in the workplace are more likely than men to research an employer through third-party channels, whereas men are more likely to rely on your careers site. For instance, while half of men report researching an employer through the employer’s careers site, only one-third of women do the same. Women are also twice as likely as men to use employer review sites, like Glassdoor.

de&i metrics

What This Means for Talent Acquisition

Many candidates rely on your careers site for research. As such, your careers site should showcase your employer brand, but it cannot be your sole focus. Instead, also invest in improving your employer brand through employer review sites, like Glassdoor. Additionally, encourage your employees to share their positive experiences of working at your organization on social media sites, like LinkedIn.

Candidates Notice Your Diversity Efforts

Your diversity efforts can be a difference-maker for job candidates. In fact,  underrepresented groups are more likely to say that an employer’s diversity efforts make a difference in whether they decide to apply for a role. White candidates are also paying attention.

de&i goals

The way you showcase diversity efforts also makes a difference to candidates, with the biggest gap between white and Black or African American candidates. For instance, when asked about the factors that candidates consider when applying to a job, Black or African American candidates were five times as likely as white candidates to consider your diversity efforts. Black or African American candidates were also more than four times as likely to consider whether your careers site features “people who look like me.”

inclusivity and diversity

What This Means for Talent Acquisition

Your diversity efforts are important to your candidates; they want to hear about what your organization is doing to improve diversity, equity and inclusion at your organization. And, in a competitive talent market, it’s important to feature those commitments, as they could be the deciding factor for candidates.

Leveraging an Effective Hybrid Hiring Strategy for the New World of Work

Posted on by jpatel

Now more than ever, an organization’s hiring strategy should be adaptable. Throughout the last two years, many employers have had to reimagine their recruitment processes. Due to the pandemic, organizations rapidly moved recruiting processes to virtual models, shifting in-person interviews to digital and transitioning traditional office roles to remote.

Today, as businesses bounce back and job openings are at record highs, employers need to hire top talent—and fast. And, just as a hybrid approach to in-person and remote work for employees has become the norm, so, too, will the need for a blended recruiting strategy that will optimize the candidate experience advantages of in-person, while also continuing to leverage the benefits of virtual.

So, in this article, we’ll walk through what a hybrid hiring strategy is, discuss the benefits of in-person versus virtual techniques and provide tips for how to create a hybrid hiring strategy that works for your organization.

What is a Hybrid Hiring Strategy?

Hybrid hiring—or hybrid recruiting—is a strategy that allows organizations to maximize the benefits of both in-person and virtual hiring techniques. Specifically, a hybrid approach allows employers to leverage the advantages of virtual recruiting where it makes sense, while simultaneously using strategic, in-person methods to add value to the candidate experience along the way.

Granted, hybrid hiring isn’t new; many organizations employed a mix of virtual and in-person techniques prior to 2020. However, COVID-19 rapidly accelerated the need for safe, efficient hiring models, thereby leading to greater adoption of virtual strategies. Now, because employers have seen the advantages of virtual recruiting, the benefits of a hybrid model have become clear. Depending on the type of role you’re hiring for, having a strong hybrid hiring model in place makes it easy to recruit staff 100% virtually if and when it’s needed, or with a blended approach.

hiring strategy
Source: Workest by Zenefits

Benefits of a Hybrid Hiring Strategy

Leveraging a hybrid hiring strategy means you get the best of both worlds. But, what does that entail? Here are some of the biggest benefits of both virtual and in-person hiring techniques—and how they’ll play out post-pandemic.

Benefits of Virtual Hiring Techniques

Reduced Cost & Greater Efficiency

When you remove the physical component of recruiting, you see a greatly improved speed-to-hire and an overall reduction in costs. For example, PeopleScout helped this retail client reduce time-to-hire by more than 20% by implementing a mobile-first, shortened application process. Plus, expenses that would normally be spent on hosting recruiting events—such as travel costs, venue fees and printed materials—suddenly drop to zero. Additionally, your employees save time by hosting events remotely and also reap the benefit of having more candidates in attendance.

Expanded Reach & Reduced Bias

With travel out of the equation and with remote job options in place, employers can then expand the geographies from which they source talent. This offers greater opportunities for candidates and also opens up the candidate pool to top talent who may not have been on your radar previously.

Virtual hiring also reduces the amount of hiring bias experienced during in-person interviews. As humans, we judge people on many things (unconsciously or not), including how a candidate may look. But, with virtual interviews, recruiters are able to focus less on a candidate’s appearance and more on what they have to say.

According to the American Psychological Association, when it comes to height, every inch counts—in fact, in the workplace, each inch above average may be worth $789 more per year. This is the kind of bias that can be eliminated with virtual interviewing techniques.

Overall Convenience

Virtual interviews and other virtual recruiting tactics are convenient for both candidates and recruiters alike. For example, candidates can schedule on-demand interviews at a time that is most convenient for them, and recruiters can watch those recordings at their own convenience. What’s more, through the use of artificial intelligence (AI) and automation, candidates can also self-schedule follow-up interviews, ask questions and receive real-time responses that would have previously taken much longer without the technology that has come from the rise of virtual.

Benefits of In-Person Hiring Techniques

Showcase Your Company Culture

One challenge of virtual recruiting is the ability to effectively showcase your company’s culture. While there are certainly ways to do so, nothing quite compares to experiencing how individuals in an organization interact with one another in-person. Especially for roles that are required to work in an in-person or office setting, providing a time to come in for an in-person interview or assessment can be a great way to show your candidate what it would really be like to work for your company on a day-to-day basis.

