Category: Talent Acquisition Strategy

Total Workforce Solutions in Practice

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Total workforce management is a growing trend, but implementing a total workforce solution is a long-term process. Rather than a one-time implementation, it’s most helpful to think of total talent as an evolution. That evolution will look different for each organization as they work to unite separate parts of a business into one unified strategy.

Learn more about the drivers and benefits of total workforce solutions in our previous blog post. In this post, we’ll cover the major challenges of implementing and maintaining a total talent program – including finding the right technology and total workforce solutions partner.

Total Workforce Solutions Implementation

While there are a host of benefits to a total workforce approach, implementing a holistic program in practice can be complicated. To be successful, there needs to be sponsorship and buy-in from the very top of the organization.

Implementing a total workforce solution starts with understanding your company’s strategic goals and determining how to tailor your talent strategy to achieve those objectives. The way talent wants to work, and the market availability of that talent, will also change your strategy. Understanding the mix of full-time and contingent workers across different departments will allow you to have transparent conversations about how to best find and deploy top talent.

In addition to creating a comprehensive implementation plan, it’s also critical to work with key stakeholders that can help the wider organization understand why a total workforce solution is a positive change and the benefits of evolving to this model. The right messaging, supported by the right data, is critical to success and can help stakeholders work through the difficult conversations that naturally come up as a part of an organizational shift.

The speed of the roll-out will also depend on how your organization is structured. If the structure is already centralized, it will be easier to drive change from the top down. However, for organizations that have decentralized operations, it will be more difficult to get buy-in. The business structure will also impact where in the process an organization needs to start. Some organizations may first need to build a more centralized structure before they can fully build out a total talent solution.

Constant Evolution

Additionally, leaders should keep in mind that the phrase “total workforce evolution” doesn’t just apply to implementation. A well-done total workforce solution is always evolving. The workforce is constantly changing and will continue to change as new generations enter the workforce and more baby boomers and eventually, Gen Xers retire.

Total workforce management is designed to help organizations adjust not just to current change but also adapt to unforeseen changes that will happen decades in the future. That means revaluating how talent wants to work needs to be a constant process. Implementing a total workforce strategy will provide a greater view of a workforce, but leadership needs to recognize that change will continue long past implementation.

The global talent landscape is also changing. Right now, most development of total workforce is happening in the U.S. and Canada, but it could easily spread to other areas around the globe. Organizations will need to keep this in mind as they roll out total workforce and make strategic decisions about how to structure it within the international portions of their business.

Total Workforce Technology

Technology is an important part of any talent acquisition or workforce management solution. Because of this, organizations should find a partner with a proven technology solution and experience building total workforce solutions. Organizations should also plan to evolve their total workforce programs as new technologies come into the marketplace.

Regardless of the specific technology solution, predictive analytics should be a part of any total workforce solution. Predictive analytics can be used in workforce planning to determine whether a certain role is best filled by a full-time employee or as a contract position. The technology can process data about time-to-fill, cost-to-fill, quality of hire and more to determine if the best talent for a role wants to work full-time or as a contingent worker and how to effectively reach those people.

Predictive analytics can also provide an early warning system to let organizations know if they may have issues finding a certain type of talent in a certain location. PeopleScout provides this information to one client that staffs contingent positions around the U.S. By using predictive analytics, PeopleScout is able to spot the early signs of contingent labor shortages in certain key markets and advise that organization to raise wages and add suppliers in strategic locations.

Finding a Total Workforce Solutions Partner

If you’re implementing a total workforce solution at your organization, it is important to work with someone who has experience in total workforce planning.


Additionally, it’s important to ensure your partner has experience with the types of roles and the challenges you’re facing. A total workforce solution will look vastly different for an organization with highly skilled employees and creative contract workers compared with an organization that employs web developers and staffs distribution centers with contingent workers. To be effective, you total workforce partner needs understand both your specific talent needs and the entire process of implementing a total workforce solution. To make sure they can accomplish what you’re looking for, it is also important to establish that they are market leaders, innovators and thought leaders. Because total talent is a growing trend, you want a partner who is innovating and leading in the industry.

Drivers and Benefits of Total Workforce Solutions

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Total workforce solutions are a growing trend for organizations grappling with the changing talent landscape. A total workforce solution provides a central view and way to manage all talent at an organization – both employees and contingent workers, including independent contractors, freelancers and statement of work (SOW) workers.

What is a Total Workforce Solution?

Under a total workforce solution, both talent acquisition and workforce management come together. The most complex issue when transitioning to a total workforce solution is determining where decisions will be made regarding full-time, part-time employees and contingent workers. In many organizations, those decisions have traditionally been made by different parts of the business.

Reconciling the decision-making and budgeting process to one central decision point with many inputs is essential in creating a successful, holistic talent program. A centralized decision-making process is also critical in ensuring that hiring managers receive guidance on determining the best way to fill a role – with either permanent or contingent workers.

Therefore, implementing a total workforce solution is a complicated and long-term project that needs to be continually evaluated. It’s best to think of total workforce as an evolution. In this blog post, we will cover the drivers for and benefits of total workforce and what to look for in a total workforce solutions partner.

Drivers of the Total Workforce Evolution

There are several factors driving the total workforce evolution. Currently, the growth of total workforce is primarily in the U.S. and Canada due to favorable labor laws and economic conditions. The following drivers combine to create a competitive environment, one where employers need to be able to attract and hire the best talent regardless of whether the worker is a permanent employee or a contingent worker.

Low unemployment

The U.S. has seen years of economic growth that has resulted in low unemployment. The unemployment rate has hovered near or below 4 percent for about a year which creates more competition for talent. Organizations need to find creative ways to attract and retain talent in this economic climate, including optimizing their balance of employees and contingent workers.

Generational shifts and the gig economy

Baby boomers, who were for years the largest generation in the workforce, are starting to retire. Now, millennials make up more than one-third of all workers. This divide and the shortage of experienced workers is especially visible in the healthcare industry.

The generational shift had another impact – the rise of the gig economy. As the number of millennials in the workforce ballooned, contingent work also grew in popularity. A Staffing Industry Analysts study estimates that about 44 million Americans, or about 29 percent of the U.S. workforce, has taken part in the gig economy. The study reports that many chose contingent work for greater flexibility or higher wages. Organizations need to adapt quickly to this generational shift and the growing popularity of this type of work to find and attract talent in a way that reflects the way that talent wants to work. Understanding the mix of full-time and contingent workers across different departments is a good place to start.

