HR Trends Part 1-Hiring Trends Report 2018 by Linkedin
Hiring talent has become highly transactional. The tedious candidate searches, the endless scheduling, and the repetitive screening can be inefficient and mind-numbing. It’s time for a new era of recruiting that focuses on the more gratifying parts of the job — the human part, the strategic part.-Linkedin
Well if you’re still calling it a New Year in February, then I guess it’s a good time to take a look at some industry predictions so you can position your team & company for what’s ahead. And I believe this Jack Welch quote starts us off perfectly.
When the rate of change on the outside exceeds the rate of change on the inside, the end is in sight.- Jack Welch
It’s no secret that we’re living in a very fast-evolving world. IPhone is releasing new phones faster than it used to. Governments can be overturned in a week. And young people are calling the shots. But what are the key drivers behind these changes?
i. People
Millennials are almost forming 50% of the workplace generation in most continents, while Africa is the lead with an average age of 15. By 2040, Africa will actually have an estimated 1.25Bil people with working age capacity. Larger than India and China. Millennials are coming along as aliens to most Gen X & Baby Boomer managers. They simply don’t know how to deal with them. Expectations are different and they just have to have a say about everything.
ii. Place
Do you have to wear a suit and go to the office 8–5 every day? Not anymore. New trends like the Gig Economy and improvements in communication & collaboration tools have made most jobs remote. Work will now be project based meaning a lot more people will have a chance to get professional experience. Hello Slack!
iii. Platform/Technology
Digital innovation is the biggest driver of change. Blockchain, IoT, Machine Learning, Robotics, Augmented Reality, and the list goes on. For instance in most car manufacturing companies now, robots are replacing humans. They are faster, make less risky mistakes, and let’s face it, they don’t argue back! Is AI replacing humans? Will my work be automated? What will that mean for my job? What kind of opportunities does automation create as well? What kind of new jobs will spring up? Do we as an organization have the necessary infrastructure to adopt new tech? And will our people drive and accept these changes? These are some of the hot questions in the industry right now.
If you look at the factors above, then you can see how they are interconnected and cross-relational. E.g millennials are born tech-savvy hence the need & growth of tech tools in the workplace. Millenials like independence hence the trend of distributed teams and flexi hours hence the adoption of collaboration tools. But let’s dive today into Recruiting Reports as shown by the LinkedIn 2018 Trends Report. This year-round, the emerging issues were 4 as compared to the usual 10 or 8 in the past years, but this only goes to show how important these issues are to talent managers worldwide.
Attracting and retaining top talent has become such a huge challenge for managers as they compete in the war for talent and at the same time struggle to manage the complexities of the new world of work. Adopting new changes fast will work to show potential talent that you’re a company that’s not afraid to grow and question what they know. Ultimately, this will make you more competitive than your other counterparts.
The biggest issues in hiring now according to Linkedin are;
- Diversity
Diversity has risen from #9 in the 2017 Deloitte Human Capital Trends Report to the biggest issue facing talent managers right now. Diversity hiring is the most embraced trend with 78 percent of talent leaders responding that they are tackling hiring diverse talent, head-on.
Why? Well, 78% of companies indicated they are prioritizing diversity to improve culture, and 62% are doing so to boost financial performance.
Reasoning: Key forces are at play here: changing demographics are diversifying our communities, and shrinking talent pools for companies that don’t adapt. Growing evidence that diverse teams are more productive, more innovative, and more engaged also makes it hard to ignore.
A Forbes study attributes workforce diversity and inclusion as a key driver
of business growth and internal innovation. While a recent Bersin by Deloitte study reports how diverse companies had 2.3 times higher cash flow per employee compared to non-diverse companies over a three year period.
Companies have realized that the secret to having diverse teams starts with hiring and the interview process to be precise. So let’s look at trend #2
- New interviewing tools
56% of talent professionals and hiring managers say that new interview tools are the top trend impacting how they hire.
Research shows that flaws in traditional interviewing techniques could be hurting your ability to spot the best talent. Leadership IQ found that an astounding 46% of all new hires fail within 18 months. And Google research reports that unstructured interviews used by most simply don’t predict on-the-job performance.
Companies having realised this process is a very ineffective tool for hire, are adopting new interview techniques. New interview techniques are gaining favor, such as assessing candidate soft skills (63%), understanding candidate weaknesses (57%) and interviewer bias (42%). Blind interviews are also becoming a huge trend as in the case of Jobonics.
Companies are letting go of some old techniques such as 1.) Death by interviewing with results showing anything beyond 4 interviews is ineffective, 2.)Brainteaser questions. You know, the cat is on the left of the dog who’s in front of the pig who’s on the left of the cow. Who is behind the Cow? Lol
3.) Unstructured Interviews-Sadly most companies don’t have a standard structure for interviewing. We mostly leave hiring managers to determine questions and don’t train them on any best practices. HR is simply a facilitator. Organizations are now using more structured approaches like assessment tools, hiring committees, or job-related scenarios to predict a candidate’s likelihood of success in a certain role. One way this is happening is through video interviews for instance that are assessed by ‘robots’. Enter Trend #3
- Artificial intelligence
AI is affecting Talent Acquisition in two ways. 1.) AI is changing how recruiting agencies and sourcers discover, assess, and hire talent. 2.) AI & other technologies will affect what positions you will be recruiting shortly.
Platforms and tools such as HireVue have been used by companies including Unilever to make hires. They use a combination of video assessments and AI to screen these candidates. The reasoning behind the use of AI in general in all processes is because, 1.) Machine learning(a subset of AI) can be used to sift through large amounts of data in record time. 2.) ML can be used to identify patterns hidden in data. This can be very helpful especially since in Africa, applications have increased fourfold for any single position and recruiters are struggling with large volumes of applicants. It can also be helpful with Trend #4 Big Data since HR is looking for data to back up their decision-making. AI can help decipher critical info from all your data in a way that could have been humanly impossible to do.
That said, Hirevue for example has come under harsh criticism for the use of AI in screening with many candidates terming it as ‘not personal’ and HR ridding themselves of work and human interaction. Let it be known that AI has its flaws and it’s still in the early stages(yes it's 50 years old)but it will take some years before we figure this out. However, some cool tools are using AI that are worth checking out.
- Big Data
50% of talent professionals and hiring managers say that data is the top trend impacting how they hire
HR for the longest time has had a challenge presenting their business impact. This is because most of the HR processes are not automated. We assumed for a long time, that people operations are a thing about heart and not numbers. But big enterprises like Google are showing how you can make even the smallest decisions about people using data.
LinkedIn found that when talent acquisition teams used data to hire, they were three times more efficient.14 75% of companies agree that data and analytics is important in HR, yet only 8% feel they’re strong in this area.
Big data is almost like Diversity & Inclusion in the sense that HR managers admit that they have a problem tackling it but they don’t know how to go about it. This then creates opportunities for consultancies to offer data analytics services to departments and for individuals to explore the areas of data science careers that are in huge demand now.
Data could be as simple as a Google Form survey to measure employee engagement for instance or scrapping social media for data. The key here is most decisions in HR-hiring, promotions, performance appraisals, terminations, etc- are not based on logic but rather emotion and ‘gut feeling’. However the increasing demand for HR to prove a business case will force the department to speed up this area or else stand being obsolete or dismissed. LinkedIn has started working on a new product that will be unveiled in 2018 that seeks to give talent managers more insights into the job market.
For more information on the trends, specific case studies, and some action points, get a free copy of the LinkedIn 2018 Report.
