Unsurprisingly, the changing labour market is a hot topic at the moment. In the last episode of the show, we discussed a shifting emphasis towards developing an extended workforce that is task-focused rather than focusing on headcount. In this episode, I wanted to explore this a bit further by digging into the broader implications for talent acquisition and staffing as well as looking at talent market places and likely future innovations.
My guest this week is the perfect person to guide us through the complexity of our changing times. I’m delighted to welcome Tim Pröhm Vice President Digital Product Development at Kelly OCG back to the show.
In the interview, we discuss:
• The current state of recruiting automation
• The shift from sourcing to screening
• What is the Human Cloud?
• How the pandemic is opening up global talent pools
• Task and skills-based hiring
• On-demand talent markets
• Real-time hiring and its broader implications for talent acquisition and staffing.
• What technology strategy decisions should employers be making in 2020
• What does the future of recruiting technology look like
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Transcript:
Matt Alder [00:00:00]:
Support for this podcast is provided by Atrax. Atrax is the total career site system which converts site visitors into high quality job applicants. A fully SaaS system, Atrax is powered by the latest AI to deliver an outstanding and relevant talent experience, personalized employer branding and a strong conversion of candidates into the ATS. To find out more go to www.attra that’s www. Attrax.co.uk and attracts is spelled a double T R A X.
Matt Alder [00:01:00]:
Hi everyone, this is Matt Alder. Welcome to episode 292 of the Recruiting Future podcast. The changing labor market is a hot topic at the moment. In the last episode of the show we discussed a shifting emphasis towards developing an extended workforce that’s task focused rather than focusing on headcount. In this episode I wanted to explore this in a bit more detail by digging into the broader implications for talent acquisition and staffing as well as looking at talent marketplaces and likely future innovations. My guest this week is the perfect person to guide us through the complexity of our changing times. I’m delighted to welcome Tim Pröhm, Vice President Digital Product development Kelly OCG back to the show. Tim is one of the most cutting edge thinkers in the industry, so I know you will all get a lot of value from this interview. Hi Tim and welcome back to the podcast.
Tim Pröhm [00:02:08]:
Hey Matt, how’s it going?
Matt Alder [00:02:10]:
Pretty good, thank you. An absolute pleasure to have you back on the show. Could you just introduce yourself and tell everyone what you do?
Tim Pröhm [00:02:16]:
Yeah, absolutely. My name is Tim Pröhm from Germany. I work for a company called Kelly Services, big staffing firm in the I focus on project development. I’m part of the digital group and we develop new solutions for our customers that are very strong focus on the talent acquisition space. We think about hiring contingent workers, better manage MSPs and RPOs on behalf of our customers and anything innovation and technology related usually goes over my desk. That’s my role today within Kelly.
Matt Alder [00:02:49]:
Now last time you were on the show, which was quite a while ago, you were actually one of the first guests I had on talking about recruiting automation and very much one of the hot topics at the moment and something I’ve been covering a lot in the last few episodes of the show. What’s your perspective on where we are currently? What’s what’s changing in recruiting automation? What’s being driven by the pandemic? Where is Everything at, at the moment, from your perspective?
Tim Pröhm [00:03:15]:
Yeah, it’s an interesting question because when you think about technology every day, all day, every day, like you do, like I do, then you think that the, the industry should be further, further along. There are certain automation that we’ve seen rise a couple of years ago already when I was last on the show, like automated sourcing or interview scheduling through technology or video interviewing. But what you’re seeing right now is that still a lot of organizations are very, very traditional and don’t apply enough automation. From my point of view, however, because of COVID everything flipped overnight and everything changed overnight. Where companies are really required to use technology and automation as much as possible just because the traditional ways of working do not function any longer due to the COVID crisis. And I think that’s just the one thing that I’m seeing right now. One other thing I want to call out. Had we met before COVID on the show here, we would have talked a lot about sourcing automation. How can I make sure that I have an automation process in place that constantly searches for new talent, like job board databases or on social networks, anywhere in the Internet? And this has completely shifted from, from our experience just because in a lot of economies, hiring really dried up. There’s always going to be the need to bring candidates with specific skill sets in. But if you’re today hiring, for example, blue color, repetitive roles, it’s really shifting because all of a sudden you do not have a sourcing problem, but you have a screening problem. And we have companies, especially in the U.S. customers, who all of a sudden have to manage 10,000 applicants, 15, 20,000 applicants, if they’re in the logistical area, in the food processing area, in the retail area, for example. And that poses a lot of different challenges for organizations when it comes to automation today.