Human Touch

While AI and automated tools help with efficiency, improve candidate experience, and speed up the overall time-to-hire, today’s talent pool can also find benefits from a blended model. In fact, candidates today are feeling more confident, in general, and more comfortable negotiating their salary when meeting face-to-face. A phone call and video interview can get the candidate in the door, but an in-person conversation can seal the deal—especially when it comes to hiring senior talent who would really appreciate being brought in for the final stages of the interview process.

how to recruit people
Source: Workest by Zenefits

Added Value

Furthermore, utilizing in-person techniques can also add value to the candidate experience overall. From office tours to final interviews, it’s difficult to recreate human touch and company culture completely virtually. To that end, where it makes sense, in-person meetings can help sell a candidate on why they should work for your organization, as opposed to the competition.

How to Recruit People Now: Balancing Your Post-Pandemic Hybrid Hiring Strategy

Types of recruitment

Your hybrid hiring strategy will likely depend on your organization’s needs and what your workforce will look like on the other side of the pandemic.

For example, if some or all of your teams will work entirely remotely, it would make the most logical sense to complete the entire recruiting process virtually. Inevitably, bringing the candidate in for an in-person interview or office tour would waste time and money, and would likely confuse the candidate and, therefore, lead to a poor candidate experience. Instead, recruiting for these roles completely virtually and providing opportunities for human interaction and culture along the way can help candidates feel like they know what it will be like to work remotely for your company.

“How do we show candidates our company culture when we can’t invite them to the office? We send personalized, handwritten cards to candidates before their start date (as well as some swag!). We want to give them a feeling of being really welcomed into the company—which is what we’re really about.”

Ewa Zajac, Recruiting Operations Manager at Zendesk

On the other hand, if some of your teams will be working both from home and from the office, a hybrid approach would be the best fit. Virtual options save a lot of time and money in the beginning stages of sourcing, screening and interviewing, and candidates will want the flexibility to complete those initial interviews and assessments from the comfort and convenience of their own homes.

Then, when it comes to final interviews with candidates you’re very excited about, bringing them in for an in-person interview can be the final step before extending an offer. The candidate will appreciate the time you’re investing to bring them in, and they’ll get a taste of what it will be like when they work in-person. This will be especially important for roles that will be primarily in the office or in which relocation is necessary.

In the end, hybrid hiring won’t be a one-size-fits-all strategy. Whether your organization opts to keep recruiting fully virtual or works in opportunities for in-person techniques, the candidate experience will need to remain at the forefront of any model. Think about what candidates will want and how the recruiting process will make the most sense for the role you’re trying to fill.

How to Expand Your Talent Pool with Workers Changing Careers

Posted on by jpatel

Talent pools are important. However, expanding your talent pool amid turbulent times can be difficult. As businesses navigate reopening and hiring amid the surge of the Delta variant of COVID-19, many are struggling to fill their open roles with the talent they need: According to a survey by Willis Towers Watson, 73% of companies are having difficulty attracting employees, and 70% expect that their current challenges to hire and keep workers will linger into 2022.

Notably, the same survey found that these hiring challenges are caused by a variety of different factors, which vary based on industry and position type. For example, for hospitality, restaurant, warehouse and distribution employees, postponing their return to work and collecting unemployment when it was offered was the most commonly cited reason for difficulties in attracting staff. And, even when those extended unemployment benefits ended, hiring did not surge. Meanwhile, virtual employees present challenges based on high wage expectations, and other professionals are holding out for companies with work-from-anywhere policies.

At the same time, millions of workers are also planning to change careers: Data released by Monster showed that 95% of workers surveyed said they were considering changing jobs, while 92% said they were willing to switch industries to do so. Therefore, if your organization is struggling to fill open positions, developing a program to attract and reskill workers who are changing careers could significantly expand your talent pool.

In this article, we’ll explain why people are choosing to change careers, share common skills you should look out for in your talent pool expansion, and provide suggestions for how to create a reskilling program that will work for your organization.

How the Talent Pool is Evolving: Why Are Workers Changing Careers?

As a result of the pandemic and the tragic losses that came with it, people were faced with a reminder that every day is not guaranteed. This realization caused many to rethink their life choices and shift to prioritize their health, loved ones, hobbies and the things they truly enjoy. For many, this included rethinking their career path and goals—including exploring job opportunities that they’re truly passionate about so that they could make every day count.

what is a talent pool
Source: Prudential

As an employer, you can capitalize on this migration by offering competitive employment packages complete with work/life balance and promoting those benefits via recruitment marketing techniques. More precisely, beyond compensation and flexible work arrangements, show candidates how you will challenge them and help them grow in their career.

Building a Talent Pool: Identifying Transferable Skills in Workers Changing Careers

When searching for talent, you might not consider looking in certain industries or job types because you’re unsure whether the skills developed in those roles will match up with what you need for your business. However, 53% of workers said they’d switch to an entirely new industry if they could retrain.

Fortunately, you don’t need to start from scratch when hiring people who have chosen to change career paths. Instead, focus on attracting candidates who have strong transferable skills across industries.

Transferable skills, also known as “portable skills,” are qualities that can be transferred from one job to another. Transferable skills can be used to position your past experience when applying for a new job—especially if it’s in a different industry.

Furthermore, when you find candidates with certain transferrable skills, you won’t have to worry about training them on those. And, because many transferrable skills are soft skills, the candidate will be more malleable and will integrate well into a new job. In particular, they’ll be able to start working faster and will be more productive from the beginning. As a result, your training time can be focused on knowledge specific to your organization and the role.

Consider looking for these common transferrable skills when expanding your talent pool beyond your industry:

Problem-Solving

Workers who can demonstrate strong problem-solving skills in their previous roles will likely be able to apply that same mentality on the job at your organization. Specifically, employees with problem-solving skills will be able to identify problems, find what is causing the problem and seek out potential solutions—without you having to nudge them.

Teamwork

If the role you’re hiring for requires a lot of collaboration between team members, look for candidates who have experience working toward a common goal with others. Teamwork also encompasses several other skills, such as empathy, active listening and communication.