Evaluating your workforce mix will allow you to begin to plan for how to find and deploy top talent. It’s also critical to remember that as the workforce evolves, your strategy must evolve with it to stay competitive.

Talent shortages

Automation is changing the way we work. Currently, organizations are facing a shortage of candidates with the skills of the future. To overcome these challenges, organizations are implementing innovative solutions including reskilling. Employers are turning to total workforce solutions, so they can adapt more quickly to changes. In a total workforce solution, decision making is centralized and based on how to best secure the talent which enables increased agility and helps stakeholders see the benefit of making strategic decisions about how their workforce is procured.

A desire for greater insight to the total talent picture

Leaders are looking for a better view of the entire talent picture. By looking at permanent employees and contingent workers together, organizations can create a coherent strategy that takes into account the pressures of low unemployment, generational shifts and talent shortages and adapt more quickly.

Benefits of a Total Workforce Solution

Cost savings

A well-managed total workforce solution should drive increased cost savings compared to MSP and RPO programs operating separately. An integrated program simplifies the management, reporting and recruiting resources – reducing costs and increasing effectiveness. Through a TWS, organizations can find savings opportunities by making more strategic decisions about how to use their labor.

A full view of the entire workforce

A total workforce strategy provides companies with a broad view of the workforce, across different labor classifications and departments. That level of visibility allows organizations to gain consolidated intelligence into their workforces and helps them evolve in the competitive talent landscape. A total workforce solution provides enhanced metrics across the entire workforce—including time-to-fill, hiring manager satisfaction, candidate satisfaction, performance and cost metrics. This enables leaders to make informed, strategic business decisions, setting the organization up for success.

Centralized decision making

A total workforce solution centralizes decision making by ensuring the right mix of both permanent employees and contingent workers. A centralized decision-making process helps programs run more effectively by identifying whether a role should be temporary, permanent, short-term or long-term as soon as a need is identified.

Increased agility

A total workforce solution provides increased agility as organizations can see the trends impacting their workforce earlier and respond to them more quickly. A total workforce talent approach combines talent acquisition and workforce management, so strategic initiatives can be more easily implemented from the top down. Under a traditional, siloed approach, leaders have a more difficult time spotting these trends because they are only looking at a portion of the workforce. Additionally, strategic initiatives require more buy-in and more complex implementation because they involve two separate parts of the business. As technology accelerates the rate of change in the way we work, agility is an increasingly important trait for businesses.

A unified employer brand

When permanent and contingent labor are managed together, it is easier for organizations to portray a cohesive employer brand. Rather than representing one image of the organization to contingent workers and another to full-time employees, a total workforce solution enables HR to develop an employer branding strategy that speaks to all workers. Employer branding is an important tool for organizations to attract top talent.

Greater ability to recruit talent regardless of worker type

These benefits combine to provide organizations with a greater ability to recruit talent regardless of worker type. With the full view of talent, leaders can see how different types of talent want to work and then designate the position as permanent or contingent to meet those worker expectations. Then, the unified employer brand speaks to all workers in the same way, so candidates get the same positive impression whether they are applying for a full-time job, looking for a contract position or working through a temp agency. As organizations deal with the skill shortage and competitive talent landscape, the ability to recruit both employers and contingent workers effectively is necessary.

Total Workforce Solutions in Practice

A smooth transition from a segmented talent strategy to a total workforce solution comes down to the fundamentals of change management – planning, communication and implementation. Seamless program implementation ensures business continuity throughout the process, from formulating objectives for the overall program to transitioning it to the team who will manage the program on a daily basis. Once a program is in place, a purposeful governance strategy ensures the program can adapt, scale and respond to changes that impact talent and staffing needs.

Learn more about what total workforce solutions looks like in practice, including finding the right technology solution in our next blog post.

Globalizing Your Recruitment Strategies

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Global recruitment strategies are now more important than ever. As competition for talent increases, it is increasingly important for international organizations to create a recruiting strategic plan that is consistent across the globe. One factor driving this shift is falling unemployment around the world. The U.S., China, Japan, Britain and Canada all have unemployment rates at or below 6 percent—with the U.S., China and Japan at or below 4 percent. This makes it difficult to find and attract top talent in these economies.

Leaders are concerned about the growing competition for talent. According to PwC’s 21st CEO Survey, which collects data from leaders around the world, 80 percent of CEOs say they’re worried about finding talent with necessary skills. Additionally, 54 percent say they plan to increase the headcount at their organization over the next year and 57 percent believe global growth will improve over the next year.

To support growth and remain competitive in sourcing and recruiting the best workers, organizations need to build a comprehensive global recruitment strategy. An overarching global recruitment strategy covers recruitment marketing and employer branding, candidate experience and onboarding around the world.

In this blog post, we will cover the benefits of a global recruitment strategy and the building blocks employers need to be successful.

Benefits of a Global Recruitment Strategy

Improved quality of hire

An effective global sourcing strategy enables employers to make a better cultural match and increases the potential of finding the right candidate with the right skills.

Increased diversity and greater cultural literacy

Employers are able to speak to and attract candidates regardless of country through a consistent global recruitment strategy. If the recruitment process is optimized for one country or weaker in different parts of the world, an employer will see the overrepresentation of some candidates and underrepresentation of others. By deploying a truly global process, employers will be able to attract and hire a more diverse slate of candidates. Increased diversity has a host of benefits including improved productivity and higher levels of employee engagement. Diverse employees also bring an increase in cultural literacy to an organization.

A recruiting strategic plan to better source candidates with skills of the future

A global recruitment strategy can help employers source candidates with the skills of the future. Automation is changing the way we work, and different areas of the globe are adapting at different paces. According to PwC, 94 percent of CEOs in China are worried about finding candidates with the right skills compared to just 51 percent in Canada. With a global recruitment strategy, HR professionals can adapt candidate personas from around the world to ensure they are sourcing talent with the necessary skills and identifying new ways to target candidates who fit these personas.

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Creating a Recruiting Strategic Plan: The Components of a Global Recruitment Strategy

Employer brand

The first step of implementing a global recruitment strategy is building an employment brand that is truly global. Many employers, especially those in the B2B space, don’t have a strong consumer brand. Without a strong consumer brand, most organizations need to rely on their employer brand to attract talent. There are many ways for an organization to build its employer brand, including developing employee ambassadors, using social media and digitizing brand strategy while putting mobile first.

global recruitment

When implementing a global recruitment strategy, organizations need to build an employer brand that is effective across the world. It is important to work with local employees to ensure employer branding and recruitment marketing campaigns are culturally appropriate in each region in which an employer recruits.

