by Fiona Housiaux | Nov 28, 2017 | News
It’s that time of year again, when all the ‘what’s going to be the next big recruitment trend in 2018’ prediction articles start appearing. But let’s be honest, predicting the future is difficult and it’s often said that there are two types of predictions – lucky or wrong.
Lao Tzu the 6th Century BC Chinese poet put it best when he said:
“Those who have knowledge don’t predict. Those who predict don’t have knowledge.”
However, whilst trying to predict what the big recruitment trends will be in 2018 is complete guess work, we can say, with very little doubt, what you will be sick of hearing about in 2018.
Brexit
2018 will see the 2nd anniversary of the Brexit vote and still nobody knows what the effects of Brexit will be; positive or negative. Yes, we know that Brexit means Brexit, however what the economic and political implications will be is still very unsure, although we hope that 2018 will bring far more clarity.
The impact of Brexit was always going to bring uncertainty to the recruitment sector and it has already. Those sectors that rely heavily on foreign workers, such as the healthcare, public and leisure and hospitality sectors are experiencing staff shortages as people are wary of moving to the UK for work, when there are no guarantees they will be able to remain.
GDPR and data protection
Brexit won’t stop the UK being constrained by the new EU Data Protection legislation due to be introduced in 2018. The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) legislation is the biggest shack up of how we will all handle data and it certainly will have a big impact on recruitment where data is at the heart of everything. 2017 was the time for reviewing and updating data handling and protection polices, and 2018 will be the year when every organisation changes how they collect, handle and store candidate data.
Big data and algorithms
When Microsoft paid $26 billion for LinkedIn in 2016 many thought that they had gone mad. Why spend all that money for a social platform, well aside from the $2.9 billion in revenue in 2015, the real attraction to Microsoft was the data that the site held.
LinkedIn knows people – where you work, where you went to school, your skills, ambitions and interests. It’s this knowledge that truly gave LinkedIn its value, as the latest algorithms can predict when someone is ripe for a new job based on time in the job and social media activity 10 million times faster than any human.
AI and machine learning
This subject certainty brings about many predictions, often predicting Artificial Intelligence (AI), new sourcing tools and algorithms will replace recruiters as recruitment will become fully automated thanks to machine learning.
There is no doubt that AI and machine learning is and will continue to have an impact on recruitment, however we are a very long way off the recruiting process being totally trusted to machines, if indeed ever. We can never forget that people like dealing with people and a machine can never replace this. AI can make recruitment easier, more efficient, reduce unconscious bias and quantify results however; it’s easy to predict that we will always need recruiters to engage with quality talent.
The gig economy
The gig economy will continue to be debated in 2018 especially if the draft bill produced by The Work and Pensions Committee and Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) Committee is passed into legislation. The aim of the bill is to tackle the assumed exploitation of gig economy workers and afford them basic rights such as sick and holiday pay.
The move towards a gig economy has certainly changed our view of employment and next year; expect to hear a great deal more about it.
Social Media for recruiting
The use of social media for recruitment has unquestionably become a part of day to day recruitment practices. This only looks set to increase as the as the likes of Google and Facebook continue to muscle in on the likes of LinkedIn for space in the recruitment sector. Their success will lead to others undoubtedly following suit in the near future.
Generation Z
We’ve had the Millennials now it’s time for Generation Z. We need to be ready as this crowd has never known life without technology and they are about to become a permanent fixture in the workplace. It definitely means all of us who work within the recruitment sector will need to fully grasp every new technological advancement in order to survive.
Gender pay gap reporting regulations
From April 2017, any business with more than 250 employees will have 12 months to calculate and publish the pay gap between male and female employees.
Whilst the impact on the industry the findings will have is unknown, it is very possible that it could have an effect on hiring numbers and salary levels, especially if any discrepancies are found.
The Apprenticeship Levy
April saw the introduction of the Apprenticeship Levy which imposes a 0.5% levy on the pay bills of all businesses with payrolls in excess of £3 million. Whilst many praise the good intentions, many see it as unfair, especially those who work for recruitment agencies who supply temporary staff, as they are defined as the employer rather than the client.