Communication

Communication is perhaps the most common transferable skill across all industries and job types because it’s required in almost every role. Workers with effective communication skills will be able to clearly share ideas and information both verbally and in writing; know when to ask questions; read body language; and communicate with others in a wide range of settings.

Leadership

While leadership skills are especially vital for leadership roles, such as managers and above, they’re also important for people to possess across the organization. That’s because leadership skills contribute to an employee’s ability to take the lead, get a team on the same page, delegate when needed and see a project through to completion.

Adaptability

Workers who are adaptable and flexible will be able to adjust as deadlines, teams or processes change. They’ll be able to pivot and learn new skills when needed, while also maintaining a positive attitude and ensuring goals are still met.

Technology Literacy

If you don’t want to teach your next hire the basics, look for candidates who have experience working with common business tools and technologies that will easily integrate into your business function. Similarly, if your organization is embracing more digital tools, it’s also important that your candidate is comfortable learning new technologies and software to improve efficiency and evolve with your organization.

While the list above highlights some key transferable skills, there are numerous others that might fit into your organization and the roles you’re looking to fill. Check out this list from FlexJobs for more.

Building a Reskilling Program for Workers Changing Careers

Attracting and hiring candidates with transferable skills will allow you to skip basic training on those qualities. However, because many of these hires will be coming from different industries, you’ll likely still need to provide some reskilling training for non-transferable skills to help them adjust to the new role.

Plus, employees expect training to come from employers. In a survey from Prudential, when asked who was most responsible for helping them develop the skills they need (aside from themselves), workers most often ranked employers as number one (33%). Likewise, when asked about the top ways that employers can support workers’ learning, workers most often said flexible schedules (78%), followed by employee-offered training (71%) and on-demand courses (71%).

But, what type of training will work for your organization? Well, that depends on what types of roles you’re looking to fill. According to a report by CompTIA, candidates have different preferences regarding training methods based on the type of job they’re seeking.

talent pool

Consider these three steps to help you build an effective reskilling program:

1. Identify Skills Gaps

When hiring candidates from different industries, there’s no doubt that they’ll require some additional skills training to be able to be successful in the new role. So, identify what those key skills are so you can build your training program from there. Then, rather than spending time on transferable skills you already know your candidate possesses, focus on skills unique to the job and your organization, instead.

2. Develop Specific Skills Trainings

Once you’ve identified the key areas that will need to be covered, develop trainings specific to those needs. These trainings should encompass a variety of reskilling methods to fit the individual needs of your new hires, including:

a. On-the-job training: Employees can take on small projects and learn from real-world experience.

b. Online learning: Virtual courses can be taken at any time and are a great way to speed up the learning process. They provide a lot of content in a digestible form that anyone can grasp.

c. Blended learning: Combine online courses with in-person training to maximize the benefits of both. Employees can engage with instructors in person and come equipped with knowledge and questions from online training.

d. Peer learning: Employees can learn from one another through collaboration and job shadowing. By observing what someone’s day looks like, employees will get a good sense of what will be expected of them day-to-day.

3. Measure Success

Leverage surveys, discussions, post-training assessments and candid feedback from trainees regarding the value they found from the reskilling trainings. Do they feel like they’ve learned something new? Do they have the knowledge to put new skills to use? Are they implementing what they’ve learned on the job? Once you find out, revaluate and improve your training program regularly based on the strengths and weaknesses that employees identify.

Marketing Your Reskilling Program to Your Expanded Talent Pool

Now that you’ve assessed the transferable skills to watch for and developed a reskilling program for workers who are changing careers, it’s important to make that program known to these workers: Utilize recruitment marketing techniques on social media to promote your roles and share that your organization is offering reskilling to employees from a variety of industries. In job ads, highlight the fact that hires will be provided with reskilling training to ensure they’re successful in their new role. This—in conjunction with a strong employment offer and benefits—will help your business stand out above others in the competitive search for top talent.

Global RPO: Hiring Solutions for Hard to Fill Jobs

Posted on by akessler
Global RPO: Hiring Engineers with Niche Skills for a Global Manufacturer in LATAM and Europe

Global RPO: Hiring Engineers with Niche Skills for a Global Manufacturer in LATAM and Europe

A multinational automotive components manufacturer at the forefront of electric driving technology engaged PeopleScout for a full-cycle, multi-country Recruitment Process Outsourcing (RPO) solution. To continue supplying automotive technology for millions of the world’s cars, they needed to source the next generation of engineering talent across 54 locations in 21 countries in Latin America, Europe and Asia.

100 % New Hires Completed Ahead of Schedule
80 % Candidate Submissions Invited to Interview
1300 Applications Received for 150 Positions

Scope & Scale

A global automotive parts manufacturer partnered with PeopleScout to initially source 150 hires across locations in Poland, Spain, Italy, Germany and India as well as facilities in Latin America. They needed a global RPO provider who could handle sourcing for niche engineering roles in English, Polish, Spanish, Italian and Hungarian languages.

Challenge

As the client expanded manufacturing into new regions to support their global growth agenda, they turned to PeopleScout to partner with their in-house talent acquisition teams to drive their transformational change projects.

Hiring in Latin America had stagnated as the region became the go-to region for automotive manufacturing. With major car brands moving more of their operations into the region, competition for talent became more and more steep.

Meanwhile in Europe, a shortage of niche engineering skills was impacting operations in Poland. The talent war between organizations in the area hiring for similar roles was driving up salary expectations, but the manufacturer lacked the labor market data to make informed decisions to adjust their strategy.

Solution

Analyzing Labor Markets on Two Continents

Our Client Delivery team started by undertaking labor market and workforce analytics in each region. We worked with the client’s HR and operational teams to support their workforce strategy through a competitive analysis which led to recommendations on salary bands for each role and level of experience. For roles in Poland, we helped them explore the possibility of relocating new hires in order to widen their talent pool to other parts of the country where there was more access to experienced engineering professionals.

