A few episodes ago I published a fascinating interview with Rob McCargow of PwC about the broad-ranging implications of Artificial Intelligence. One of the areas we spoke about was the future of jobs and this is a topic I want to explore more fully in this week’s show.
My guest this week is the perfect person to help me do this. Kevin Green is the founder of What’s Next Consultancy and former CEO of The Recruitment and Employment Confederation in the UK. He is a highly influential thought leader on the future of jobs and the changing attitudes needed from governments and employers to deal with this future.
In the interview we discuss:
• How the jobs market has been changing in the last 20 years
• Why the natural bridge for career progression is broken
• The threatening development of a two-tier labour market
• The significance of automation
• Why educations systems are not fit for purpose
• The importance of collaborative hiring
• The future for recruiters
Kevin also talks about the most important things he learned during his 10-year tenure at the REC and gives us a preview of his latest project.
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Transcript:
Matt Alder [00:00:00]:
Just before we start the show this week, a quick announcement to tell you that I’ve just published a free white paper on the future of corporate careers sites. The very first digital marketing project I worked on was building a careers website back in 1999. And I’ve always been frustrated that the level of sophistication of careers websites hasn’t moved on much since then, particularly when you consider the advances made in other areas of talent acquisition. The white paper is based on extensive research, looks at the important role of careers websites, examines what’s been holding them back, and walks through a new model which is finally helping them to evolve. You can access the white paper instantly, no need to register or surrender your email address@www.careerswebsiteguide.com future. That’s www.careers website guide.com future.
Matt Alder [00:01:17]:
Hi everyone, this is Matt Alder. Welcome. Episode 130 of the Recruiting Future podcast. A few episodes back I published a fascinating Interview with Rob McCargo from PwC about the broad ranging implications of artificial intelligence. One of the areas we spoke about was the future of jobs. This is something I want to explore further in this show and I have the perfect guest to help me. Kevin Green is founder of What’s Next Consultancy and former CEO of, of the Recruitment and Employment Confederation. He’s a highly influential thought leader on the future of jobs and in the interview we discuss the potential future impact on governments, employers and recruiters as work changes. Hi Kevin, and welcome back to the podcast.
Kevin Green [00:02:08]:
Yeah, I’m delighted to be talking to you again, Matt.
Matt Alder [00:02:11]:
So could you introduce yourself and tell everyone a bit about who you are and what you do?
Kevin Green [00:02:16]:
Yeah, My name’s Kevin Green. I was the chief executive of the Recruitment and employment confederation for 10 years up until about three weeks ago. And that’s the professional body for the recruitment industry. Prior to that I was an HR director for five years at Royal Mail and I ran a strategic HR consultancy prior to that. So for most of my working life I’ve been either working in businesses or with businesses on their people strategy, particularly with a focus around resourcing and talent of attraction.
Matt Alder [00:02:49]:
Now in the last sort of few months I’ve seen that you’ve been putting out a lot of content. In fact I’ve seen you, you know, kind of present on this a couple of times about the, you know, the sort of dramatic changes that are happening in the job market and what the future of the job market is likely to look about. Can you sort of give us a bit of an insight into, into, into what you’re seeing and what you’re sort of predicting for the future?
Kevin Green [00:03:11]:
Yeah, I mean, I think, I think a lot of this is driven by technology. So artificial intelligence, machine learning, 3D printing, the Internet of things, all of this is clearly changing the way in which jobs are undertaken. And one of the things that I found quite interesting when I started to really have a deep look at this, I mean, there’s a lot of stuff going back two or three years from Martin Ford about structural unemployment being created as we go through the next wave of technology change. For me, actually I went back and started to look at what had been happening in the last 20 years and there’s some fantastic data from the OECD which shows that in reality there’s already been a huge piece of structural change happening in the jobs market and that is that we’ve had lots of growth in high paid, high skilled jobs, but there’s also been quite a lot of growth in low paid, low skilled jobs and the jobs that have been disappearing over the last 20 years. And this is actually across the globe, so it’s in every single developed economy have been the jobs in the middle of the labour, the market. So we’ve already been going through some significant change which I think is one of the reasons why organisations struggle to find talent and skills within the labour market. Because I think the natural bridge of people coming into organisations learning and developing and progressing