Matt Alder [00:05:25]:
One of the concepts that I know that you’ve been talking about recently is the concept of the human cloud in talent acquisition and recruiting. Tell us, tell us what you mean by that.
Tim Pröhm [00:05:37]:
Yeah, absolutely. So Yumi cloud is a term that like we use, a lot of people in the industry are using for on demand talent, and that’s also referred to as the gig economy. Like a term we also hear very, very often. And the idea behind it is that there are a lot of platforms arising out there in the marketplace that act like talent marketplaces in the initial phases. Right now, we see a lot of traction in the independent contractor market. I’m an independent contractor, I’m looking for work, I go to a platform, I register, and the customer Might also be interested in hiring an independent contractor. Also go to the platform register, search for a contractor and then basically the platform, like an Amazon for talent, facilitates the, the collaboration, facilitates the entire end to end process. It’s really a shift from I have a need, I need to broadcast or advertise my need to a, I go to a platform, I have a need for talent, I find somebody who’s already available and then engage with this person directly. Complete mind shift, set or change. But we see a lot of traction right now in the human cloud space that we’re seeing and a lot of platforms are becoming really relevant and really impactful on the marketplace.
Matt Alder [00:06:59]:
Dig into that a little bit more because these kind of talent talent marketplaces have been on the rise for the, for the last couple of years. I know that, you know, a number of platforms have received very large VC investments to build out their offerings. How is the pandemic and the economic crisis that we’re, that we’re living through that’s come with it? How is that affecting that?
Tim Pröhm [00:07:18]:
Yeah, actually I think it’s, it’s really supporting the model because when you think about big independent contractor or big human cloud platforms, it’s really a, a global, global talent community, global talent pool that they offer to the clients. So let’s imagine you’re sitting in the uk. You need to get work done. You need to have a logo designed. For example, typical use case, you look for somebody who’s, who’s has a good skill set and can design the logo. Why does that person have to sit in the uk? Maybe you find somebody who’s more qualified in the US or in Germany or maybe in India or in China. And in the past when we talk to a lot of customers that like engage a lot of contingent talent, it was a lot of old school thinking. I need to have a contractor, I need to have a person. That person needs to sit on site in, in an office next to mine and then work on the project. Due to Covid, a lot of organizations realize that remote work is not an issue. They invested in technology. You can collaborate across regions and time zones. So why not benefit from somebody who prefers a remote work arrangement anyhow and probably might not sit in the same, in the same region. And this is why there is a lot of interest and a lot of concerns regarding the engagement of contractors. And talent on a remote basis has really literally gone away overnight due to COVID 19. That’s an interesting development from our point.
Matt Alder [00:08:48]:
Of view for companies that are looking to move to this way of Working and kind of embrace the human cloud, the gig economy, whatever we want to call it, in ways that they haven’t done before. What are the key considerations that employers need to take on board if they’re moving to this way of working?