To accomplish this effectively, HR should work with marketing, so the strategy is aligned with and deployed alongside traditional marketing messages.

Candidate experience

A strong end-to-end candidate experience is important regardless of where candidates are from. Candidates around the world want mobile-friendly applications that are fast and easy to fill out, well-written job descriptions that engage candidates and convince them to apply, positive interview experiences and consistent communication.

Employee referral program

The process should also include a strong employee referral program for each country as employee referrals account for nearly a third of all hires, according to SHRM. It is important to ensure an equivalent referral bonus in each country. The amount should be based on a percentage of the average income in each location. If referral bonuses are too varied in different countries, it can make employees in one location feel less valued.

Consistent onboarding process

The onboarding process should also be as consistent as possible in each location. According to SHRM, 69 percent of employees are more likely to stay with a company for three years if they experience great onboarding. While some countries have exceptions, like requiring a new hire to come into the office for a signature before the start date, but otherwise the process should be as consistent as possible. At PeopleScout, we standardize, document and create global job contract repositories to make our clients’ onboarding processes more efficient and compliant.

Standardized technology

When building a global recruitment strategy, it is important to standardize technology as much as possible across the globe. While there are exceptions, like Russia where, by law, you need to have an ATS on the ground in the country, you should use the same technology systems wherever possible.

A centralized technology system for all global locations gives you better data and a better view of your entire workforce. This gives you the ability to better spot trends and make strategic decisions.

Global labor market data analysis

If the talent market starts to tighten in one part of the world, you can easily see how your workforce compares throughout the region and other areas of the world. That insight can be used to make high-level business decisions. For example, a PeopleScout client was looking to hire Norwegian speakers in a central European country. After analyzing the market data, PeopleScout provided recommendations for better locations outside of Norway where the client could find more candidates who met their requirements.

Finding a Global RPO Partner

Recruiting Strategic Plan

A global RPO provider can be a valuable partner in developing a global recruitment strategy because you benefit from the wealth of knowledge and experience they gain through working in different industries around the world. As you look for a partner, it’s important to ensure that they have experience in the parts of the world where you’re looking to hire candidates.

Your partner should help you navigate the compliance and cultural issues that accompany any global sourcing program. While some local labor laws deal with issues that happen after the hiring process, remember that they can have implications during the hiring process too. An RPO provider can help prepare you for many of the challenges before you post a job or extend an offer. Additionally, a partner with years of experience can help you anticipate any communication and training issues so that you can tackle the issues head-on.

If you are considering building a global recruitment strategy, read more about our global RPO solutions.

Leveraging Offshore Delivery Centers to Drive Improved Compliance and Recruitment Results

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Offshore delivery centers are a growing tool in talent acquisition. Historically, these centers have been leveraged for the cost efficiencies they brought to business process outsourcing programs. More recently, Offshore delivery centers are being used to strengthen compliance, drive broader operational efficiencies and improve recruitment performance. The change is driven by an increasingly globalized workforce, a competitive recruiting landscape and increased risk due to a complicated patchwork of compliance regulations.

Positive economic growth in the U.S. and around the world is making it more difficult to find and attract the talent necessary to stay ahead in the global economy. A skills shortage brought on by automation is making the process even more difficult. Low unemployment rates mean candidates have a lot of choices, so employers need to meet candidate expectations during the recruitment process to hire top talent.

However, the compliance landscape is becoming more complicated. The patchwork of compliance laws across the U.S. is complicated and constantly changing. That, combined with increased employment class-action litigation, leaves employers facing extraordinary risk. This means employers not only have to provide a strong candidate experience, but they also have to account for the variety of regulations that apply.

To overcome these obstacles, employers and RPO providers are engaging offshore delivery centers to manage parts of the recruitment process. These delivery centers are effective because combined with an innovate technology solution, they can drive efficiencies and ensure compliance through strict adherence to workflows. In this blog post, we will cover the benefits of offshore delivery models in dealing with policy and regulatory compliance issues, how these models fit with a technology solution and how to find an RPO partner with global delivery expertise.

Supporting Policy and Regulatory Compliance

There are three major benefits to an offshore delivery center: cost, operational efficiency and ensure compliance. In addition to cost-savings realized through a global delivery center, technology, workflow and audit operations can be orchestrated to drive operational efficiency, as well as compliance with corporate and regulatory guidelines. Below are a few ways in which global delivery centers can improve the hiring process.

Background Screening and Drug Testing

Standardized corporate policies requiring completed background investigations and drug tests have been the norm across large employers in the U.S. However, the proliferation of different state and local laws regarding the use of criminal background investigations in the hiring process and the variations in the legal treatment of the use of marijuana in different jurisdictions have injected significant complexity into hiring practices. Employers faced with the need for different drug testing criteria and background investigation procedures can encode and apply variegated workflows for different jurisdictions, without a significant increase in compliance cost or risk, when these are initiated, executed and audited at an offshore delivery center.

Properly Written Job Requisitions

An offshore delivery center can be used to ensure that every job requisition is complete and compliant. Hiring manager or recruiter errors frequently undermine the effectiveness, policy adherence and regulatory compliance of job descriptions. A common approach to this issue has been to force the posting of only static, unchangeable job descriptions that are pre-approved. Times have changed, and it is more important than ever to allow hiring managers to highlight differentiators and add information that will attract the best from a very limited candidate pool. A compliance review of every job description prior to posting or distributing a job description is an essential step in ensuring compliance with OFCCP and other regulatory criteria fixed elements like accurate compensation ranges, and ensuring a minimum acceptable quality level.

Building Global Compliance Teams

As many organizations turn to a global sourcing and recruitment model, an offshore delivery center can be used to quickly and easily set up compliance standard operation procedures for each country in which an organization operates. Because each team is only focused on one set of regulations and they follow a set procedure, the teams can avoid the confusion that arises from dealing with a variety of regulations in different countries. This system can ensure compliance for companies with a large global presence.

