Fresh insights to help you succeed in today’s talent market - event write-up

We recently co-hosted a dedicated event for HR and TA Leaders to discuss the emerging issues in the industry.

From EVP, employer branding and internal mobility, to workplace readiness, AI and leadership development, so much great content and valuable insights were shared throughout the afternoon from both our speakers and attendees.

A huge thank you to our inspirational speakers, Chris Rowe, Alex Snelling, Martyn Scott, Simon Reichwald and Natasha Wallace.

We’ve shared our key takeaways from the day below.

Differentiation in a crowded talent market
Chris Rowe, Head of Talent Acquisition at DHU Healthcare

Chris and his team are driving a transformational change in recruitment for DHU Healthcare. It’s a challenging sector where differentiation and a competitive edge can be hard to find, but the fulfilment in that every new team member is more than just a hire, they're part of a purpose-driven company with patients at the heart of every interaction, is compelling. 

Chris delved into DHU’s progress on the journey of developing their new EVP and employer brand and the reasons why they’re so important. From addressing poor perceptions of the industry, improving awareness of the opportunities on offer and reducing dependence on outsourced solutions, to improving employee engagement and retention, differentiating their offer was key.

“How do we do anything else in our transformation journey if we don’t even know the type of person we want to attract?”

They needed to understand the roles, develop the positioning, then take it to market effectively. The EVP and employer brand act as the golden thread to tie everything together, with their purpose, their people and the difference they all make at the fore.

The DHU team are currently bringing the new brand to life at every stage across the candidate and employee lifecycle, with deliverables like photoshoots and videoshoots, employer brand guidelines, copy toolkit, messaging matrix, talent pool comms, social media campaigns and more.

And in terms of what their employees feel about the new EVP and employer brand, 72% of respondents strongly agreed/agreed that they felt true to their employment experience and 77% of respondents strongly agreed/agreed they made them feel proud to be part of DHU.

The internal validation has been excellent. Just as impressively, DHU are actively implementing the new employer brand strategy into their ways of working and already saving in excess of £100,000 every month in terms of recruitment costs.

“Don’t try and do it yourself. If you’re going to do it, do it properly.”

The importance of internal mobility
Alex Snelling, Chief People Officer, IOM Business Unit at McDonald’s

Alex has been with McDonald’s since 2018 and his current role spans 11 countries in Europe serving over 250 million customers across 3,000 restaurants. A critical part of the business growth and broader transformation required relies on the mobility of talent. 

Alex shared the importance of mobility of talent at McDonald’s and his experience in optimising this in an international context.

McDonald’s currently have numerous international assignees worldwide. The majority of international assignments result in a promotion or lateral move when the assignments end, but they need continued focus from leadership to maintain and build this track record of success.

Their goal is to invest further in selective international assignments, deepening their talent pipeline and building careers. To achieve this, a few of Alex’s best practice tips were:

• Improving long-term career planning, identifying return pathways and next steps.
• Adding priority on potential, performance and resilience.
• Introducing mobility surveys and intercultural assessments.
• Offering clear support for assignees with sponsors.

McDonald’s are on a journey with their internal mobility but are moving forward effectively. Alex stated the key things to think about are centralising budget, long-term thinking and sustainability. These are the game changers for effective internal mobility. 

Emerging issues on workplace readiness
Martyn Scott, Head of Early Careers & Learning at Costain Group PLC
Simon Reichwald, Chief Progression Officer at Connectr

Martyn and Simon discussed the pressing and emerging issues around workplace readiness through the lens of early careers, and Martyn’s experience on the topic at Costain Group.

A key challenge is how unready young people are when coming into the world of work. If they leave the business, 20% of their salary is the cost to rehire a new person, so we need to get it right. How do we better prepare them when starting their careers?

The cost of that attrition, not just financially but operationally, reputationally and in terms of talent mapping, is significant. 

The multigenerational workforce and their changing expectations was also a key topic of discussion. Gen Z are much more aware of their self-worth and drive their own rewards and progression, but as Martyn stated, they’re a really valuable pipeline for Costain so he advised:

“With a multi-generational workforce and in a rapidly changing world,
be careful not to make assumptions on your candidate base with early careers.”

At Costain, they’re heavily reliant on graduates but are also focusing on apprenticeships. They’re currently driving really talented people towards degree apprenticeships to close the gap. There’s also strong evidence to suggest that apprentices stay longer than graduates. So, they’re putting apprentices front and centre of their EVP and branding to showcase and promote the opportunity.

So, how are Costain responding to workplace readiness? They’re bridging the gap between offer and start date by effective pre-boarding. Costain utilise the Connectr platform which allows them to feed information to candidates and take them through to day one to relieve any stresses.

Leading differently: A conscious and sustainable path forward
Natasha Wallace, Founder and CEO at The Conscious Leadership Company

And finally, our last speaker of the day was Natasha, a pioneering entrepreneur who has helped thousands of people with her unique and progressive approach to leadership and culture development. 

Natasha started off by asking the audience to raise their hand if they’ve experienced burnout. The majority of people in the room raised their hand.

Natasha then took us through her experience with burnout and the breakthrough point where she realised leaders around the world were suffering the same ways she was. It’s a crisis we can’t ignore with 1 in 2 leaders reporting they feel exhausted. She started to raise awareness that we can speak about burnout and not feeling okay.

Armed with her strong background in organisational and leadership development and with lessons learned from her own story of adversity, she set her sights on designing a solution that would disrupt the market - and achieve sustainable business results. 

The Conscious Leadership Model is based on five key capabilities - Purpose, Togetherness, Resilience, Awake and Growing. 

Essentially, if you raise your consciousness as a leader, you will in turn raise engagement, development, wellbeing, retention and financial performance as a business – an extremely strong case for investment.

Natasha closed with some shifts that you can start now:

• Normalise self-care in leadership.
• Invest in inner development.
• Use micro-learning and refection.
• Create conscious containers for growth.
• Make learning a daily practice.
• Give leaders the space to be their authentic selves.

“Leadership isn’t about doing more. It’s about being more.”