As HR teams scour the job market looking for the best talent, one key offering will be career development opportunities for new employees. By offering employees upskilling and reskilling opportunities, organizations are able to outshine the competition and attract talent that is eager to grow within the company and learn new skills. So, what skillsets do you look for and what can you offer potential candidates?
Tune in to this panel discussion to hear:
Note: This content originally appeared during Argyle’s HR Leadership Forum: Next Gen Innovation for HR Leaders on March 14, 2024.
Industry experts discussed the shifting hiring landscape, emphasizing the growing importance of skills-based hiring, adaptability, and communication skills. They also discussed the challenges of evaluating candidates in a virtual environment and the significant changes in the hiring landscape since the pandemic. Speakers highlighted the benefits of prioritizing employee learning and development, including increased satisfaction, reduced attrition rates, and fostering a culture of growth. They also emphasized the importance of transparency in job postings and the candidate care experience, and stressed the need to understand the talent profile of the current workforce to forecast future business needs.
Brittany Sullivan (Argyle) 0:19
Hello, and welcome back to the Argyle HR leadership forum. My name is Brittany Sullivan with Argyle, and it’s great to have everyone joining us today. A couple of notes before I turn things over to our panel moderator. First, a quick reminder to stop by our sponsor’s virtual booths at any time during today’s event, and for the following week. Our partners are committed to providing you with valuable content and a great overall experience. At any time. During today’s event, you can visit the virtual booths from the main agenda page, which includes complimentary materials, information and meet and greet opportunities. To ask questions throughout the session, simply type into the Q&A chat, and we will address your questions at the end of the session. Now, without further delay, I would love to introduce our moderator, Rob Markovic, global vice president workforce planning and talent acquisition at the pH. C group. We’re excited to have Rob and our panelists with us for a panel titled hiring talent for skill sets and qualities. Welcome, Rob. And over to you
Rob Markovic (Global Vice President, Workforce Planning and Talent Acquisition at PHC Group) 1:17
now. All right, thank you so much, Brittany. And thank you everybody for having me today. Once again, my name is Rob Markovic. I work for a PHC group. PHC Group is a Life Sciences and diagnostics company based out of Tokyo, Japan. I’ve been with the company for about two and a half years and I’m also on the advisory board of Argyle. So with that, I’ll turn it over to the panel to introduce them to Vandi. Would you like to start?
Vandi Theriot (Career & HR Coach at RiseSmart) 1:42
Sure. Thank you, Rob. My name is Vandi Theriot.. And, I am a career coach with RiseSmart. I spent most of my career in human resources over the last 20 years and transitioned to dedicate 100% of my career right now to career coaching for the last three years. I am so excited to be here and to be a part of this discussion today.
Rob Markovic (Global Vice President, Workforce Planning and Talent Acquisition at PHC Group) 2:05
All right, thank you, Mandy. Candace, how about you?
Candace R. Griffith (Senior Vice President Human Resources at Health Prime) 2:08
Hi, everyone. My name is Candace Griffith. I’m the Senior Vice President of Human Resources for Health Prime International. We are a traditional revenue cycle management company that serves as a strategic partner for value-based health care services. We’ve got about 3500 employees worldwide with a presence here in the US, India and Costa Rica.
Rob Markovic (Global Vice President, Workforce Planning and Talent Acquisition at PHC Group) 2:29
All right, great. Thank you, Nicole.
Nicolle Barricella (Career Development Manager at Weill Cornell Medicine) 2:32
Yes. Hi, everyone. My name is Nicole Barrett Chela. I am a Career Development Manager at Weill Cornell Medicine. I oversee our Office of Career Advancement, which supports our employees’ professional development and growth. Cornell is based in New York City, and we are Cornell University’s Medical Center. I have almost 20 years of experience in human resources, which is just about as long as I’ve been with Weill Cornell. And my experience spans personal administration recruitment, employee relations, compensation or design and career development. In my current role, I focus on internal employee mobility. I offer career counseling services, and I facilitate skills-based professional development workshops, and also leading the organization’s transition to a skills-first hiring approach. I’m thrilled to be here today and talk about this very important topic.
Rob Markovic (Global Vice President, Workforce Planning and Talent Acquisition at PHC Group) 3:16
Awesome. Thank you, Nicole. And Michael, last but not least.