has been broken and I don’t think organizations are that aware of that now. If you start to project forward. The thing that I think really interested me was I think the debate about jobs being destroyed. I think, you know, through every kind of industrial revolution or change driven by technology, the jobs have been destroyed. But historically two things have happened. One is that other jobs have been created and more jobs have been created than the ones that have been destroyed. Secondly, that it’s happened over a long time. You know, the whole movement from agriculture to manufacturing took 100 years. From the manufacturing economy to the service economy took 50 or 60 years. And that’s always open to debate, but you can see that they were long sort of periods of change. And the third area was that the jobs that were destroyed or the jobs that were created were better than the jobs that destroyed. And I think what you can see in terms of the change that I think is going to happen is we’re going to end up with, if we’ve got A gap in the labor market with jobs in the middle being destroyed. I think we’re going to open up a chasm. So what I think that we will find is that the jobs that are being created and there will be some are going to be data analysts, people, we’re using insights and there’s going to be lots and lots of new jobs created which we may not even be able to imagine. And there will be lots of jobs at the front end of the labour market, often supporting affluent people through service jobs. Think, you know, personal trainer, coffee shop barista, working in bars and hotels. And lots of those jobs can’t be automated. So again I think that that growth of service level jobs, if you think Uber driver, Deliveroo, all of that will continue. The jobs in the middle I think are going to be destroyed. And so I’m not so sure it’s structural unemployment. I think what we’re going to have is a two tier labour market with people that have talent and skill, having loads of choice, who you work for when you work, the hours you work, and then other people potentially in low skilled, low paid jobs finding it incredibly difficult to progress and to develop in the labor market. And I think that will throw up challenges for employers. But I think there are bigger issues in relation to society that government needs to start thinking about and addressing as well. So I think what I can see is I think the technology is going to create huge amounts of change in the jobs market, but not the way that some of the doom and gloom merchants are talking about, which is millions and millions of people unemployed. I think there will be growth in jobs at the front end and at the top end of the labor market, but the restructuring will take out. And the jobs that I sort of talk about, there are think retail bank, customer service jobs, think about processing of insurance applications. All those jobs in the middle of particularly large organizations are likely to be automated and removed, which I think is going to create some real problems.
Matt Alder [00:07:31]:
And do you think that’s something that we’re already seeing happening? Are we looking at a trend that’s already started or does the pace of change ramp up in the near future?
Kevin Green [00:07:43]:
Yeah, I mean, I think so. The data that I talked about from OCD shows that it’s already been taking place for the last 20 years. But I think the point of we’re on the cusp of that all of that AI being deployed into our businesses, I think it will accelerate hugely and I think it will be a period of disruption and change for societies and organizations. Now the question you have and this is when you start to talk to lots of the academics is how long does it take for this stuff to be adopted? And it really start to apply. And the question is, there’s no definitive answer, but I don’t think we’re going to see it in the next two to three years. But I think the rate of jobs in the middle of our labour market being destroyed and other ones being created, I think will accelerate. You start to look 10 years out and you can obviously start to see how automation of lots of roles will be significant. So obviously self driving cars is the logical example where there’s a million people in the UK employed just to drive vans, taxis, cars, vehicles. So if you get to autonomous driving, then there’s a million jobs that you know people are going to be no longer doing. And if you start to think one of my neighbors is works at a bank, global bank, I won’t tell you which one, but they’re in the process of putting in, changing their retail offering and they’re moving globally from 50,000 people servicing customers down to 500 because of voice recognition and AI. So it is already happening. I just think it’s going to accelerate over the next decade. And I think the point is, if you’re going through a period of disruption, planning and thinking about this stuff, both at an organizational level and sort of governmental level, needs to be in advance of the change, otherwise you’re going to be unprepared and you’re going to be reacting to the situation rather than planning for and thinking it through.
Matt Alder [00:09:44]:
And what, you know, what do you think people should be planning for? What should governments be thinking about, what should employers be thinking about and what should individuals be thinking about?