The effects the new levy will have on the recruitment industry are still uncertain. There is of course an opportunity to grab a part of the Apprenticeship Levy spend, however there are concerns within the industry that clients might try to offset their expenditure leading to a reduction in spend or even replacement of permanent jobs with apprentices to take advantage of the funding.
IR35
The IR35 reforms have permanently changed public sector contracting and recruitment, and have led to further struggles in attracting staff. When coupled with the staffing issues Brexit is bringing, public sector recruiting is having a very tough time.
Too many contractors are turning their backs on working within the public sector and the reforms have led to demands for pay increases. With the government still considering continuing the reforms into the private sector, it certainly is going to be interesting times.
So there you have it, our 10 things that you will get sick of hearing about in 2018. Of course, we don’t know what is actually going to happen next year, we can only make guesses. Whatever the new year holds for the recruitment sector rest assured the team at ThinkinCircles are here to help you navigate your way through the ups and downs.
by Fiona Housiaux | Sep 18, 2017 | News
For those of us who work in the world of recruitment and talent acquisition, there’s no doubt that we’ve read the many doom and gloom articles regarding the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) changes and the impact it will bring to recruitment. The new GDPR will impact on the way we all collect, process, track and store candidate data and one thing is for sure, it will be the greatest shake-up in the history of online data privacy regulations. However, although the changes will grant job seekers and candidates unprecedented rights, successful recruiters who excel in GDPR will be able to reap the rewards of empowering candidates and leverage the changes to build better and more productive relationships, whilst increasing the candidate experience to a new level.
The basics
Let’s start by looking at the basics: whilst the GDPR is indeed a complicated piece of legislation with its 88 page legal document and numerous articles and clauses; it simply is all about personal data.
GDPR was designed as a replacement for the current Data Protection Directive 95/46/EC and will be introduced on 25 th May 2018. Although an EU legislation it looks unlikely to be affected by Brexit. Designed to protect European citizens’ personal data through tighter regulations, it is mandatory for all organisations, even non EU based, that process the personal data of EU residents across the globe. In simple terms, it will be unlawful to use an EU citizen’s personal data without their explicit consent.
What is personal data?
The European Commission has said: “Personal data is any information relating to an individual, whether it relates to his or her private, professional or public life. It can be anything from a name, a photo, an email address, bank details, posts on social networking websites, medical information, or a computer’s IP address.”
So it really does cover everything and under the new laws candidates must give consent for their personal data to be collected and used, it needs to be completely clear to how the data will be used and candidates can ask for their data to be removed at any time. Additionally, an organisation is responsible for the safekeeping, security and access to any third parties of the data.
Non compliance can result in harsh penalties with fines up to €20 million or 4% of the companies global turnover (whichever is greater).
The impacts on your recruitment website
In today’s recruitment market, your recruitment website should utilise the processing, analysing and management of candidate data to be strategic in attracting finest talent. The new rules, if implemented properly, will not prevent you from utilising personal data to learn all you need about candidates. However, consent will be one of the fundamental requirements and obtaining consent will be compulsory for every single usage of personal data. Pre-ticked checkboxes and reams of pages of terms and conditions will not be appropriate. Every candidate will have to actively give explicit consent through easily accessible and intelligible forms, which clearly contain the purpose of and how you will use the candidate’s data. You will also need to be clear on how the data will be stored and remains secure. It will also be essential to allow the candidate to access and review their data at any time, with the option to ask for updates.
The ‘right to be forgotten or right to erasure’ is another key element of the legislation, so there will need to be an option which allows the candidate to request that their data be erased, when the original recruitment process is completed. This new addition to the legislation will impact on any Applicant Tracking System (ATS) utilised, as candidates will be able to apply for a role, be rejected and then request under their ‘right to be forgotten’ for their details to be erased. This will prevent the data from the ATS from being used again if they apply for another role or at another location. It will also be necessary if a ‘request to remove’ is received to remove all data from ATS sourcing tools such as LinkedIn.