Michael Watson (Director of Global Customer Evangelism at Eightfold AI) 3:20
Great. Thank you, Rob. Hello, everyone, Michael Watson from Eightfold, excited to be here this morning. Eightfold is the inventor of what we call the Talent Intelligence Platform. So we’re using AI to match people to skills and the skills to roles. Been with the company about four years now prior to that first 25 years in my career was all on the recruiting side, I started with Aerotech right out of school, spent about 10 years on the contingent side, and moved over to corporate America, where I’ve had the privilege of running TA for companies like Western Digital, Polycom workday. And then, I was working for a small company called Gigamon when I found Eightfold, implemented it, and had some really great success, I shaved 11 days off my days to hire that first year and increase diversity hiring. So now my current role as Head of Customer evangelism, I get to work with all of our customers and prospects really kind of working on their AI strategy. How do you fold it into your HR departments and TA and TM, I’m really excited to be here this morning to talk about this really important topic about skills and qualities and really kind of creating a great place to work for your employees. Awesome.
Rob Markovic (Global Vice President, Workforce Planning and Talent Acquisition at PHC Group) 4:31
Thank you, Michael. I appreciate that. And thank you, panelists for joining us today. Why don’t we jump right into the questions? You all will see me looking over to the left as I read, so just bear with me with that. So for the first question, Vandi, if you don’t mind taking it, and it is from your experience, have you seen the hiring landscape change over the past two years? And what are the most notable changes and any role examples you can show? It would be great, thanks.
Vandi Theriot (Career & HR Coach at RiseSmart) 5:00
Sure, yeah, I would say, you know, just in my experience overall and HR, I think the last two years, I’ve seen the most dramatic changes in the hiring landscape, the competitiveness of the job market, and coming from a perspective of, you know, being an HR business partner, for a large media company, during the pandemic, you know, we were struggling with the great resignation and trying to find people, you know, recruiting was difficult retention was difficult, then coming out of, you know, the pandemic, and myself transitioning, you know, to a career coach, just seeing the change, and the amount of, you know, unfortunate layoffs, and the majority of those layoffs occurring amongst Tech, I think, alone over 260,000 last year, which was, you know, one of the highest for that industry in particular. So, I think we’re seeing a market where, you know, it’s quite a very talented market, quite a competitive market. On top of, you know, employers really looking more at skill-based hiring, you know, technical skills, digital literacy, you know, looking at more of those harder skills, especially on the resume process and the selection process, on top of candidates having access to AI-driven career tools, so the resumes look, I think, completely different than two years ago. And today, you know, if you are applying for a role that happens to be remote and is, you know, six figures or more, it’s going to exceed 1000 applicants within probably an hour. And so from that perspective, we’re just seeing, you know, just a really competitive landscape and the requirements really intensifying. So a lot of times what I focus on in terms of coaching is really helping candidates understand the requirements are more about the hard skills initially, how do you identify, you know, what that organization is looking for, you know, look at looking at their last earnings call their forward-looking statement, a lot of that is driven by, you know, AI products, technology, what does that mean for what you can offer them? And so I really feel like that’s changed a lot along with, you know, the intensive intensification of the selection process, you know, we’ve gone from just like, you know, interviews, behavioral base to more situational base, how would you handle a full like product lifecycle from discovery to launch? How do you handle partnerships? I mean, there’s just much more involved, whether it be case studies, panel interviews, or power days. I never even heard of a power day until last year. So I just feel like, you know, in terms of what employers are looking for, is quite different due to the economic pressures and, you know, pressures of, you know, being relevant with their products and AI-driven pressures. The type of candidates that, you know, are in the market looking has also created more competition. So,
Rob Markovic (Global Vice President, Workforce Planning and Talent Acquisition at PHC Group) 8:12
yeah, very interesting. And I have to tell you, it’s so true about coming out of COVID. All the hiring, and then the layoffs, and now see AI coming into it, so, so really good points. Candace, what about you? Any thoughts on that? Yeah,
Candace R. Griffith (Senior Vice President Human Resources at Health Prime) 8:28
I definitely agree with Vandi on several points, especially in the revenue cycle management industry, we are really using skill-based hiring more so than we ever had before. So actually having skills assessments as part of the hiring and application process, we’re seeing a lot of use of that, and filtering out candidates based on their completion and accuracy of those skill-based assessments, too, with the rise of digital platforms, you know, no longer are people are now able to just easily apply and apply to hundreds of jobs, and just a few clicks of a button. So on the other end of that, on the recruitment side, I’m personally seeing just a ginormous increase in applications, especially from COVID, where maybe we would get, you know, upwards of 100. Now we’re inching towards that 1000 mark, which is something that we had never seen before and the past couple of years. And because of the ease of using digital technology to submit applications, we’re also seeing a lot of candidates that just simply aren’t qualified, right? They’re just a numbers game. They’re just clicking and sending. And so that has put an incredible amount of work on the recruiters behind the scenes. I’m really just trying to open up all the applications and navigate the qualifications of each person. And then I think lastly, one of the things that we’re also seeing in hiring is just because we are really a remote world now. You know, really in the past, I really kind of took pride in really having a strong interest in interviewing the candidate face to face, really getting that interaction with them on a personal level to see how they interact in that way. And now, you know, rarely do we actually meet candidates in person until it’s their first day on the job, and sometimes never at all if they’re completely working remotely. So that has been a shift for me and my organization, especially in the HR team on being better able to assess candidates and this virtual and remote environment, but something that we’re certainly finally finding ourselves on the other end of and I have a good steady rhythm and pace in terms of assessing and, and qualifying and quantifying candidates.