Increased Diversity and Decreased Bias

Offshore delivery centers can also be used to increase diversity and decrease bias throughout the recruitment process. For one organization that takes advantage of PeopleScout’s offshore delivery center in Gurgaon, candidates first take an online assessment and are then screened by staff at the center against criteria specified in the job descriptions and subsequently slated for recruiter and hiring manager review. This process reduces the possibility of bias, and translates to a more diverse slate of qualified candidates and reduced risk of discrimination.

Supporting Improved Recruitment Results

In addition to helping create a compliant recruitment program, offshore delivery centers can also improve recruitment results and candidates experience.

Posting to Community and Diversity Job Boards

Most well-known job boards take XML feeds, which allows distribution to be automated. However, job boards like those run by community churches or local unions sometimes still require someone to reach out personally. When an employer has a large volume of open positions, posting to these types of boards can take a lot of recruiter time and the process becomes prohibitively expensive. When an offshore delivery center handles this type of posting, organizations don’t leave these candidates on the table. Additionally, these job boards are also often a source of diverse candidates, which improves diversity hiring.

Timeliness

To keep up with candidate expectations, employers need a fast recruitment process. An offshore delivery center can speed up the process of candidate engagement through procedures designed to accelerate the strongest candidates through to interviews and offers. For one client that takes advantage of PeopleScout’s global delivery center in Gurgaon, India, PeopleScout has met 100 percent of all timeliness metrics for the past three years for tens of thousands of annual hires by engaging with candidates 24 hours a day.

Building a Diverse and High Performing Workforce

In addition to the tangible benefits during the recruitment process, an offshore delivery center also provides the benefits of a diverse and global workforce, including creative new ideas and perspectives and higher productivity. At PeopleScout, employees in our offshore delivery centers in India have provided unique insights and ideas, assisting teams in the U.S. and Canada. In one instance, a recruiter with an educational background in quantitative sciences was able to provide insights that led to the deployment of a local work allocation system that significantly reduced the time it takes us to screen new applicants.

In specialized fields of endeavor, recruiters with specific knowledge and educational expertise are better equipped to screen and select candidates. While it would be prohibitive and less likely to engage engineers, programmers, chemists and other professionals as recruiters in the U.S. and most of Europe, offshore delivery centers have allowed forward-thinking RPO firms to build recruiting teams with these skilled professionals.

Technology and the Offshore Delivery Model

Finding the Right Balance

Innovative technology, including AI, is an important part of any recruiting program. A typical talent acquisition technology stack now includes an ATS, an integrated CRM platform and a myriad of other tools. We have never been better positioned to use analytics to help us make decisions and drive better recruiting outcomes. Striking a balance is important to ensure that we arrive at outcomes that are aligned to organizational goals and are within regulatory guardrails. For instance, using a technology-enabled first-pass to screen requisitions can ensure that a job description is accurate across objective features. That can be followed by a human second-pass screen to review flagged areas and screen more subjective areas of the job description like ensuring that the basic qualifications for the job description are defensible from a compliance standpoint. Another example concerns the use of artificial intelligence-enabled systems to source candidates. All such systems run the inherent risk of allowing biases inherent in prior hiring decisions to perpetuate and amplify across future recruiting efforts. Allowing for a recruiter-led review of systems generated results ensures that all good candidates are appropriately considered. Global delivery centers allow for efficient ways to address the required balance between systems and human interactions across the recruiting life-cycle.

Stepping up Where AI Falls Short

Offshore delivery centers can also take on tasks that AI and automation aren’t able to do yet. For instance, when a new law goes into effect that impacts the recruiting process in a certain region, a new standard operating procedure can be established and deployed in an offshore delivery center within hours. Making that change across a complex technology stack would involve multiple rounds of programming and testing, which would take more time and amplify the risk of compliance issues until deployment.

Finding a Partner

An RPO provider is a valuable partner for organizations looking to take advantage of the benefits of an offshore delivery center. RPOs have expertise in managing clients across the spectrum of compliance needs, so they can quickly implement a customized plan. That experience also means that RPO providers can pivot quickly to address any change in the compliance landscape, developing a standard operating procedure and applying it to any client who may be impacted.

As you’re looking for an RPO partner with offshore delivery capabilities, be sure to assess their ability to address cost, operations, and compliance efficiencies across the entire talent acquisition model.

A Look into the Gig Economy

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According to research conducted by Freelancing in America, an estimated 57.3 million Americans—36 percent of the American workforce—work as freelancers or participate in gig work.  What’s more, a study conducted by the McKinsey Global Institute found that 20-30 percent of the labor force in the European Union is now made up of independent workers who are self-employed or do temporary work. Thanks to the rise of freelancing platforms such as Uber, Airbnb, TaskRabbit and Fiverr, finding non-traditional means of employment is easier than ever.

So what does the gig economy mean for employers and employees alike? How will recruiting tactics and strategies adapt to meet the challenges and opportunities provided by the gig economy? In this post, we explore the effects, benefits and challenges facing employers and employees participating in the gig economy.

The Gig Economy’s Effect on Workers

Based on job search results across their site, Indeed discovered that interest in flexible and non-traditional work has increased 42 percent since 2013 based on the number of candidates looking for job postings that include the words “remote,” “work from home,” and “telecommute.” What’s more, a BLS survey reports the total number of contingency-based jobs grew from 14,826,000 in 2005 to 15,482,000 in 2017, a gain of 656,000 jobs or 4.6 percent over twelve years.

From college students unable to commit to full-time work to people looking to supplement their income, people searching for gig work come from all walks of life. Below, we cover the benefits and challenges confronting gig workers.

Increased Flexibility

For workers in the gig economy, flexibility is one of the biggest benefits. In fact, in a study of Uber drivers the drivers were asked the following question: “If both were available to you, at this point in your life, would you rather have a steady 9-to-5 job with some benefits and a set salary or a job where you choose your own schedule and be your own boss?” 73 percent of respondents selected flexibility over a traditional job. This indicates that workers looking for gig work are searching for a job that fits their lifestyle, skill set and schedule.

No Experience Necessary

Most gig jobs have low barriers to entry, making on-demand work easy to start. For ridesharing services like Lyft or Uber, all an applicant needs is a vehicle, a valid driver’s license and a clean driving record. For room-sharing services like Airbnb, all you need is an extra room. Zirtual provides opportunities for micro-tasking as a virtual assistant for potential workers with good administrative abilities and technical skills. Gig workers should think about their interests and skills and to find gig opportunities that complement their strengths.