“PeopleScout has done a great job to support the project, showing high commitment and flexibility in this difficult and changing environment. We’ve had great collaboration together.”

Senior Director of Engineering

Sourcing Passive Candidates with Personalized Videos

Meanwhile, our multilingual teams in Bristol and Krakow began sourcing experienced Product Application Engineers in Latin America and across multiple European locations, as well as Design & Test Engineers in Poland.

Not satisfied with one outreach, we employed a different approach with candidates who were unresponsive after the first communication. Our recruiters created and sent personalized videos introducing themselves and the opportunity to the candidate. This personal touch drove higher engagement and interest from talent who hadn’t engaged initially.

Over 80% of applicants were identified via passive sourcing, with the remaining candidates coming from ongoing advertising campaigns across job boards and social media.

Leveraging Social Media to Boost Employer Brand Awareness

Through our Social Network Awareness Package (SNAP) we identified the best social channels to reach the manufacturer’s audience and created tailored posts, including imagery and headlines. We used this social media content to boost awareness of the client’s employer brand among relevant groups and individuals based on their locations, professional details and interests. Throughout each campaign, we provided a reporting dashboard and analyzed engagement which helped shape recruitment marketing activity going forward.

Testing Technical Skills with a Custom Assessment Center

These highly specialized engineers, regardless of region, needed to have a good command of English as well as technical aptitude. We assessed for both by designing and executing a technical testing program. Our assessors administered these exams virtually, freeing up hiring managers to focus on running their operations.

Once offers were made, our team continued to keep in contact with successful candidates during their notice periods and onboarding. We notified the client’s HR team of any potential concerns of dropouts, working together to mitigate risks.

Results

In just 10 months, we filled 100% of the manufacturer’s niche engineering headcount, including all openings in Poland—two months ahead of schedule. Our team reviewed over 1,300 applications and screened over 250 candidates, supporting hiring managers with initial phone screens, technical assessments and post-offer communications.

The hiring managers were thrilled with the quality of the candidates they saw, with over 80% of candidates put forward by our team being invited to interview.

Following this success, we expanded our engagement with the client to their India operation, taking over from local third-party agencies. This Recruiter on-Demand solution will support volume hiring challenges and drive cost savings.

“PeopleScout did really great work across hard-to-fill disciplines. We had a fantastic sense of partnership across the whole project.”

Global Head of Talent Acquisition

At a Glance

  • COMPANY
    Global automotive manufacturer
  • INDUSTRY
    Manufacturing
  • PEOPLESCOUT SOLUTIONS
    Recruitment Process Outsourcing
  • ANNUAL HIRES
    150+
  • LOCATIONS
    21 countries in Latin America, Europe and Asia
Let’s Connect

Supporting Service Members with Career Counseling for a Major Retail Chain

Posted on by jpatel
Supporting Service Members with Career Counseling for a Major Retail Chain

Supporting Service Members with Career Counseling for a Major Retail Chain

A major multinational retail chain partnered with PeopleScout to support its counseling program for transitioning members of the military, veterans, military spouses, and National Guard and Reserves who are looking to take the next step in their career.

Dedicated career coaches for all program participants

Customizable career paths for participants 

Virtual intake meetings and ongoing calls

Situation

This retailer has partnered with PeopleScout since 2013 to support its veteran hiring initiatives. In 2013 when the program launched, veteran unemployment was higher than civilian unemployment. PeopleScout supported the client with direct placement, helping veterans honorably discharged on or after Memorial Day 2013 to find jobs at the retailer. The spouse component was added in 2018.

In 2019, while the veteran unemployment rate had dropped to just under 3%, the retailer was aware of the challenges that military service members were still facing when transitioning to civilian employment. The client wanted to reinvent the program to put an emphasis on career coaching and counseling for all service members to help them apply their leadership skills and teamwork experience to new careers.

Solution

The new program, which officially launched in May 2021, broadens the umbrella of the program to include veterans of any era and actively serving members of all branches of the military, military spouses, and National Guard and Reserves as well. It connects program participants to a plethora of resources from various organizations that have been vetted by the client.

When a new member registers for the program, PeopleScout assigns them a coach who helps facilitate the transition into civilian work. The PeopleScout coach schedules a virtual coaching session with the participant to perform an initial intake. This intake assesses skills, helps identify goals and determines the time commitment they can make to the program.

From there, participants confirm three paths: employment, education, or entrepreneurship.

EMPLOYMENT

PeopleScout career counselors help participants assess their strengths, build their resume and translate their military experience in a way that it applies to the civilian workplace. They also help service members and spouses find opportunities that match their career goals—whether that means employment with the retail client or another organization.

EDUCATION

PeopleScout coaches help participants get the educational foundation they need to reach their overall career goals.

ENTREPRENEURSHIP

PeopleScout helps connect participants with the right resources to start their own businesses.

This emphasis on career counseling allows the participant to drive the program at their own pace and use their coach as much or as little as they like. Service members and spouses can take what they want from the program as they build their future.

Results

  • 3,500+ registrants since program launch

At a Glance

  • COMPANY
    Multinational retailer
  • INDUSTRY
    Retail
  • PEOPLESCOUT SOLUTIONS
    Recruitment Process Outsourcing, Talent Advisory
  • ABOUT THE RETAILER
    This U.S.-based retailer operates in 24 countries with 2.3 million employees. The organization has a rich history of supporting and hiring veterans and their spouses.
Let’s Connect

Overcoming Retail and Hospitality Recruiting Challenges

Posted on by edyson

Hospitality staffing teams and retail recruiters are finding it more challenging than ever to recruit and retain employees. While recruitment and retention issues have long beleaguered the retail and hospitality industries, the pandemic has exacerbated long-standing difficulties:

The unemployment rate has finally fallen under 6%, the lowest since March 2020, however retail, leisure, and hospitality were hit hard by this pandemic and are still facing a major challenge in attracting talent to their respective industries.

