StaffingWorld 2019: Candidates as Consumers, Digital Intimacy and the Necessity of Now
We went into this year’s StaffingWorld with a pretty good idea of what some of the hot topics would be. After last year’s conference, Uber first announced they were getting into staffing, sending small but palpable alarm through the industry. This year, just weeks before the conference, they announced they were finally here.
So it’s no surprise that this year we heard about digital intimacy, and how important it is for agencies to live in the “now.” The harbinger of on-demand technology is here. It’s time to catch up.
There’s an entirely separate article dissecting what Uber could mean for the staffing industry.
But it’s important to examine why they are here. Why did Uber decide that staffing would be the industry it would enter to finally make a profit? What’s the opportunity the industry is missing that they noticed (put differently — what’s the money that agencies are leaving on the table?)
In the past few years there’s been continued and increased focus on the candidate experience and what that means within the context of an on-demand economy. People want things at an unprecedented speed and level of convenience, and largely the way they are able to receive these things is through mobile technology. I don’t have to leave my apartment to get that lemon chicken order that I’m craving right now. There’s an app for that.
And if this is how expectations have been formed (and met) for things like food and entertainment, surely jobs are also subject to the same new set of rules. If you can’t imagine waiting a week to receive your Amazon order, imagine how eager people must be to know where their next paycheck is coming from.
This new world of instant gratification has caused what some might consider a fundamental shift in the way we view candidates.
We are now in the age of candidates as consumers.
But, what does it mean to view someone as a consumer? And how does that change anything?
Consumers are the people who put money in your pocket. They buy and consume your product or services. Therefore, their desires and motivations drive a lot of your decisions. Because if you don’t get it right with them, you can’t succeed. If they’re not buying what you’re selling (be it Chinese food or the idea that your agency is the right agency for them) you can’t succeed.
So, how do we know what candidates want?
StaffingWorld urges agencies to think about the “now”
This year Becky Franckiewicz opened the conference with an exciting and encouraging keynote presentation on candidates as consumers. Harnessing her insights from her time at both Manpower and Pepsico she spoke to the blurring lines between employees and consumers during a time when talent shortages have forced us to meet workers on their terms. She spoke to the necessity of the “now” and how in order to be valuable to consumers of work (employees) we need to meet them where and how they want. And to do that, we need to harness technology to create digital intimacy.
While this shift might threaten some decades-old practices or technology, it opens up incredible opportunity for agencies who wish to action on this trend. (Hence the arrival of Uber.) With the advent of new technology workers can work around their desired schedule. They can be decisive about the kind of work they want. And, perhaps most importantly, they can have a direct line of communication to the people on the other end of that equation.
And if staffing agencies don’t want to get cut out of that equation, they have to move quickly.
Candidates have long expressed their frustration with not hearing back from a recruiter in a timely fashion: not understanding why they didn’t get selected for a job, not being able to plan around their work. Now imagine those candidates can use an app to chat directly to their recruiter and get real time answers. And that recruiter actually has time to respond because so much of their workload (up to 65%) has also been automated by technology.
This is the power of digital intimacy. And this is what agencies stand to gain by embracing new technology.
We know that technology can’t replace people. That’s why, while we recognize the threat of Uber, we’re not worried about it replacing the staffing industry. What it will do, though, is force a faster adoption of technology that will leave slower moving agencies behind in its wake.
We’ve already seen waves being made with the likes of JobStack and TrustedHealth, to name a few. This is ultimately great news for the industry as it means we’re moving forward. But then it begs the question — will your agency be ahead or behind the curve?
Succeeding in the candidate-driven age comes down to being responsive to what they are looking for from the agency they choose to work with. Luckily for us, consumers are often pretty good at telling us what they want. We just have to listen.