Worker Concerns

On-demand and gig labor provide opportunities for employment for workers of all ages, skill levels and educational backgrounds. However, contract work typically means that most of the protections and benefits afforded to W-2 employees are absent in the gig economy. Severance packages, disability leave, PTO, sick days, health insurance and workers compensation are just a few of the benefits afforded to employees but not contractors, freelancers or gig workers. Freelance workers often work other jobs to receive the protections and benefits often absent in gig work.

The Gig Economy’s Effect on Businesses

The most obvious appeal of hiring temporary staff is that you can build a responsive workforce, tailored to suit your business goals and objectives. Organizations can quickly scale their workforces to supplement in-house staff or find workers with the skills needed to tackle important projects. In this section, we outline the strategies employers can use to optimize gig hiring.

Hire for the Right Positions

Employers should carefully consider which specific jobs they need freelancers to perform and make sure the contractors clearly understand what they are expected to deliver. For example, in creative work, organizations need to outline specific deliverables so that both parties can agree when the project is considered complete.

Organizations need to also keep in mind that contract work is not suitable for all roles and projects. If an organization needs workers for a long-term project, it is sometimes best to hire permanent staff as a contractor for a 2-year project may be more costly than hiring a full-time employee. Contract employees with skills in high demand may prefer to work short contracts to maintain their flexibility.

Leverage Technology

Sourcing, vetting, contracting and paying a consistent flow of gig workers is time-consuming. This additional work can overwhelm HR and procurement departments. To streamline these processes, organizations can use robust technology solutions that combine multiple processes into one platform. These platforms can automate the contracting and payment processes to reduce administrative work and keep track of gig workers and the projects they are working on.

Provide Benefits

A report from the Texas Workforce Investment Council found that a major drawback for gig workers is the lack of benefits available. The report also found that as long as employers pay gig workers a competitive wage, they are happy to purchase their own benefits. Most gig opportunities do not provide benefits. This presents an opportunity for organizations looking to attract gig employees. Workers may be more willing to take an opportunity or work consistently for an employer if they can rely on even a modest benefits package or pay rates that allow them to purchase their own benefits.

Managing Gig Employees

Effectively managing a gig workforce is complex. A thorough understanding of the gig economy can help organizations integrate policies and processes into company strategy and structure. The following are three key areas of gig workforce management and how you can best approach them.

Worker Misclassification

Depending on how gig workers are managed on the job, employers run the risk of a worker being managed as if they are a W-2 employee. Even when hiring managers have a good understanding of the difference between an employee and a contractor, managers may still treat contractors as W-2 employees. This can be an expensive mistake. In cases where misclassification is deemed unintentional, an employer may be charged:

  • A $50 fee for each W-2 that was not filed
  • 1.5 percent of the employee’s wages, plus interest
  • 40 percent of the employee’s FICA (Social Security and Medicare) contributions
  • 100 percent of the employer’s matching FICA contributions

Employees who believe they have been misrepresented can file a complaint with the Department of Labor or their state labor agency. Misclassification can usually be avoided by partnering with an MSP, RPO or total workforce solutions partner with a focus on compliance.

Employee Quality

The quality of workers in a gig-based economy can be hit or miss. Unless an employer reviews every potential workers’ prior work experience and history, they can never know the quality of worker they are getting. By working with an MSP provider and reputable staffing firms, organizations can rest assured that they are getting workers who have been properly vetted against their requirements. What’s more, if a worker fails to meet your organization’s standard, you can work with your MSP or staffing supplier to source and hire better quality workers.

Supervision

Someone within your organization needs to be responsible for ensuring gig workers deliver on their contracts. Some employers do not have the infrastructure to keep up with a high number of freelancers and projects. Organizations can ensure projects are on track and workers are delivering on their promises by assigning staff to monitor gig workers.

RPO Role in the Gig Economy

For many organizations, the demand on HR to recruit talent and manage an organization’s traditional workforce can interfere with their ability to handle similar responsibilities for gig workers. An RPO partner can help in two major ways:

  • Delivering a complete end-to-end solution for talent acquisition, retention and utilization for the short-term work requirements of an organization’s talent acquisition program.
  • Providing the tools and technology needed to hire and manage gig workers.

To learn more about how an RPO provider can help meet your gig hiring and talent acquisitions needs, visit PeopleScout’s RPO services page.

How to Create and Provide a Positive Candidate Experience

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The world of hiring is more candidate-driven than ever before. Professionals in various industries at different levels of experience are in high demand, and that means they have more options when it comes to choosing an employer. The presence of options, coupled with the rising bargaining power of employees, has lifted candidate experience to the top of many organization’s list of talent acquisition and workforce management priorities.

Generally, the better the candidate experience, the more likely an organization is to attract the best talent. Top candidates demand compelling experiences during and after the hiring process. In this post, we outline ways organizations can improve their candidate experience to gain an advantage over the competition.

Why is Candidate Experience Important?

The candidate experience covers the entire recruitment process from before an application is submitted to onboarding, and everything in between. Poor experiences during the recruiting process can negatively impact an employer’s ability to hire talent. In fact, 27 percent of candidates who have a bad experience would “actively discourage others to apply.” What’s more, 77 percent of candidates are likely to share positive experiences with those in their network.

Today, candidates have more choices, making it harder for employers to differentiate themselves and establish how their values, company culture and employees represent a unique opportunity for top candidates. Through a positive candidate experience, organizations can gain the trust and loyalty of applicants who may become advocates for an organization and help bolster their employer brand. With a stronger employer brand, organizations can distinguish themselves as an employer of choice in their industry.

Candidate Experience Touchpoints

Every interaction with an organization, from job postings and career sites to speaking with a recruiter or hiring manager can positively or negatively impact the candidate’s perception of an organization. Candidates often decide whether or not to accept a job offer based on how they were treated throughout the hiring process.

Each touchpoint throughout the hiring process—from attraction and sourcing to onboarding—should be taken into consideration when optimizing your candidate experience. The following are tips on how to enhance your candidate experience.

Employer Branding

In today’s digital-obsessed world, most candidates use the internet to research an potential employer prior to applying for a job. Having a strong employer brand not only helps build a connection with a prospective hire, but it introduces them to who you are, what you do and why you are a great place to work.

There are many ways in which a company can work to optimize its employer brand. For example, organizations can ask current employees to leave reviews on Glassdoor or submit a quote about their experience to be used in recruiting materials. Social media savvy employees can also be encouraged to share company culture through news, photos and events.