Kevin Green [00:09:53]:
Yeah, I mean, there’s messages, I mean, for government, I think it’s clearly, our education system isn’t fit for purpose. You know, we have exam factories teaching knowledge and we clearly need to move to an education system that prepares people potentially for the jobs and actually works on people’s potential. So the areas I think that are being neglected are problem solving, working collaboratively, really using creativity. So for me, yeah, you need STEM subjects being taught, but you also need the arts and creativity and thinking and problem solving and working in teams. So there’s a big piece about businesses and organisations putting pressure on government to really think about education. And to be honest, it hasn’t changed for the last 50 years. And if you think about the potential seismic change, then the first thing is prepare your young people for the jobs market that they are going to be operating in Potentially for the next 50 to 60 years. So that’s the first one. The second one is I think they need to create new institutions and new ways of supporting individuals. So, you know, Linda Grattan’s book about longevity, the Hundred Year Life, I think is fantastic. So if you think about what I’ve been saying about low paid, low skilled activity growing, then we are potentially condemning people to doing, you know, 50, 60, 70 years in a labor market where they are, you know, finding it tough to make ends meet. They may be doing multiple gigs, they are up at the, you know, national living wage level and that’s, you know, we’re potentially condemning lots of people to long term careers like that. So for me, I think there is a call government to support individuals through a couple of things really. One is assessment their innate ability and potential. These are often people that haven’t done particularly well at school, didn’t go to university, but there are, you know, there are people within our society that potentially have got loads of potential and one of the things we really need to do is to make the most of that, give everyone as good an opportunity as we can. So assessment, potential career advice, access to training and development, qualifications to enable people to progress in the labour market so that if they have got the innate ability and they do want to pursue it, they have the support and some funding to enable them to do that. And that isn’t bloody job centres because they’re useless. You know, this will be professionals providing advice and guidance to people to enable them to progress within the labour market. And the question is if government doesn’t act on those two things, you know, I don’t want to turn into a doom and gloom merchant either. But I do think that you can see the level of dissatisfaction with our society increasing and you can start to see, you know, already, you know, the Brexit vote, what happened in North America and the presidential election, some stuff that’s been going on in Europe. If people are dissatisfied, they often look to the extreme left and extreme right for answers and are also looking for people to blame. So for government this is like you’ve got to get in front of this curve because you don’t want to increase dissatisfaction and you don’t really want searching for popular stances where you end up with governments that perhaps are not what we would all want. So I think that for government there’s a lot there. And the second part of your question was around businesses and companies and organizations. Well, I think we’ve sort of got to move on around the whole Resourcing stuff. I mean, I think we’ve known for a long time that interviews are not great predictors of job success, but we, you know, if you talk to most organizations, how do you go about selecting people? They will still talk about interviews as being the primary activity for making decisions. I think there’s a number of stuff around the whole collaborative hiring process, which is really important. You know, getting multiple people involved in a process, I think, you know, eliminates or certainly reduces any kind of unconscious bias. I think you also need to test people and get them to do activity as close to the job as possible so that you’ve got as good an opportunity of seeing people’s potential in a real environment. Now, that adds some cost and it adds some complexity. But I think that one of the things that businesses really need to be doing is looking at. It’s going beyond the CV and experience and qualifications and really trying to find out what people have the ability to do. And you can see employers already doing some of this stuff. And I think the, you know, the whole thing about blind recruitment is part of that process. The whole thing about not using academic qualifications as a way of getting onto shortlists and really challenging your view about graduate programs. And is it about, you know, what does a degree give us? Are there people that could do these jobs that. So I think businesses need to take a real hard look at their hiring process and look for potential, particularly around those soft skills which are going to make people really successful in the labour market. And then the second one for business is about just about the culture and how people are managed and engaged. I think there’s no doubt that people’s aspirations of organizations are much higher. Their expectations in terms of their autonomy, their freedom to operate in a way which suits them and their lifestyle. And when, if you really think about talent and skill being sure, then the people with that talent and skill have lots of choices about where they work and who they work for and the way in which they work. So I think we’ve got to really have a bit of a rethink about leadership and management. So if you’re managing a talented workforce or a highly skilled workforce, all of these people can go to your competitors or set up on their own and do very well. So why are they working for you? What’s the purpose? What’s the meaning? And I think that becomes ever more important when you’re in this type of labor market. So I think there are challenges for organisations. Well, I think for individuals, I mean, I suppose it’s about. We just Got to keep fresh, you’ve got to keep your skills up to date and you’ve got to be. You’ve got to think about the labor market that if we’re going to be operating, and I’m in my mid-50s now, so I’m sort of coming to the end of my full time working life, it might go on for another 10, 15 years, who knows? But, you know, you’ve got to keep adapting and learning. And I think that one of the things that we need to keep telling to individuals is, you know, what have you learned this week? What can you do differently than you could do six months ago? And really getting in people’s heads that what made them successful yesterday and last month and last year potentially won’t make them successful in the next six months or the next two years. So that whole ownership of development and learning, I think, is that much more critical. So I think that’s the challenge for individuals in the labour market that we’re moving towards and for people that perhaps are at the front end of our labour market really starting to try and use whatever resources they can to think about how they can progress. And I think they’re doing that a little bit blind, but again, I think it’s the same message, which is you’re responsible for your own skills development capability and you need to keep working at it.
Matt Alder [00:17:12]:
And so just digging down very specifically within that. What about recruiters? What’s the future for recruiters? Is it a role that’s going to be automated? Do they have to provide value in a different way? What’s your perspective on it?
