HRD Roundtable Report: Solving the Capability Gap Through Attracting & Engaging Young Talent

Solving the Capability Gap Through Attracting & Engaging Young Talent

An increasingly candidate driven market combined with difficult economic outlooks means that our approach to bringing in new talent needs to be more strategic than ever. Organisations must balance their need for specific skillsets whilst engaging with the new generations of talent entering the workforce. How can we attract this new talent, whilst supporting and developing them with the capabilities and skillsets we need to be work ready?

Led by Ian Turner, Talent Director, TalkTalk and supported by further insights from Tom Stevens, Global Client Director, Avado, this discussion with senior HR leaders was conducted under Chatham House Rules. This report will contain the key discussion areas and all participants will be anonymised.

 

A note from the moderator

“Thank you for a lively discussion which I am sure could have continued for many hours. Talent leaders have a really exciting, although challenging, future ahead of them. We need to drive a cultural change in our organisations resulting in them being more open and curious about hiring diverse, young talent and not simply follow traditional selection routes. The young people of today have a wide variety of supplementary skills that can add great value in addition to those technical skills we can train internally. Equally, we have a critical role in ensuring our organisations are highly attractive to this crucial talent pool who are driven by specific career paths and a strong sense of purpose. The key thing we need to remember is that we are not alone in solving for this as there are partner organisations, including Avado, who can support us on our journey”

 

Traditional methods of attracting young talent are dropping in effectiveness for some organisations, making it difficult to get the volume of new cohort they usually bring in. Regional offices in particular may struggle, with young people more likely to want to work in big cities. Salary is also a huge factor – as even entry level salaries are going up, organisations that are being priced out will need to find other means of differentiating themselves.

Traditional acquisition processes (job fairs, assessment days etc.) are often quite time consuming, for both the candidate and employer. Talent leaders will be looking to understand how they can streamline the process as much as possible to make it less resource intensive for the business, and a generally more positive experience for the candidate. If the process doesn’t sell the organisation, then candidates are simply being given one more reason not to continue.

Some organisations are also finding that young people are making definite choices about their career paths earlier – the cost of higher education is rising, some paths are becoming increasingly specialised, and people need to see a return on investment. When people leave education with a specific career path in mind, organisations that might not be on that path need to work harder to be seen as attractive.

So what can organisations do to meet this challenge? The group discussed several strategies, some more in depth than others. Ideas included hiring without CVs and removing the biases in that process. Others mentioned running bootcamps with no minimum qualification requirement to boost intake.

Talent leaders need to lead the conversation with the rest of the business around the expectations they have of candidates, including around which skills can be compromised on and what can be taught. There is a change in mindset that needs to happen among hiring managers and the leadership team. Do candidates really need to be limited to the highest level of qualifications or to Oxbridge candidates with a 2.1? Is that really necessary to serve the business’ needs or are we limiting choice by all competing in the same space? And is it realistic? Finding the perfect unicorn candidate when looking for an experienced person is often impossible, why do we think we’ll find them in school leavers?

Are there other skills not usually considered that are even more valuable? One participant shared how they have worked to expand their search beyond the Russell Group universities and how they have found that students that were accepted into university via clearing, for example, sometimes show more resilient traits than their peers. These are students who have already had to find a new path for themselves after failing to make their grades – they have already experienced setbacks.

Initiatives like 10,000 Black Interns can have the great double impact of helping an organisation source the skills they need, as well as share the message of their commitment to diversity to potential future candidates (and current employees). One participant shared their work with 10,000 Black Interns as a deliberate move to improve the diversity in their business after finding that out of 1,000s of employees, there was only one black colleague at manager level or above. There are different initiatives for various under-represented groups, e.g. Women in Tech.

Another participant shared their creation of a specialist Social Values People Team – a part of the people team dedicated to making sure early careers strategies also create a good social difference, on top of serving business needs. These kinds of investments send an important message to the wider business about what is seen as valuable, and the future shape of the organisation.

Organisations can also work to build long term relationships with universities and schools, showing their commitment to supporting young talent, and marking themselves as a viable option early on. One participant shared how they have developed an ongoing relationship through their marketing director leading guest sessions at a local university. This type of outreach can be taken further to the general population. The group heard from one leader that runs campus days for people from the local area who may not realise that there are options in their organisation – the goal being to clear up misconceptions about what qualifications are required and showcase roles that people may not know about. There are various government schemes that can support this kind of project – in Scotland for example, the Developing the Young Workforce agency helps connect employers with school leavers for visits and workshops.

Another challenge is in the digital literacy level of school leavers. The younger generations generally have a basic level having grown up with technology, but schools still aren’t teaching specific skills on a large scale. Initiatives like tech academies and bootcamps can help bridge that gap, and these can be both internal and external. External – again partnering with local schools to help broaden horizons and show the opportunities out there. Organisations like Avado work with young people to build their data literacy, and pair them with organisations looking for talent. Internal – to catch those already in the business that would be interested in trying new things. Who are the midnight coders that are looking for a new challenge (and may go elsewhere if they can’t find it in your business)? One leader shared how they have found opportunities for people internally through running tech or coding challenges open to everyone, as well as digital skills surveys to see if there’s capabilities in unexpected places. They also track learning to see if people are spending a lot of time in one area then reach out to see if that’s something they’d like to develop more formally.

Businesses also need to do the work to make themselves an attractive option. Why should people want to work there? Approaches to this need to be holistic, tackling both the why of the business (what good are you doing for the world?) and the how (what does the employee experience look like to work there?). The group heard about the 3 Ps – Passion, Personality and Potential – to help develop a positive employee experience that speaks to different needs.

To conclude, in order to equip their businesses with the digital capabilities they need, talent leaders have several routes to explore. Externally through partnerships with organisations like Avado, 10,000 Black Interns or local school relationships can help connect with talent that otherwise may not have applied or made it through the selection process. Internally, organisations should work to explore where the undiscovered skills lie – who is looking for a new opportunity, and just needs an extra boost? Finally, talent leaders need to take the lead in changing the perception of the perfect candidate. What skills are needed and what can be taught?

 

Avado is one of the UK’s leading training providers. We are an Ofsted grade 1 “Outstanding” apprenticeships provider and the creator and provider of FastFutures government funded ‘skills bootcamps’.

We work with the UK’s largest employers, the likes of AXA, BT, BP, UBS and Amazon to leverage government funding and create transformational digital and data academies.

• We rapidly upskill existing employees with digital, technology and data skills
• Employers can choose rapid targeted skills development sprints for their teams via skills bootcamps or deeper capability development via apprenticeship programs
• We help employers access our 15,000 strong community of diverse, work ready early careers FastFutures talent

We work at large scale, helping them build tomorrow-ready skills across their workforce to transform faster.

 

 

Resources mentioned

Avado

10,000 Black Interns

Women in Tech

The Developing Young Workforce Agency

Cibyl

Career Ready