In this article, we’ll look at the hiring challenges that retailers and hospitality organizations are facing as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic and provide talent acquisition strategies to overcome them.

The Retail Recruiting and Hospitality Staffing Landscape

With so many jobs available, why are retail recruiters and hospitality staffing professionals having trouble finding applicants? While there are numerous reasons why employers are finding it harder to fill these vacancies common candidate concerns include:

  • Patrons are not as generous as they once were. According to a Harris Poll conducted for Fast Company, 19% of Americans said they tip less now than before COVID-19. Even amid loosening restrictions, many restaurants still operate on a drive-thru or carry out-only basis – and tipping isn’t as generous or common. With waitstaff making an average of $7.00 per hour, tips are an essential portion of overall compensation. That bleeds through to hotel staff, too, as cleaners, bartenders and servers also rely on tips to supplement their salaries.
  • Loyal long-term employees who were let go may feel let down and underappreciated by their former employers and may be hesitant to reenter the hospitality or retail industry.
  • It’s a candidates’ market, despite unemployment numbers. With lessening restrictions, many businesses are re-opening – and they are all hiring at the same time, creating more competition for the same pool of talent.

To tackle these challenges, talent leaders must think outside the box. This means identifying new and non-traditional ways to incentivize potential candidates to apply for open positions. While improving compensation and benefits is a critical component to recruiting in the current talent market, there are additional strategies you can deploy. Below, we cover key retail and hospitality recruiting challenges and how your organization can overcome them.

Hospitality and Retail Recruiting Challenges and Solutions

Challenge: Hospitality and Retail Recruitment is Highly Decentralized

Large retailers and hospitality chains often have a decentralized recruiting process where managers are solely responsible for making recruitment decisions within their store or geographic location.

Decentralized recruitment processes vary from organization to organization. However, a common theme of this talent acquisition strategy is that it allows for greater autonomy and decision-making freedom for frontline managers. What’s more, a decentralized recruitment strategy is effective for geographically diverse organizations where each location may have specific, localized hiring requirements, labor laws and talent demographics.

Unfortunately, decentralization can lead to obstacles during turbulent labor markets. A lack of consistency, discipline and standardization across various locations can lead to a disorganized hiring process with varying policies, pay grades and a lack of coordination across geographies. This decentralization can make it difficult for talent leaders to ensure hiring practices are unbiased and ethical for every location within their organization.

Moreover, decentralization can run counter to an organization’s wider goals such as increasing compensation, diversity and inclusion initiatives and ensuring that new pandemic-related policies are being closely adhered to.

The Solution: Consider Centralizing Talent Acquisition

Centralized recruitment is a popular strategy among many employers outside of the retail and hospitality industries.

Operating within a more centralized recruitment infrastructure allows internal recruiting teams to develop reliable policies and universal standards for the hiring process across locations.

When hiring processes are standardized across an organization, all employees are hired using the same criteria, making it easier to share team members across locations if there is another store with employees capable of doing the same job.

What’s more, some organizations take a hybrid approach by having both centralized and decentralized recruiting functions, with some decisions and hiring policies deployed across the organization while others are implemented locally.

Whichever recruitment model you decide to pursue, a recruitment process outsourcing provider (RPO) can help retail recruiters and hospitality organizations centralize or hybridize their recruitment function. RPO providers work closely with internal talent teams to build out talent acquisition infrastructure and best practices enterprise-wide. RPO providers also lend support in sourcing, interviewing and hiring talent and can deploy advanced talent analytics technology for deeper insights into workforce trends.   

Challenge: Hospitality and Retail Recruitment is Often Conducted Face-to-Face

Traditionally, most candidates apply for retail and hospitality roles in person. However, as the pandemic persists, some would-be applicants may be hesitant to apply or interview face-to-face.

Solution: Take Hospitality and Retail Recruiting Interviews Virtual

Incorporating video interviewing into your talent acquisition toolbox can save your team hours of candidate sourcing and phone screens.

Virtual interviewing technology allows employers to have live, two-way video or a pre-recorded video interviews that candidates can do on their own time and from the safety of their home at their convenience. Video interviewing technology can be used to support a wide range of recruiting functions from candidate screening to offers and onboarding.

What’s more, the practice of virtually hiring and onboarding has been on the rise in retail and hospitality staffing in recent years as talent technology advances. Gap, for the first time, is allowing hires to apply online for any role in three minutes or less. Macy’s filled positions during a virtual hiring event and provided a convenient virtual process that allows candidates to interview from wherever.

Virtual interviewing, when paired with technologies such as text recruiting tools, offer enormous opportunities to improve recruiter efficiency, time to hire and build stronger relationships with candidates.

Challenges: Sourcing Hospitality and Retail Candidates with the Right Skills and Experience

According to a recent McKinsey Global Survey, the COVID-19 pandemic has made the question of how to address the skills gap more urgent. Nearly 90% of executives surveyed said current skills gaps are expected to increase in their workforce within the next few years, but less than half have a plan to address the issue.

To find the right employees, you should strongly consider expanding your definition of what qualifies as relevant experience. For example, if you have an applicant with no experience in retail, no experience operating a point-of-sale system and no experience managing other employees, you might be quick to write them off as an under-qualified candidate. However, you may be missing out on an ideal potential employee with the right soft skills to excel in the role, skills in short supply in retail and hospitality.

In fact, according to an SHRM report, talent and HR professionals in accommodation, food services and retail/wholesale were more likely than those in other industries to say that candidates did not have the right workplace soft skills such as problem-solving, interpersonal skills, communication, teamwork and leadership.