Employer branding messages should be communicated across all platforms that are relevant to the organization’s business and recruitment efforts such as job boards, social media platforms and industry publications.

Make a Good First Impression

According to a CareerBuilder study, 57 percent of candidates conduct their preliminary research by visiting an organization’s website, making it clear that career pages and candidate-facing web pages need to be designed to capture an applicant’s interest.

An effective career site should make visitors feel welcome and give applicants the information they are looking for, such as details about employment opportunities, company culture and work environment.

Career sites should be both engaging and easy to understand. An excellent online experience can motivate candidates to apply and differentiate employers from competitors.

Respond to Candidates

CareerBuilder also reports that 47 percent of candidates never receive any form of communication from the organization they apply to, even past 60 days after applying. This leaves a huge opportunity for organizations to provide superior communication and recruitment marketing.

Every candidate deserves a response, even if they will not be given an interview. Whether the response is an automated email, a letter or a phone call, as long as it is prompt and tactful, applicants will not feel that they wasted their time.

Organizations who treat every candidate equally are more likely to have applicants reapply to the company or encourage family, friends and coworkers to apply.

Create Unique Experiences

An optimized application process should be tailored based on different criteria such as the role, location or technical experience required. For example, certain positions may require rigorous technical screening questions, while others might rely more on personality or cultural fit. Organizations can even display specific job postings in an applicant’s preferred language to make them feel more comfortable with the hiring process.

Employers can also build a way for applicants to showcase their personal interests and non-work-related activities throughout the application process. This allows candidates to display their personality in addition to just experience; organizations can also use this opportunity to learn about additional skills that may make a hire more desirable.

Improving the Application Process

Many qualified candidates are lost because organizations lack a streamlined and easy application process.

To improve the application process, organizations should ask the following questions:

  • What does the application process look like? Is it long? Is it tedious?
  • What happens after a candidate completes the application?
  • How will they know if they have been selected to move on through the hiring process?

Below, we outline some additional ways to improve the candidate experience through improving the application process.

Mobile-Friendly Applications

Job seekers today spend time on their smartphone doing everything from buying birthday gifts to scheduling doctor appointments. In fact, according to Pew Research Center, 53 percent of 18 to 29-year-olds and 43 percent of all users have used a smartphone as part of a job search. Yet, many employers still offer an outdated or poorly designed mobile application experience.

Because so many candidates learn about job opportunities on their mobile devices, organizations need to create a mobile-friendly application experience. Candidates—in particular, high-demand candidates such as those working in technology and executives—may judge an organization by its technology and application processes. Being perceived as “outdated” could damage an organization’s employer brand.

At PeopleScout, we understand the importance of creating an optimized application experience across all devices, which is why we built Affinix to be mobile-first. Learn more about PeopleScout’s mobile-friendly recruiting solutions with AffinixTM.

Job Descriptions

A well-written job description can engage a candidate and convince them to apply for a position. However, there is a disconnect when it comes to job descriptions, with 72 percent of hiring managers stating that they provide clear job descriptions, while only 36 percent of applicants agree.

Organizations should perform a quality check on their job descriptions and ask the question, “Could these descriptions describe any company?” If they can, the descriptions probably rely on a list of generic skills and traits, which may deter top candidates from applying while inviting unqualified ones.

Instead, organizations should write job descriptions that highlight what a candidate would be expected to achieve during their first month, three months, six months and a year into the job. The improved clarity will provide candidates with a clear understanding of what they can expect if they are hired.

Shorten Applications

The length of a job application can have a major impact on candidate experience. A study conducted by Indeed found that 88.7 percent of potential applicants abandon the application process if there are 45 or more screener questions. What’s more,  43 percent of candidates spent more than 30 minutes completing an application, and 12 percent spent more than one hour.

A “Quick Apply” feature that only collects the most pertinent information required to move a candidate forward in the process can help shorten job applications. Many ATSs have features that allow applicants to import their resume from other sites such as LinkedIn or auto-fill parts of the application to save time. By shortening the application time, organizations will have more candidates completing the process, adding to the applicant pool and increasing the chances of finding the right hire.

Provide a Positive Interview Experience

A positive interview experience can present a positive image of a company, improving the odds of the best candidate accepting a job offer.

During the interview, one of the most effective ways to get good responses is by using behavioral interviewing techniques. Behavioral interviewing is the concept that past experience is a good indicator of future performance. Questions that begin with “Tell me about a time,” or “Describe a moment when,” are usually behavioral in nature. It allows the candidate to share an experience from their past.

Ultimately, a well-defined interview process will give everyone the comfort to ask and receive the best answers.

How RPO Providers can Help with Candidate Experience

From the initial recruiting email or phone call to onboarding, high-quality talent expects a high-quality candidate experience. An RPO provider who makes smart use of technology and recruiting strategies can help deliver high-quality experiences that make candidates feel important. An RPO partner’s recruiting teams spend hours cultivating relationships with candidates. The rapport they build with candidates helps establish relationships that over time lead to making quality hires and recruiting success.

Organizations who partner with PeopleScout can build a world-class, global candidate experience that features personalized messaging, social recruitment, retargeting and programmatic prospecting as well as data-driven decision making.

PeopleScout Canada Jobs Report Analysis — June 2018

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Canada Jobs Report Analysis — June 2018

Statistics Canada released its June 2018 Labour Force Survey which shows 32,000 jobs added to the Canadian economy. While unemployment rose by 0.2 percentage points to 6.0 percent, this was due to an increase in job seekers.

The Numbers

32,000: The economy added 32,000 jobs in June.
6.0%: The unemployment rate rose to 6.0 percent.
3.6%: Wages increased 3.6 percent over the last year.

The Good

The 32,000 jobs added in June beat analyst expectations. Many of the gains were in important sectors like construction, manufacturing and natural resources. The rise in the unemployment rate is due to the addition of nearly 76,000 job seekers to the labour force which suggests that more Canadians are optimistic that they can find work due to the strong economy. Year-over-year wage growth is relatively strong at 3.6 percent.

The Bad

The aggregate job gain figures in June do not tell the whole story. Canada added only 9,100 full-time jobs in June and 22,700 part-time positions. The services sectors lost 14,700 jobs mostly because of big decreases in accommodation and food services positions. The wholesale and retail trade also had a significant decrease in jobs last month.
Additionally, the job gains only came from three provinces: Ontario, Saskatchewan and Manitoba. Everywhere else the market either shed jobs or remained flat.