Rob Markovic (Global Vice President, Workforce Planning and Talent Acquisition at PHC Group) 10:36
Yeah, huge point on the remote piece. I’ve got managers that work for me that I’ve never met in person. It’s Michael; I think you wanted to comment on this as well. Yeah.
Michael Watson (Director of Global Customer Evangelism at Eightfold AI) 10:48
The only thing I would add to all that, is that these are all great points. But one of the things, and I think we’ve all been here, we got a note on LinkedIn from one of our friends saying, Hey, I was just laid off, you know, what’s your advice, my number one piece of advice for everyone is find a way to be referred into a company. When you are referred into a company, your odds of getting a job are 10 to one; when you just blindly apply to a job, your odds are 200 to one. And that to be honest with you, that stat might have gone up to Canada’s point and vantage point where we’re getting 1000s of people applying nowadays. That said, it doesn’t mean that I have to know Rob to be referred in; maybe Robin, I went to the same university. So I sent Robin a note on LinkedIn saying, Hey, we’re both alumni from this school. You know, I see this position, would you mind referring me in? Hey, we were both members of this fraternity or sorority, we were both members of this philanthropic endeavor. Find those threads that connect, and then reach out to those folks and ask them to refer you. It’s the number one piece of advice I give to all my friends and anyone who reaches out to me asking me for help.
Rob Markovic (Global Vice President, Workforce Planning and Talent Acquisition at PHC Group) 12:02
Yeah, thank you, Michael. And I agree; we go to internals first and referral second, so you always tap that network. All right, let’s move on to the next question. Nicole, this one’s for you. What is successful hiring based? What do successful hiring-based skill sets and qualities look like? And what qualities or skill sets are most important to you? Yeah,
Nicolle Barricella (Career Development Manager at Weill Cornell Medicine) 12:27
sure. That’s a great question, Robin. It’s something that we at Weill Cornell are now just tackling. So this topic is very relevant. You know, we know that skills-based hiring can bring many benefits. If it’s done correctly, right, we can improve the quality of our new hires, we can expand our talent pool, we can promote diversity in our talent pipelines, we can increase employee retention all break things, right. We also know that in order to achieve a successful hiring strategy based on skills, each step of the hiring process needs to be aligned from the job posting to the screening process. Additionally, every person involved not just those that are involved in the hiring process, every person needs to understand and commit to this approach. It requires buy-in from everyone. And I think most organizations today will likely say yeah, I definitely want to switch to Salesforce hiring if I’m not already doing that, but it is a mountain to climb or can be a mountain to climb. You know, we as people leaders understand the benefits, and we know it’s the right thing to do. But then, for example, how do we convince the C-suite? Right? I think we know that any business change needs support from the top. And I think that’s where people leaders need to use data-driven insights to build their business case. So if your organization has talent management software, or other AI tools that can help, you know, maybe you want to identify what skills and tasks are declining, which skills and tasks are on the rise, where are your gaps? And how are you going to bridge those gaps? And then, probably most importantly, what would be the cost to invest in those gaps, or even those training programs and other programs that would close again, those gaps need to be able to show our C-suite, how we can enrich the organization with the right skill sets and how those skill sets align with the organizational goals really need to make that connection. I also think that in addition, when you’re hiring someone based on their skills, it’s important to distinguish between the skills that are required on day one, and the ones that are preferred or can be learned on the job. You know, one of the things that I tell my hiring managers is that it’s okay to hire someone who doesn’t possess all the skills that are outlined in the job posting, right, you know, candidates who tick off all those boxes, so