The Solution: Expand Your Talent Pool with Non-Traditional Candidates

A candidate who might not have the “right skills” at first glance could potentially become a top performer with a little on-the-job training and instruction. Instead of focusing so much on hard retail or hospitality skills and experience, keep your eyes open for candidates with transferable experience and skills such as customer-facing roles, managing finances, organizational skills 2 0789uiand other skill sets that may translate well. A Harvard Business Review article exploring the challenges employers face in “hiring low-skill, entry-level workers when economic conditions improve” highlighted how forward-thinking retail and hospitality organizations are boosting talent and business outcomes by adopting a recruiting model known as open hiring.

Open hiring looks for reasons to hire a candidate, rather than finding ways to exclude them. Major retail employers, including Ben & Jerry’s, Whole Foods and The Body Shop, have had success through open hiring strategies, including improvements in turnover, increases in productivity and a more resilient business continuity plan.

Here are a few questions you can ask candidates to better measure soft skills:

  • Has this person shown an ability to learn new skills quickly?
  • Does this person exhibit a positive attitude and the ability to work on a team?
  • Has this person displayed an aptitude for solving problems efficiently?

Hospitality Staffing and Retail Recruiting Is Crucial for Recovery

In retail and hospitality, every unfilled position represents missed opportunities to better serve your customers. While recruiting for retail and hospitality staffing at the moment might seem like a daunting task, implementing the right strategies and technology might just be the key to providing hiring managers and candidates alike with the tools to better navigate the industry’s new normal.

Hispanic and Latinx Diversity and Inclusion in the Workplace

Posted on by jpatel

At PeopleScout, we are committed to providing you with information to help guide you on your DE&I journey. We aim to cover a wide range of DE&I topics, including issues regarding BIPOC, the LGBTQ+ community, gender gaps, people with disabilities and more. This article is the next in our library of DE&I resources, and specifically focuses on the Hispanic and Latinx community. 

In the U.S., National Hispanic Heritage Month is observed from September 15 to October 15 to honor the cultures and contributions of both Hispanic and Latinx Americans by celebrating the histories, cultures and contributions of American citizens whose ancestors came from Spain, Mexico, the Caribbean and Central and South America. 

And it’s no doubt their contributions have been great—especially in the workforce and to the economy. Consider the impact this group has had and will continue to have in the future: 

The Current and Future Workforce 
Hispanics are the nation’s second-fastest-growing racial or ethnic group in the U.S., making up 18% of the population in 2019, up from 16% in 2010 and just 5% in 1970. Nearly 60% of U.S. Latinos are Millennials or younger. 

Creators of Jobs 
Within the last decade, 86% of all new businesses in the U.S. have been launched by U.S. Latinos, with Latinas creating business six times faster than any other group. 

Increasingly Educated 
Over the past decade, the Hispanic high school dropout rate has dropped dramatically while college enrollment has increased, with about 41% of U.S. Hispanic adults ages 25 and older having at least some college experience in 2018. 

Yet, organizations still lack Hispanic representation across all seniority levels. People of Hispanic or Latinx ethnicity make up 18% of the labor force but only 4.3% of executive positions in the U.S., making the gap between the labor force and executive representation wider among Hispanics than any other group. 

So how can organizations do their part in closing this gap? Employers should make conscious efforts to attract and retain this diverse group of talent and provide them with opportunities for growth and development. 

Understanding the Many Names of this Diverse Group  

Before you can effectively attract candidates from Hispanic and Latinx backgrounds, it’s important to understand the terminology that identifies this unique group.  

According to Pew Research Center, “the terms ‘Hispanic’ and ‘Latino’ are pan-ethnic terms meant to describe—and summarize—the population of people living in the U.S. of that ethnic background.” 

Some have drawn distinctions between the two terms, and their widely used definitions can be summarized as the following: 

Hispanic: A person residing in the U.S. with descent from Spanish-speaking countries (this excludes Brazil, where Portuguese is the official language). 

Latino: A person of Latin American descent residing in the U.S. (this includes Brazil but excludes Spain). 

However, this group has mixed views on how they prefer to describe their identity, with over half describing themselves by their country of origin.

In recent years, a new term has emerged as an alternative to Hispanic and Latino: Latinx. The term is one of many in the global movement around gender-neutral language. Latinx serves as a gender-neutral alternative to Latino and Latina and aims to encompass Latin American and Hispanic people from all racial backgrounds while also including those who identify as transgender, queer, agender, non-binary, gender non-conforming or gender fluid. 

According to trend data from Google, the term first appeared online in 2004, but didn’t begin to gain momentum and wider usage until 2014. Today, it sees use around the world, most often in the U.S.  

And much like the terms ‘Hispanic’ and ‘Latino’, surveys also reveal mixed feelings on ‘Latinx’ among the population it is meant to represent. Younger people, ages 18-29, are most likely to have heard of and use the term, while older people 65 and up are least likely. Specifically, use is the highest among young Hispanic women—14% say they use it, compared to the 1% of Hispanic men in the same age range. Here are other factors that impact how likely a U.S. Hispanic person is to have heard of Latinx and use the term: 

Whether the term Latinx should be adopted as a pan-ethnic term for the U.S. Hispanic and Latino population is still up for debate, with one third of those who have heard the term believing it should be used more broadly, according to data from the Pew Research Center. 
 
Like many scholars, journalists, activists and publications, PeopleScout will opt to use the term for the remainder of this article in an attempt to better include the many groups of people who make up the Latinx population. 

Strategies to Recruit and Retain Hispanic and Latinx Candidates 

If your organization is committed to improving its diversity, equity and inclusion practices, Latinx employees are a vital group to include in this initiative. Latinx individuals come from a wide variety of backgrounds, making the group extremely diverse in culture within itself. By including people from this group across your organization and in executive positions, your business will be better equipped to evolve and innovate as time goes on. Consider these strategies for recruiting and retaining Latinx candidates. 