The Unknown

Trade uncertainties with the U.S. cast the biggest shadow over economic forecasts for the coming months. NAFTA renegotiations dominate and undermine the outlook for the export sector. This is particularly important for the non-energy sector, which has already had several industries being subjected to tariffs this year.
Additionally, these numbers were released just days before the Bank of Canada’s decision on interest rates. Analysts expect that despite the trade concerns, employment and wage growth numbers are strong enough to prompt an increase in the benchmark.

PeopleScout U.S. Jobs Report Analysis — June 2018

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The Labor Department released its June jobs report which shows 213,000 jobs added to the U.S. economy – continuing the longest stretch of job growth in the nation’s history. Increased participation in the labor market brought the unemployment rate up to 4.0 percent.

The Numbers

213,000: The economy added 213,000 jobs in June.
4.0%: The unemployment rate rose to 4.0 percent.
2.7%: Wages increased 2.7 percent over the last year.

The Good

The 213,000 jobs added in June beat analyst expectations. The rise in the unemployment rate by 0.2 percentage points is not bad news because it was caused by the increase in the workforce. Americans who have been sitting on the sidelines of the job market are being drawn in by the strong hiring environment.
Year over year job growth for many major sectors is impressive. In the last year, manufacturing has added 285,000 jobs; business and professional services increased by 521,000 jobs and employment in healthcare rose by 309,000.

The Bad

The tight labor market is having a negative impact on seasonal hires. The shortage of summer seasonal workers such as lifeguards is causing curtailing of services and higher wages, the cost of which may be passed onto consumers.
The U6, which is the unemployment measure that includes those too discouraged to look for work and workers in part-time jobs who want to work full-time, rose to 7.8 percent from 7.6 percent in May. The U-6 remains somewhat elevated compared to the last time unemployment was similarly low.

The Unknown

It is unclear how much the labor force can expand due to an aging population. With job openings continuing to increase, there is no clear path for how to attract those who have stayed outside the workforce in recent years.
While some hiring has been scaled back due to recently imposed tariffs and fears of a full-scale trade war, uncertainty remains regarding future commodity prices and inventory shortfalls which can have a profound effect on the nation’s economic health.

Talking Talent: Navigating the Talent Acquisition Challenges of a Major Hospital Expansion

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In this episode of Talking Talent, we talk to Dr. Ekta Vyas, the Director of Human Resources at Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital Stanford I Stanford Children’s Health, about the challenges she faced during the major hospital expansion of the new Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital Stanford.


The Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital Stanford is nationally ranked and recognized in 10 specialties and has been for 13 consecutive years. The new expanded facility opened in December 2017, a more than half-a-million square foot building that doubled the size of the existing pediatric and obstetric hospital campus. It added 149 patient beds, bringing the total on the Palo Alto campus to 361. This new facility is America’s most technologically advanced, family-friendly and environmentally sustainable hospital for children and expectant mothers and has proudly earned the LEED Platinum distinction.


Dr. Ekta Vyas led the employer branding strategy and recruitment infrastructure development work. As a trained industrial/organizational psychology practitioner with 20 years of experience, Ekta is a regular conference and panel speaker and has been published in academic and practitioner journals. She is a regular contributor to Forbes.com, and also currently serves as adjunct faculty at San Jose State University School of Management (within Lucas College of Business).


Among the challenges facing the Human Resources group was the need to hire more than 500 new employees for a high acuity environment; the complexity of hiring in Silicon Valley along with the high cost of living and commuting barriers it brings; and synchronizing strategic timelines between Corporate Marketing, Hospital Expansion, and the Talent Acquisition teams. This hiring need was in addition to their regular average recruitment – based on standard turnover for normal business operations.


The success of this project is being widely recognized across healthcare and other industries and has been published as a case study in the Fall 2017 issue of Journal of HR People + Strategy. Ekta recently presented this work at the People in Healthcare (Talent Management Alliance) conference and as a keynote at NCHRA’s Talent Acquisition conference.


Ekta has been in the healthcare industry for 12 years and before this undertaking was a Director of HR at Stanford University Medical Center.
You can listen to our first Talking Talent podcast, How HR Technology Can Combat Staffing Shortages in Healthcare, here.

Strategies for Building an Effective Talent Community

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Competition for talent is increasing across the globe, and employers are looking for innovative strategies to stay ahead of the competition. To gain a competitive advantage, employers are deploying a variety of methods. Wages are on the rise after years of slow growth. New graduates face strong prospects for employment. Even retirement is starting to look different for older workers with important skills. Finding new ways to source and attract workers with the skills of the future is a growing need.

In the U.S., years of job growth have led to the lowest unemployment rate in decades. Around the world, favorable job conditions are making it more difficult for employers to hire the talent they need. Adding to the challenge, employers are facing a skills shortage as they look to hire candidates who have the training, education and experience to bring their workforce into the future. This pressure is even greater in industries that are currently adapting to disruptive technology, like the auto industry. While reskilling and future degree programs can help increase the size of the talent pipeline in the future, employers still need to find and hire talent today. Building a talent community is a promising solution.

What is a Talent Community?

A talent community is a sourcing strategy that is an ongoing, multifaceted approach to candidate engagement that creates employment brand ambassadors and a talent pool that begins to feed itself. It is a process rather than an event and takes continual effort to maintain.

Traditional sourcing starts with a job opening. From there, a job description is written and disseminated. A sourcing specialist may search their contacts and social media to find a candidate with skills that match, but the process largely involves posting a job and waiting for the right candidate to find you.

In a talent community, the process is cyclical. It starts before a job requisition is created, and it doesn’t stop when a candidate is hired. Employers consistently build profiles of the types of candidates they would like for roles they may need to fill in the future. Then, employers need to build pipelines through technology, partnerships and employer branding initiatives to connect with those people, whether the employer currently has a job opening for that candidate or not. Finally, when a candidate gets to the point of applying, the experience throughout that process needs to be so strong that even candidates who do not make it through the process will become ambassadors for that brand and continue to apply for open positions in the future.

Building a talent community sourcing strategy has a host of benefits for employers. A community is sustainable. It can feed itself. This means decreased time-to-fill and cost-of-vacancy because candidates who are interested in working for an organization are waiting for a job to be posted rather than a recruiter posting a job and waiting for the right candidate to apply. It also leads to increased quality of hire because the employer has already determined the ideal candidate persona and has built a pipeline to find those people. When more qualified candidates are in that pipeline, the likelihood of making a strong hire goes up.