Kevin Green [00:17:27]:
Yeah, I think there’s a lot of things that external and internal recruiters need to do. External recruiters, I think, have got to be better at finding talent and skills than the people that do it in house, because otherwise why would you pay someone to provide that service for you? So I think the focus on candidates and communities and relationships will be, if you think about recruitment, consultant, the word that’s not talked about enough is consultant. And I think providing advice and guidance about people’s careers and how they develop and how they grow and how they get the next gig is hugely important in that. But it’s also about working with employers to understand and to challenge some of their thinking. This whole thing about flexible hiring just blows my mind that most employers are quite good at flexible working. But only 8% of the jobs advertised in the UK mention flexible working. So the 8 and a half million part timers have been excluded from 92% of the jobs Matt and I just think this is all madness. So I think there’s a big role for recruiters to play. I think they will be using technology more. I think they will be thinking about how they build relationships. So a lot of the stuff we’ve been talking about I think just become, just comes to the fore in house resources I think are, you know, I think they’ve got to be much more externally focusing around talent pipelines. Where is the potential talent coming from? And I think one of the things that in house resources need to do is challenge line managers. You know, I think the diversity, they often just want to replace the person that’s left with someone exactly the same. And I think that our job internally as HR and in house recruiters is to really get underneath that and challenge and hold the mirror up. So that means it’s more about, I’m not sure it’s about more skill. I think it’s about more confidence, more self belief, more demonstrating that you can do these jobs in different ways. And I think that’s huge. You know, that’s a huge change because it’s going to be more difficult and if it’s more difficult, you need to be better.
Matt Alder [00:19:26]:
So you’ve just come out of 10 years working at the Rec. What surprised you most about your time working there?
Kevin Green [00:19:34]:
Surprise is a great word, isn’t it? I think there were lots of surprises, particularly at the beginning. I mean I think the thing that surprised me was it was twofold. I think the view the businesses and industry had of the recruitment industry. I think that surprised me. I think it was very jaundiced. I think it was with these are necessary evil, they’re all sales guys, they’re all just trying to get rich, they’ve all got gelled hair and all of that. And then secondly the lack of self belief of the recruitment industry to challenge that. So you know, I used to spend a lot of time sort of trying to bust myths but also spending time trying to build confidence and self esteem of the industry. And if you see quite a lot of the work that we did at the rec during my tenure there was a lot about the value of great recruitment really. So the good recruitment campaign which I’m going to continue to chair I think is all about best practice within recruitment. The whole jobs transform lives. You know what we do is, yeah, you need a very dynamic labor market kind of industry is very important within that matching, you know, skills to jobs and talent to people’s value. So you know, the role I think was perceived badly both by the customers and by the people providing the service. So that was a huge surprise at the beginning, I think. And then spent 10 years trying to change both perceptions and self belief and I think we’ve been pretty successful at that. The other surprise I had was really how a small organization like the REC 75 staff could deliver so much value. You know, we had lawyers and policy people and account managers and people managing third party relationships. So a small organization could achieve so much if you create a clear message and a sense of purpose about what we’re there to do and that what we does matters. I think what that means is that how important leadership is creating direction, purpose and meaning and how a small group will deliver huge amounts of value if you get to use all of their ingenuity, their passion going for me, I to my new life. Taking that mean, you know, creating clarity, purpose, direction, a huge amount of value for customers if you get it right.
Matt Alder [00:21:52]:
What are you focusing on next? What’s your sort of next big. Next big project that you’ve. That you’ve got on your. The next big project you’ve got on your radar?
Kevin Green [00:21:59]:
Okay. I mean I think I’m potentially going to do two things really. I’ve done a TedX talk recently. I’m potentially going to do another one of those towards the end of this year. And again that’s more about how organizations can prepare for some of the change we’ve been talking about. But I’m also writing a book which will be published most probably early next year which is about competitive people strategy. So I’m really keen to talk to organizations that think they are really aligning their people activity to delivering superior business results. So it will be very much a textbook for all the people involved in resourcing and recruitment and hr. But it’s going to be very much driven about how do we really deliver value to organizations.
Matt Alder [00:22:44]:
Kevin, thank you very much for talking to me. My thanks to Kevin Green. You can subscribe to this podcast in itunes or via your podcasting app of choice. The show also has its own dedicated app which you can find by searching for Recruiting Future in your app store. If you’re a Spotify user, you can also find the show there. You can find all the past episodes@www.rfpodcast.com on that site. You can also subscribe to the mailing list and find out more about Working with me. Thanks very much for listening. I’ll be back next week and I hope you’ll join me.