Recruit with Intention 
Employers need to be intentional in improving representation of Latinx employees in leadership and across the workforce. Make it a point to recruit from industries and universities that are highly diverse. 

“If you do not have intentionality with diversity and inclusion, you have nothing.” – Cid Wilson, President and CEO of the Hispanic Association on Corporate Responsibility (via Invariant) 

Utilize Employee Testimonials 
Show candidates that your organization is home to diverse talent by showcasing those employees in your recruitment marketing tactics. You can share their experiences working for your organization through quotes, videos, personal stories or recruiting case studies. It is especially important to highlight diverse talent from all levels of your business. 

Expand Your Search 
When possible, it can be beneficial to expand your talent search nationwide, or even internationally as your organization allows. With the immense rise in remote work since the onset of the pandemic, many Latinx candidates will be looking to organizations with remote and flexible work options as they make the next move in their careers. Or, if your business requires in-person work, a competitive offer might have that top talent considering relocating for the position. 

Leverage Employee Networks 
Look to your existing Latinx employees, as well as all employees, for diverse referrals. In addition, you should seek input from these employees on how to attract candidates with similar backgrounds, as well as hear their ideas for organizational change and goals. In other words, empower them to have a voice. 

Provide Mentorship 
Even if your organization is highly diverse, any member of a minority group might feel excluded at times. By providing opportunities for mentorship both with individuals of the same background as well as those with different backgrounds, employees will feel more included. Encourage mentors to help employees meet their professional goals so they can grow within the organization. 

How to Support Your Hispanic and Latinx Employees 

Recruiting Latinx employees is the first step in improving diversity in your organization. The next is focusing on ways to make those employees feel supported and included.  

For example, at PeopleScout and the broader TrueBlue organization, we have the Hispanic Opportunity & Latin Awareness (HOLA) employee resource group to embrace and support our Latinx employees and 
associates within the communities we serve. HOLA aims to increase cultural competency and awareness around Latinx issues and concerns throughout TrueBlue, support TrueBlue’s efforts to attract and retain the best Latinx talent and provide the development and support necessary for Latinx employees to grow both personally and professionally. 

Here are examples of other companies with impressive initiatives to support their Latinx employees: 

Coca-Cola 
Coca-Cola’s “Hispanic Leadership Business Resource Group” offers its Hispanic and Latinx employees development, networking, community involvement opportunities and helps the company drive innovative business ideas. In 2017, the group had an idea for a Point-of-Sale Spanish Adaptation Tool which allowed bilingual employees to submit their interpretation of Coca-Cola taglines and phrases in different Spanish dialects to avoid the phrases losing their meaning through literal translations.  

Furthermore, the company showed their commitment to Hispanic and Latinx employees when there was uncertainty about Dreamers in the U.S. by covering the $500 DACA renewal fees for employees in the program. 

Ellucian 
Ellucian, a software and solutions development company for higher education, gave employees a sense of belonging by celebrating their heritage. The company planned volunteer events, office potlucks celebrating Latinx and Hispanic culture, highlights of influential Hispanic Americans, and an Instagram takeover for Latinx employees to share their experiences working at Ellucian. The first takeover on the company’s Instagram account came from the leader of ¡wepa!, the company’s Latinx ERG. 
 
General Motors 
General Motors, a vehicle manufacturing company, supports Hispanic employees from the very beginning by specifically targeting professional Hispanic organizations and Hispanic Serving Institutions as part of their recruiting strategy. The company focuses on raising the number of Hispanic professionals in STEM through their recruiting efforts and by providing over $5 million in scholarships for Hispanic STEM students. 

Leidos 
When the defense, aviation, IT, and biomedical research company discovered that the Hispanic and Latinx community was being disproportionately impacted by COVID-19 nationwide, they made it their priority to help. Leido’s Latinx ERG partnered with the Mayor’s Office on Latino Affairs in Washington, D.C. and Neighborhood Health in Alexandria, VA to donate more than 6,000 face masks and 1,500 bottles of hand sanitizer to help combat the spread of COVID-19 within Latinx communities in those areas. 

You can find more examples of companies who prioritize their Hispanic and Latinx employees here. 

Hispanic and Latinx Inclusion in the New World of Work 

The new world of work is not just about where and how work is done, but it’s about the people who are doing the work. It’s a candidate’s market, and people will choose employers who care about their employees as people. In order to be truly successful, organizations must fully understand their workforce, starting with their employees’ diverse backgrounds and identities.  

By understanding your underrepresented groups of people, like Hispanic and Latinx employees, consciously recruiting them, celebrating their heritage and investing in their growth, we’ll work our way toward a workforce with equal representation and strong inclusion of diverse groups across industries and at all levels of seniority. 

HSE: How a Webinar Increased Applicants for Scientists

Posted on by akessler
HSE: How a Webinar Increased Applicants for Scientists

HSE: How a Webinar Increased Applicants for Scientists

How do you persuade valued, highly sought-after scientists to move jobs in this market? By providing an opportunity to engage with the employer and understand the work and culture—before applying.

Increased Awareness of HSE and This Niche Division Within It
Increased Awareness of HSE and This Niche Division Within It
55 Questions Submitted to Help Inform Candidates
70 % of Attendees More Likely to Apply Since the Webinar

The Chemicals Regulation Division (CRD) of the Health & Safety Executive (HSE) is regulatory science at its best. Work here is forward-thinking, strategic and connected to decisions made by both the UK Government and large-scale business.

In undergoing significant change, our client was evolving and working hard to meet the challenges ahead. This required the recruitment of a significant number of scientists to help ensure the safe and sustainable use of chemicals. This is science with a scale, scope and influence few organizations can match.

Situation

The vacancies were based in Bootle and York and market mapping was undertaken into the number of suitable candidates with the relevant skills and qualifications for these roles. This highlighted the scarcity of candidates available. In addition, there was the challenge of how to engage with the target audience and give them the insight and opportunity to better understand the organization, the vital work they undertake and the opportunities for career development. A recent national study found the number one question from candidates is, “What’s it like to work there?”