to speak, they may not have any more room for growth, right? They may not stay long. But on the other hand, if you bring in someone who has the majority of the necessary skills and the ability to learn the additional skills on the job, they have the potential to further develop once they’re there, right? So once it’s hired, once you get hired, you know, it’s really essential to identify where your employees transferable skills are, where their skills gaps and provide them with those learning and development opportunities to help them continue to progress within the organization. I would say though, that in terms of the most important skills, although we’re talking about a hard skills, I do truly believe that the most crucial skills for individuals to possess are those referred to as human skills, you know, sometimes you hear them being called social, emotional, or I’ve heard power skills. You know, I think those technical and functional skills are always going to be important. But I think we should prioritize the development of those human skills like empathy, creativity, learning, agility, critical thinking, inclusive leadership, and adaptability. And for me, I think adaptability is the most important skill, especially in the post-pandemic world, I think that the sudden onset of the pandemic showed us how many of us are not ready for change, you know, so hopefully, we’ve all learned that we need a fluid workforce, and no one can predict the future. But if we come across another pandemic, or some other catastrophic event, you know, an adaptable workforce will help us respond to those changes. And we’ll be better equipped to change direction or pivot in a much quicker way. I also think that human skills, or individuals that have those strong human skills, they’re better at collaborating, the better at working together effectively, and they tend to approach problems more creatively. And this can lead to efficiency, productivity, innovation, right. And also remote and hybrid work, we were just talking about that, as those environments become more prevalent, the ability to navigate challenges and solve problems from a distance has become even more important. So I don’t think we can lose sight of the human touch, or that human connection. And even as automation AI changes the nature of many job roles, I think there’s a growing demand for the unique skills that only humans can possess.
Rob Markovic (Global Vice President, Workforce Planning and Talent Acquisition at PHC Group) 16:36
Nicole, thank you, I love that you brought up the human skills piece. I think managers in general, just think about skills, and they think about the tasks, right, but it’s so much more than that. Vandi, how about you? Any other thoughts on that one?
Vandi Theriot (Career & HR Coach at RiseSmart) 16:49
Yeah, I mean, I couldn’t agree more. I think that you know, that human skills and, you know, especially in a world where partnerships are so incredibly important, and understanding, you know, the map of who your partners are, how you engage with them and work with them is incredibly important. You know, I coach, you know, candidates that look on paper, your hard skills are really important. But when you show up, you get that first interview, that’s where you’ve got to convey, you know, those stories where you know, those emotional skills, those social skills are really coming through, and the stories that you provide about your career accomplishments, I see, the other thing I really see a trend on is, it’s more of T shaped careers, especially for professional and tech careers, where you’ve got like a broad overview, whether that’s product ownership, or management, and the more of a deep vertical expertise, and voice of the customer or data analysis. You know, I see that coming up more and more with both career mapping, but also, you know, within companies looking for broad expertise, but then somebody that really understands certain stages, you know, within that profession at a very, you know, important level of depth and expertise. So, got
Rob Markovic (Global Vice President, Workforce Planning and Talent Acquisition at PHC Group) 18:11
it. Yeah, thank you so much. Let’s move on to the next question. Michael, this one’s for you. How do you think that upskilling rescaling and career development opportunities improve or affect talent retention? And you can tell me from one of your companies, or maybe one of the client companies you’re working with?