Indeed, the candidate experience will become paramount with every step in the compliance process, ensuring the candidate remains the focal point. When consent is actively given you will still be able to utilise the data your recruitment website offers to send emails from mailing lists, for example. Whilst these new requirements are tough, compliance will help build trust and loyalty from your candidate pool. The new requirements of ‘data portability’ where a candidate’s data must be provided to them in a portable format, allowing them to transfer their data easily to you, could even offer the opportunity to streamline your recruitment processes or at the very least you can have the data history from candidates at the beginning, allowing your relationship with them to hit the ground running.
Preparations for the GDPR will require your recruitment website to be audited to ensure compliance, and although it will put a strain on time and budget, it will ensure your recruitment website is more agile and future proof. Any audit will provide an opportunity to offer new services and solutions that benefit not only you but the candidate. You can empower your candidates by showing them that they truly have ownership of their personal data. Each step you take to be compliant, including all the improvements you make to the security of personal data, helps you build trust with your candidates. Communicating your compliance enables you to emphasise your trustworthiness, and as we know, reliability is the basis of all lasting recruitment relationships. By implementing GDPR, your candidate experience may climb higher than ever before.
What is truly clear about how GDPR will affect your recruitment website is how it will make your site the key to making the whole process of recruitment work for your organisation.
The most significant change GDPR will bring is the need for a paper trail regarding your data management and your recruitment website can be the solution to this. Having a centralised system that handles all of your candidate data is imperative under GDPR. It will be more challenging to ensure compliance to the upcoming regulations if your data is being stored in multiple applications such as Excel, Word, Outlook and/or a recruitment CRM. By handling your data collection process in one place, you can monitor how data is being collected, stored and used without ambiguity.
For further information on GDPR visit:
https://ico.org.uk/for-organisations/data-protection-reform/overview-of-the-gdpr/
by Fiona Housiaux | Aug 1, 2017 | News
When recruiting for any role there are clear laws governing discrimination based on race and gender. However, regardless of laws there will always be unconscious bias that effects selection. No amount of legislation or training can prevent this, or the impact it has on who
companies recruit. The only way to solve the problem is by removing the human element – so, robots it is then? Well, we don’t have to go that far as one solution which is becoming
more widespread is the use of gaming in the early selection process.
Gaming has been used before in the recruiting process, however it has only focused on marketing a certain role or company, and still relied on the traditional routes of CVs and interview as well. Encouragingly, the new generation of games are informed by behavioural and neuro sciences and will select candidates based on what is key for the employer. Most importantly, they will avoid any human bias. Organisations can predetermine what are the key traits they require, for example, altruism or the ability to weigh risks and rewards.
But can games really help recruitment diversity? Unilever North America is attempting to find out. Last month they announced they had recruited for hundreds of new roles, including entry level interns and marketing and finance jobs, based on games developed by
tech company Pymetrics. Online games selected candidates who were then given a face to face interview.
Unilever have billed the experiment as a great success, especially in the area of increased educational diversity. The results highlight some interesting changes:
- Hundreds of thousands of people applied from 2,600 different colleges and
universities – about eight times the number of schools represented last year,
including community colleges. This showed an increase in socioeconomic diversity.
- The hiring pool also increased in the area ethnic diversity.
- Recruiting was less skewed towards male candidates Unilever has claimed, noting
that “gender balance was achieved”
We will have to wait and see if the new recruits at Unilever turn out to be more successful than their predecessors; however the results are very encouraging and offer a path towards making recruiting a much fairer process.
by Fiona Housiaux | Jul 18, 2017 | News
We can all delight in the news that according to data from the Office for National Statistics, employment hit a record high in March and unemployment fell to its lowest level since 1975. Whilst obviously positive, unfortunately it has a knock on effect and considerably reduces available talent when recruiting. Combine this with uncertainty over Brexit resulting in people choosing not to change their current role and a lack of EU nationals looking to work in the UK, there is a real problem.
The end product is a skills gap that is, according to the latest research from the Open University₁, costing UK businesses more than £2 billion a year in higher salaries, recruitment costs and temporary staffing. The Open University Business Barometer’s role is to monitor the skills landscape of the UK and their recent study has found that 90 per cent of employers have found it difficult to recruit workers with the required skills in the last 12 months. Some have even had to inflate salaries above industry standards, finding it essential to attract talented workers with strong skills, resulting in an extra cost of at least £527 million.