Solution

With this in mind, we devised and developed a webinar to introduce the work of the CRD. The webinar featured a panel of existing employees, giving the participants an opportunity to hear first-hand what the job would entail. Alongside this we offered a live Q&A so that each person could ask questions. The webinar brought the organization to life and painted a picture of what it would be like to work there.

Results

The webinar significantly increased awareness of HSE and the niche division within it. The attendees were able to view the webinar remotely and on-demand. During the Q&A, 55 questions were submitted. These filled the information gap for candidates and gave them insight as to how they would fit in. As a result, 70% of attendees said they are more likely to apply since attending the webinar.

At a Glance

  • COMPANY
    Health & Safety Executive (HSE)
  • INDUSTRY
    Government & Public Sector
  • PEOPLESCOUT SOLUTIONS
    Recruitment Process Outsourcing, Talent Advisory
  • ABOUT HSE
    The Health & Safety Executive (HSE) is a independent regulator in the UK responsible for work-related health, safety and illness.
Let’s Connect

Sainsbury’s: Transforming a Traditional Retail Role with Recruitment Marketing

Posted on by jpatel
Sainsbury's: Transforming a Traditional Retail Role with Recruitment Marketing

Sainsbury’s: Transforming a Traditional Retail Role with Recruitment Marketing

As customer experience becomes the battleground for retail differentiation, Sainsbury’s turned to PeopleScout to help them hire the next generation of store managers.

19,000 Applications Received in First 12 Weeks, Beating our Target by 171%
4,500 Hires Made, Exceeding the Target of 2,400
1 M Candidate Engagements

Shopping habits have changed. And in the highly competitive UK retail sector, customer experience can make or break results for retailers. To capitalize on this, Sainsbury’s, one the UK’s big five supermarkets, decided to transform one of its traditional roles—and reimagine store management in the process.

Their goal? To create a simpler, more rewarding experience for staff and customers alike. Sainsbury’s wanted to replace the traditional role of retail store manager with a new role, Customer & Trading Manager.

This new role gave managers the freedom to get out of the weeds and really lead teams—creating a new era of retail management. This required new skills and a different mindset. Some of their retail professionals would be able to transition into these new roles but some wouldn’t have what it takes. So Sainsbury’s turned to PeopleScout to help them attract new talent from the outside.

Turning Negatives into Positives

From the start, we faced some significant challenges:

  • The role was entirely new to the market, so we had to explain the new, unfamiliar employment proposition clearly to audiences both inside and outside of retail.
  • The role of retail manager had an image problem. It was seen as a transactional role that often saw you stuck on the registers.
  • The media was confusing the issue. We needed to counteract several misleading, negative reports of large-scale retail redundancies.

Sainsbury’s considered this to be one of their biggest recruitment challenges. They asked us to challenge and overturn negative public perceptions of retail management, introduce an entirely new type of role and hire 2,400 managers, from 24,000 applicants—in just six months.

The Core Message

First, we took apart the job profile to challenge the requirements. It was clear that the single most motivating benefit of the role was the potential to be a leader and to get the very best from a team. This suggested that the best candidates for this new type of retail role didn’t necessarily need retail experience.

We wanted to reconnect people with the emotional core of what’s great about management. It meant presenting the role—and Sainsbury’s—in a new light. So, we stripped away the language associated with the day-to-day tasks and instead put the focus back on employees as people.

We developed an overarching campaign message, Leading Starts Here, to clearly state our employment offer.

And to bring it to life, we used the following concept as our organizing thought: We all need someone to inspire us.

This universal, relatable truth was what used to capture the moving stories of individuals who have overcome huge obstacles—everything from low self-esteem to disability—with the help of inspirational leaders.

Making it Authenitic

Video was our chosen vehicle. Our diverse cast reflected Sainsbury’s approach as an inclusive employer and included people from a variety of ethnic and religious backgrounds, people with common mental health issues and people with disabilities. While some of the responses were scripted, the strongest were spontaneous reactions to the simple prompt, tell me about someone who inspired you.

The campaign featured a blended approach of active and passive channels on- and offline:

  • Active channels included Indeed and a wide variety of other job boards as well as Google Search and Google Display Network.
  • Passive channels included billboards in key locations near major offices, newspapers, social media and other online destinations.
  • We used geo-location and behavioral targeting on search and social media to put our videos in front of audiences across the hospitality, travel, cabin crew, leisure and care industries.

We created 69 individual pieces of artwork, a campaign landing page with the hero video and an in-store toolkit, which included pull-up banners, poaching cards, posters, leaflets and stickers —everything a store needed to amplify the campaign.

The Results

  • Less than 10:1 application-to-hire ratio of high quality candidates.
  • Over 19,000 applications received in first 12 weeks (beating our target by 171%).
  • 4,500 hires made, exceeding the target of 2,400.
  • 69 content pieces produced.
  • £71 attraction-cost-per-hire achieved.
  • Close to 1 MILLION people engaged with the brand as part of the campaign.
  • After 12 weeks, the campaign had generated 376,986 clicks across online paid media. This has been achieved at an average cost per click of just £0.59.
  • The core film has been played 462,168 times and counting, receiving extremely positive feedback, praising its inclusive message.

At a Glance

  • COMPANY
    Sainsbury’s
  • INDUSTRY
    Retail
  • PEOPLESCOUT SOLUTIONS
    Talent Advisory
  • LOCATIONS
    600+ supermarkets across the UK
  • About Sainsbury’s
    Sainsbury’s in the second largest supermarket chain in the UK. Their focus is to bring high quality food and household goods to consumers in-store and online, supported by their brands, Argos, Habitat, Tu, Nectar and Sainsbury’s Bank.
Let’s Connect