Tim Pröhm [00:09:07]:
So when you take a look at the traditional way of how organizations engage talent, you probably have a job description. You understand, I need somebody who has this experience, who needs to perform this job. You promote your job, you go to a job board, you go to an agency, whatever it is, and then basically the agency or your own HR department might find that, that, that person. If you think about human cloud platforms, it’s more about specific tasks that you want the person to do. So going back to the logo design example, if you want to have somebody to design your logo, you need to be able to articulate your need. What’s the characteristic, what’s the criteria that are important for me? And also you need to think about the skill set. What kind of skills does this person need to bring in order to be successful in the TAs? Ask. A lot of organizations still focus on and still try to establish a strategic workforce planning approach where they say, what kind of headcount do we need in the future? Whereas very little organizations focus on, let’s say, strategic work, task planning, because you can break down work into individual components and then think about how this work and where this work can be performed best. A lot of organizations start to get it, but still it’s a lot of education that that’s necessary in the marketplace to be able to benefit from these un cloud platforms.
Matt Alder [00:10:38]:
Talk us through the broader implications of this for talent acquisition and for the staffing industry.
Tim Pröhm [00:10:45]:
So when you take a look at the existing operating model in talent acquisition and in the staffing industry, it’s really that in the past there was really a disconnect very often between talent and the organization. So you might promote your jobs, advertise your jobs, somebody might find you, or you might require an agency to do the job for you because you didn’t have an impact or an inside view into what’s, what’s available, what talent is available in the market. I feel that with the emergence of these talent marketplaces, there is much more visibility. You have an understanding who is available in the marketplace even outside of your, of your region, of your country, your county, and then you can attract people directly yourself. So in the past there was always a big disconnection between I have a need, I needed to perform a couple of activities, broadcast, advertise, go to an agency, and Then wait until that instance comes back. With candidates, there is a big shift towards real time view. So I go to the platform and these human cloud platforms, they have sometimes millions of candidate records on their platforms. I go in, I find somebody, I sent that person a note very often because they’re eager to work. They respond in a couple of minutes, maybe half an hour. And it’s much more real time than the traditional staffing processes are. And I think that’s something where a lot of organizations and a lot of users, hiring managers will see the benefit and really push to engage these platforms much more.
Matt Alder [00:12:24]:
Living through the pandemic as we, as we have done in 2020, when countries started to go into lockdown and everything was, was changing overnight, there was a lot of talk about this was a great opportunity for innovation and experimentation. Now at the same time, people have been very stressed, there’s been huge amounts of uncertainty and maybe for many people listening, they haven’t seen examples of the innovation and experimentation that’s kind of out there. What have you seen and what have you been working on?
Tim Pröhm [00:12:56]:
Yeah, honestly I think that when it comes to innovation, I wouldn’t say that there was a lot of net new groundbreaking things that all of a sudden emerged overnight. But what I realized is that a lot of organizations were forced to innovate, maybe even in incremental smaller steps just because of COVID Maybe in the past people would always sit in the office and they didn’t use any kind of collaboration software and any kind of video software to work with other colleagues or to inter interact with, with candidates. We also see that very, very often all of a sudden because nobody was able to go to the office. They needed to come up with a solution. Bring Zoom in, just as an example, as a vendor name here, to be able to continue to operate. I think that’s like very, very small and incremental innovation. But at the same time, a lot of organizations that, that I’m working with realized that their existing processes simply were not enough and they uncovered some breaking points. Let me give you an example. In the US a lot of organizations unfortunately had to furlough employees for a certain, for a certain amount of time. Then the question is, how can you make sure that while people are furloughed and can’t work for your organization, they don’t go anywhere else and hire, start to work for another company or you can bring them back at some point in time when you, when you need them. So coming up with some innovative engagement strategies, making sure that they still feel part of the organization, they still feel engaged and appreciated from, from the leadership even though they’re, they’re furloughed required organizations to come come up with something very, very, very, very new. Interestingly, we uncovered that a lot of legacy HRIS systems from customers didn’t allow to keep furloughed employees in the loop, which is something I never thought about. But we had a lot of good conversations around the fact how can you make sure that you bring people back in again and just make sure they don’t go anywhere else. Which from a talent acquisition and talent retainment perspective is very, very, very, very crucial. But just to sum up, I think the most important thing and I think that’s what I take away from the COVID crisis overnight. Also in my own organization, a lot of the rules and a lot that were pre Covid suddenly got flipped on top, on the top of that, so to speak because we just needed to do some shortcuts. And I think a lot of organizations who experience that will never go back to the previous status quo. I hope this makes sense.