The impact of the skills gap hasn’t ended there, with 75% of employers reporting it takes an average of one month and 24 days more than expected to recruit. Again extra costs have had to be incurred, to cover additional recruitment and temporary workers costs, an estimated £1.7 billion.
The study has also highlighted a number of other trends, including:
- Managerial roles are proving particularly difficult to fill, with one in five struggling to hire both senior managers (21%) and mid-level managers (19%)
- More than 43% of employers are finding candidates lack management skills
- Around 47% of employers say that they are struggling to attract talent with the right IT and digital skills
- 53% of employers were unable to find a candidate with the required skill set and chose to hire at a lower level as a result
- 53% of employers are using training to boost these new employees’ skills and to bring them up to the level required for the role
- 69% of businesses believe they will struggle to hire people with the right skills in the next 12 months
- 58% of employers saying the skills shortage has damaged their organisation
However, it’s not all doom and gloom, as over the next year, employers are planning to change the type of training they offer to their staff. The number of organisations in England offering apprenticeships is expected to nearly double from 31 per cent, to 59 per cent. The
new apprenticeship levy, introduced in April, is being touted as the reason for this. With over half (52%) of employers in England expecting the levy to reduce the skills gap in the next year, it is no surprise that three in five (62%) are seeing it as an opportunity for their organisation.
₁https://fenews.co.uk/press-releases/14293- the-2- 2-billion- cost-of- the-skills- gap
by Fiona Housiaux | Jul 7, 2017 | News
The recent cyber attack that left the NHS virtually crippled has had many of us question how well protected is our confidential personal information held by the NHS. The latest information provided to the BBC₁ appears to show our concerns are well founded and recent events could just be the tip of the iceberg.
Use of internet-based messaging apps to send patient information is banned under current NHS guidelines, however, doctors and nurses are using WhatsApp and Snapchat to share information about patients “across the NHS”, health professionals have told the BBC.
GP Alisdair MacNair said he was aware of a number of medical groups using WhatsApp to discuss patients. “I have also seen chat on Facebook groups that sails pretty close to the wind in terms of discussing medical information. I’ve definitely seen stuff which is one step away from being patient identifying. I’m very wary of going near anything like that because of the risk of breaching data laws, but it would appear others don’t seem to be aware of the risks.”
Georgie Gould, a junior doctor who last year conducted her own study of how doctors were communicating, found 30% of surgeons at St Peter’s Hospital in Chertsey, Surrey, were using WhatsApp as part of their day-to-day communication. It bears out similar findings published in the British Medical Journal, which found that of 2,000 doctors across five hospitals, a third were using web-based apps to send clinical information.
According to NHS England’s guidelines, the use of WhatsApp or similar app is strictly banned for the purposes of sending patient data. However, the NHS does not provide an alternative digital sharing system, which is compliant. Instead, doctors are required to contact each other by pager or fax. “The process is lengthy,” said Dr Gould.
Dr Felix Jackson, who runs MedCrowd, a digital messaging service for health workers, told the BBC he saw use of WhatsApp while he was working as an anaesthetist. “Such platforms are used extensively, but it is against the law,” he said. Anonymising data meant doctors might “just about get away with it”, he added, but that would not continue forever. “No major error has come to light yet, but it is only a matter of time before a senior doctor leaves his or her phone on the train and someone gets hold of the all the conversations about patients and suddenly someone’s HIV status is made public,” he said.
Dr Gould continued to say that clearer guidelines could solve the problem. She said: “Most doctors know that it is not OK to use full names, but are initials OK? Is it OK to say, ‘The lady in Bed 2 is running a temperature’?” It needs a separate app for medical conversations, with its own password,” she added.
Obviously, we are ambassadors for digital communication here at ThinkinCircles but, as with all things, it has to be done correctly and appropriately. When social usage crosses the legal line and compromises personal data protection then things need to be addressed. If you need to find out more about whether social media is being used appropriately in your business why not have a chat to our MD James?
₁ http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-40507440
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