Why Talent Communities Alone Aren’t Enough

  • They have to be combined with great employer branding.
  • Your content has to be engaging and of value to the audience.
  • You have to have the right mix of viable candidates with the skills and experience that your company values, and ambassadors for your employer brand.
  • It is what you put into it, not what you take out–you have to cultivate the community or it will stagnate.

Using Employer Branding to Build a Talent Community

As employers work to create a talent community they need to build an employer brand that stands out from other organizations they compete with for talent. Organizations with a strong employer brand can stand out in a crowded landscape and draw in more candidates. There are several strategies employers can use to build their brands.

Online Talent Communities

An online talent community is a way to continue to communicate with candidates who may be interested in working for you in the future but can’t find a job opening that meets their skills and needs right now. It is also a way to engage with candidates who apply to jobs they aren’t qualified for yet but still have potential. An online community allows candidates to provide their contact information, resume and job interests. Then, the organization can search those resumes when a position opens, and it can send matching job openings to the candidate. This keeps the employer at the front of a candidate’s mind and provides recruiters with a slate of candidates every time a requisition opens.

Recruitment Email Marketing

Many organizations use email marketing as a part of their traditional marketing strategy, but it is also important in employment branding. Email marketing can be used in partnership with an online talent community. Organizations can send recruitment marketing emails to share job openings, as well as information about their culture. One caveat to using email marketing as a part of an employer branding strategy is that the emails should be as personalized as possible. A candidate who has provided their resume should only receive job openings that correspond with their skillsets. Data about candidates can also be used to personalize how often candidate receive emails or at what time of the day they are sent. Regulations like CAN-SPAM in the U.S. and GDPR in the EU regulate email marketing, and we discuss those later in this post.

Social Media

Every organization should have a strategy for sharing its employment brand on social media, though that strategy may look different for different companies. One option is to create a separate “careers” social media page where the organization can post job openings and information about the workplace, culture and current employees. At PeopleScout, we recommend this strategy to our clients and work with them to optimize their existing pages to showcase their employer brand. This strategy works well for employers with a strong brand presence and large volume of hires. Another option, especially for smaller organizations, is to include some employer branding on their traditional social media accounts. In this approach, employer branding related posts that share information about the workplace and culture should be interspersed between standard social media posts.

Video

Many employers are familiar with video interviewing, but video can enhance employer branding in several additional ways and doesn’t always need high production quality. One example is video job descriptions. A job posting could include a short video of a hiring manager talking about the job and what they are looking for. A video like this gives a candidate a better understanding of the job and gives them a glimpse into the culture of the organization. Additionally, organizations can use video to show workplace tours, so job seekers get an idea of what working for an organization might look like. If an organization is hiring for a lot of entry-level roles but frequently promotes within the company, a video that shows an employee’s career path from entry-level to a leadership role can also motivate candidates to apply for hard-to-fill entry-level jobs.

Chatting and Text

Another method of building a strong employer brand is communicating with candidates in the ways candidates want to communicate. Chat and text are growing in popularity. Some employers are deploying chatbots throughout their recruitment process. For others, a chat window with limited hours but access to a live recruiter can be successful. While many employers may be cautious to start a system to text messages candidates, several PeopleScout clients have found success and higher rates of candidate engagement.

Using Innovative Technology to Power a Talent Community

While a compelling employer brand is important for attracting strong candidates, it’s not enough to stay ahead in the current competitive landscape. Innovative technology solutions can help employers source top talent faster than the competition.

Geofencing

Geofencing can be used in a few different ways during the sourcing process. Much like targeted ads for restaurants or stores can be delivered to a person’s cell phone or computer based on where that person is located, job ads can be targeted to candidates in a specific geographical area as well. This can be valuable to employers that have a variety of locations spread across a large geographical area. Geofencing can be used to target job ads at candidates near specific branches. It can also be used for industry events or expos where a large number of potential candidates could be in one location at the same time.

AI Sourcing

Artificial intelligence sourcing can provide recruiters with a solid slate of candidates as soon as a requisition is opened, giving the recruiter a strong head start to fill the role. An AI sourcing solution that uses predictive analytics modeling can also provide the recruiter with information about how well the candidate matches the job opening and how likely the candidate is to leave their current role. With this information, recruiters are able to work more quickly and efficiently, filling the role with the best talent in less time. In the end, it saves companies time and money. At PeopleScout, AI sourcing is built into AffinixTM, PeopleScout’s proprietary talent technology solution.

AI Data Tracking

AI data tracking can be used to make other sourcing and employer branding strategies more effective. Artificial intelligence and predictive analytics can understand and predict candidate behaviors. By tracking what time of day candidates apply, open emails or use social media, employers can schedule email marketing and social media posts to maximize the number of candidates who will see and click on job postings. Employers can also use this data to optimize their ad spend on job boards, so the ads appear when the best candidates are most likely to be online. One PeopleScout client had data that showed most of its applicants applied after lunch on Wednesdays. By posting jobs just before that timeframe, the employer saw a 15 percent increase in applications.

Finding a Partner

As employers work to build their own talent communities, an RPO provider can be a valuable partner. The right RPO partner will have a wealth of knowledge gleaned from experience solving a wide variety of problems and successfully sourcing and recruiting in a number of markets and industries. Employers can benefit from that collective knowledge.

Additionally, working with an RPO partner provides compliance benefits. Many of the sourcing strategies addressed in this article are impacted by GDPR, CAN-SPAM and other regulations, as well as regulations by the OFCCP. RPO providers have years of experience with these regulations and strong checks in place to ensure all sourcing strategies are compliant. This can provide peace of mind for employers.

Employers working with RPO partners will also see financial benefits, including reducing or eliminating agency spend. At PeopleScout, some clients have gone from agency usage as high as 25 percent or more to zero. To accomplish that, employers need to be committed from the top down to building the sourcing infrastructure to implement a talent community.

To find an RPO partner who is a good fit, employers should look for providers who possess customizable offerings that can be adapted to meet every need. A one-size-fits-all approach ignores the specific needs of employers in different industries and the unique challenges that can arise in recruiting in different markets. To build a strong talent community, employers should look for an RPO partner who can successfully deploy and manage these innovative sourcing strategies.