Matt Alder [00:15:41]:
It makes perfect sense. And it leads well into my next question, which is about technology because obviously a lot of organizations have had to do some distressed purchases of aberration technology and video technology. But I that certainly a number of employers that I talk to regularly are at the stage where they’re, they’re sort of looking to the, looking to the future, reviewing the tech stacks that they have and really thinking about what they’re going to need in terms of technology in the new world that we’re, that we’re emerging to. What would your advice be to employers at the moment? What kind of technology decisions should they be making?
Tim Pröhm [00:16:19]:
Yeah, I think the, it’s a perfect time to reevaluate the technology you have in place and see if it’s robust enough and supports a remote workforce. Not only kind of like collaboration among employees, but also can you hire remotely? Just to give an example, we talked about video interviewing for many, many years in the industry. We just did a survey among our customers and like we’re trying to understand what is the most popular video interviewing technology that they’re using in Covid and in reality it’s zoom. So that’s far from a dedicated video interviewing technology that allows you to do self recorded video interviews with candidates, that allows you to store certain candidate records. Use automation when it comes to inviting candidates for video interview. I think that’s like the one thing everything around scheduling is still something that will not go away, especially in a remote environment. Where you can’t just go to another floor or to another office to operate or interact with a hiring manager. Say, hey, I have these three candidates. When do you have time? So automated interview scheduling is something that will kind of grow from my personal, personal opinion. And then I think we’re also going to see a lot of more screening and assessment technologies coming in. For example, if you have a coder, an IT engineer that in the past came into the office and you would sit in the room and then the candidate would go to the whiteboard and scribble down some code that’s also not working any longer because there’s no face to face interviews and nobody knows how long this will take and if they will ever come back. So really thinking about how to assess certain skill sets or behaviors in a virtual way will also become very important, important for organizations in the future.
Matt Alder [00:18:18]:
Final question. What’s next? What are you excited for over the next 12 to 24 months?
Tim Pröhm [00:18:25]:
Yeah, I think we briefly touched it in one of the earlier questions that you asked. I feel that there’s going to be a much bigger push towards marketplaces and platforms. I think that the existing processes that we have in the talent acquisition space or staffing space are, are in danger to be outdated. As said earlier, you have a need, you go to an agency or you go to HR and they bring a talent back after maybe a week or two weeks, I think that won’t work. And I think platform models will emerge. We see it in human cloud. For contractors, this will swap over into the full time space. And I think that’s a really great opportunity for customers because it’s really a real time view into talent available that’s available in the marketplace. But it’s also great opportunity for, for talent because it can cut out the middleman. And I think that’s very, very exciting. I think there’s, there’s, there’s much more to come there. And I also feel that there will be a lot of dynamic. I mean right now we’re all going through the, the valley of tears with, with COVID It’s very, very horrible how, how companies and individuals have been, have been impacted. But I feel there’s, there’s light at the end of the tunnel and I think we’ a good recovery. And then companies need to really make sure they prepare for the rebound, bring furloughed employee backs or hire new talent that’s becoming available in the marketplace because they probably were laid off somewhere else. So I think we should just kind of take a deep breath, prepare ourselves brace ourselves for what’s about to come. It’s going to be a very wild ride from my point.
Matt Alder [00:20:12]:
Tim, thank you very much for talking to me.
Tim Pröhm [00:20:14]:
Thanks, Matt.
Matt Alder [00:20:16]:
My thanks to Tim. You can subscribe to this podcast in Apple Podcasts on Spotify or via your podcasting app of choice. Please also follow us on Instagram. You can find the show by searching for Recruiting Future. You can search through all the past episodes@www.recruitingfuture.com on that site. You can also subscribe to the mailing list to get the the inside track about everything that’s coming up on the show. Thanks very much for listening. I’ll be back next time and I hope you’ll join me.