Michael Watson (Director of Global Customer Evangelism at Eightfold AI) 18:33
Yeah, so I thank you, Rob. I think the short answer is, it’s gonna cut down your attrition for your, for the folks we call regrettable attrition for the folks that you want to keep with the company, right, that you don’t want to see walk out the door and take all the skills and that IP and that experience with them. I think the long answer of it is it makes you a great place to work in improves morale. You know, Nothing’s worse than working for a company that has to go through 20% reduction in force every year and you’re constantly wondering, come October, November, if you’re on that list, right? So to work for a company that is constantly resizing/upskilling I think it’s gonna give you a benefit in a few areas, right? It’s going to cut down on the attrition and it’s going to give those folks the confidence to reach out and apply for different jobs internally. And I actually have a great example of this right, we had a customer of ours, large semiconductor company come to us, second year of COVID. Right, and they had two issues. One is she was they’re faced with having to layoff 20% of their workforce, but they didn’t understand the skills of these folks. And I know this being on the recruiting side for a lot of years, I’ve laid off people and six months later rehire them because I didn’t realize the skills they had. And now I’m giving them a 20% increase and I’m giving them the additional stock options and running out Like, why don’t we just keep this person and repurpose them into a new role? So the company comes to us and says, Hey, we need help mapping the skills of these folks that we’re looking at possibly putting through a riff. And by the way, we’re also having a heck of a time hiring data scientists. And they were very frankness. And Mike, look, most of the data scientists here in the Bay Area, they’re wanting to work for Facebook and Google and Apple. And not many of them are saying, hey, I want to work for a semiconductor company, right? So we said, Okay, well, let’s do this. Let’s, let’s take those folks that you’ve identified for the riff, let’s, let’s understand the skills they had. And when we did that, what we found out was, there’s a so-called digital signal processing those in the technical side. And what we found was the same skills that the digital signal processing engineers had were the same skills, they were asking for their data scientists. So they went back to these folks. And they said, Hey, we have this role over here, if you’d be interested in becoming a data scientist, right, we would love to move you into this role, we’ll give you one or two courses to degree either Coursera or LinkedIn learning whatever your LMS is, and then you’ll be up and running. Right? If you think about this, the benefits were there’s a few benefits, right? They went from having to riff 20% to only having to riff 11%, they redeployed that other 9% into currently open roles that they were looking for. And it right, it gave these folks this notion of wow, this, this company really cares about me, right, instead of just cutting the cord and giving me a nice little severance package, they came to me and they offered me a continuing career here moving into a new field. And I think every single DSP engineer, they went to accept that role, because they all looked at this and they’re like, Wow, you’re I’m going to become a data scientist. With AI on the rise, every company out there is looking for some type of data scientists or large data model engineers, so it was a win-win on all sides. And I think and this is a soft number, I think, that ended up saving them $10 to $11 million, just just by redeploying these folks into currently open roles. So you can see how this benefits a lot of different aspects of the organization.
Rob Markovic (Global Vice President, Workforce Planning and Talent Acquisition at PHC Group) 22:20
And no surprise, that’s an amazing example. And exactly what we’re talking about here, I think, is this whole concept of reskilling; there’s nothing that does more for your employee engagement and retention than that.
Michael Watson (Director of Global Customer Evangelism at Eightfold AI) 22:35
Real quick, right? I have the privilege of working closely with Josh Bersin, and I hear him say this all the time: you’re not going to be able to hire your way out of what we’re in right now. You won’t be able to hire enough people, you won’t be able to keep enough people, you’re gonna have to retrain, rescale, and your workforce to meet the demands of tomorrow.
Rob Markovic (Global Vice President, Workforce Planning and Talent Acquisition at PHC Group) 22:56
Yeah, I completely agree. Nicole, how about you? Any thoughts on that? Yeah. Well,
Nicolle Barricella (Career Development Manager at Weill Cornell Medicine) 22:59
I mean, I definitely agree with both Michael, you, and Rob in terms of, you know, skills in general, I mean, they’re at the center of all of our talent operations, right, from hire into training to internal mobility, engage retention, we all talked about that. Right, every single area is impacted. I also think it’s important to note and to keep an eye on this, you know, recent studies by Skeldon McKinsey come to mind. You know, they’ve shown that the number one reason employees leave is because of the lack of development or perceived care from their organizations, right. So we need, you know, it’s almost like essential, we need to make sure that we’re prioritizing rescaling and upskilling of our staff, I think that one of the things we’re going to see more and more of is that the required skill sets for our future roles to be more cross-functional. So going back to adaptability, you know, our future roles may require a skill set that merges, let’s say it with HR and data visualization, and just making up something here. But you know, the traditional vertical ladders that we are familiar with, again, may no longer be the answer when we’re thinking about career growth. And the only one last thing I just want to add is that I think it’s important also for us to be aware of the distinct generational motivations of our labor market. Right. So as baby boomers are retiring, we need to understand what matters most: our Gen X or Millennials or Gen Z know candidates and employees alike. So although these generations have different priorities and goals, a common stock is personal growth and the opportunities for career career advancement. So again, it’s just the impact is just so widespread.
Rob Markovic (Global Vice President, Workforce Planning and Talent Acquisition at PHC Group) 24:21
Yeah. Great point. Great point. All right. For the next question, Michael, I’m going to go back to you if you don’t mind. How can organizations successfully navigate the changing hiring landscape for this year? And what should their top priorities be? And I’m taking notes. So
Michael Watson (Director of Global Customer Evangelism at Eightfold AI) 24:40
yeah, so it’s, once again, you’re asking the good questions today. Rob, I think one of the critical things an organization can do and this is really hard to do without AI and this is not a plug because I work for an AI company. This was 25 years before I joined AI. AI is not just mapping the skills but mapping the skills. adjacencies. Right, so you want so to your point earlier, if they have the skill, great if they have a and I’m looking for a, that’s easy to match up, but understanding those skills adjacencies and you know what, with a little bit of training, can they be very quickly proficient on, I think is the key. And we’re seeing a lot of our customers and prospects coming to us wanting to understand what my skills are. Adjacencies. If I know, X, how close to Y and Z are those? And how quickly can people get up to speed with those types of things? So, you know, I think there’s a lot of benefits that go with it. You know, I think, also mapping those to your jobs. One of the things we say is, you know, jobs and positions don’t have skills; people have skills. So that’s when we talk about moving to the skills based role, I think what you’ll see here in a few years is, you know, I might be in the same position a little bit longer, but I’m touching different groups inside the organization. Right, because my skills go beyond just the role I’m in. My skills actually map to two or three different roles inside the organization, right. So, you know, when we talk about this changing hiring landscape, that’s what my customers and prospects are coming to me with, and the C level executives that want to talk about this. That’s what they’re seeing. They’re saying, hey, I want to try to move away from a role-based architecture for skills, and I want to move that over to the people, and then put the person as the hub. And what are the different spokes that reach out? And what roles can they help with in their career? And, those seem to be the top priorities we’re seeing right now. I
Rob Markovic (Global Vice President, Workforce Planning and Talent Acquisition at PHC Group) 26:53
agree wholeheartedly with this whole concept of how priorities tie back with everything that we’ve talked about today. So this whole concept of skills, understanding skills, understanding skills, adjacencies, understanding what we need to do for reskilling or upskilling, or whatever it is, it all ties in together. So I wholeheartedly agree that that’s definitely a priority for us. We’re doing that right now trying to get an assessment of what the skills are, and what people have that we’re just not even aware of. I’d like to turn this one over to the rest of the team. Does anybody else want to chime in on this question? Okay, I’ll take that as a no, we’ll move on. Candice, the next one is for you. And this is actually our last question. In what ways can you outshine the competition to attract the best talent? And then also, how can you make a competitive offer that highlights both career growth and stability in your company?
Candace R. Griffith (Senior Vice President Human Resources at Health Prime) 27:54
That’s a really great question. I think what we will, what I have seen most recently is that it’s all about Employer Branding. I think of myself as an HR professional, as well as my team. We’ve also been humbled a couple of times, in interviews by candidates who asked us that question, you know, what makes you stand out from another employer? And why should I choose you? And those can be some tough questions, because a lot of employers just think, you know, I have a job, I’m going to pay a salary that should be good enough, you know, come on over. But candidates are looking for more than that. And I think, being transparent in the job postings about what it is you offer, what your culture is, like, what your values are, the type of flexibility that you offer, especially on the career growth, as Nicole had mentioned earlier, people are really looking for that. And I think there is a stigma with candidates in terms of looking for a job that they can oftentimes think, well, the only way that I’m going to grow is if someone leaves but growth is multifaceted, right? It’s not just about that next title. And it’s all about specialty projects, and enhancing your skills with professional development and special courses and upskilling, stretch assignments, things like that are all a part of that growth trajectory that I think candidates are and employers are looking for. So really communicating that in the job posting, but also having that be visible on your website. And the bow section, candidates do go there to look and they’re not just looking for you, as the company what you offer to your clients, but what you can offer to a potential candidate who’s interested in pursuing a job with your organization. So just being transparent about that, laying that out, really making your employer brand stand out, and using social media to do that, also to Nicole’s point and retain those other generations that are out there that are attracted to different things and in different ways. So making sure that you’re maximizing your reach of the candidate seed pool by using many different facets to kind of get that message across. Yeah,
Rob Markovic (Global Vice President, Workforce Planning and Talent Acquisition at PHC Group) 29:59
I agree. And I think another way that the recruiting team can do this themselves is through the entire candidate care experience. So making sure that the candidates can see that all the way through the process. So you almost don’t even have to talk about it. But you also have it there and your social and everywhere else. So they can read about it, or see a video about it, whatever the case may be. Nicole, any thoughts from you on this one? Yeah, no, I. So
Nicolle Barricella (Career Development Manager at Weill Cornell Medicine) 30:25
I totally agree with everything that Candice had subject to all the words out of my mouth. But it’s definitely crucial to not just claim that your organization provides the opportunities for you know, career events, and job security, whatever it is that the candidates and employers are looking for. But to really integrate those aspects into your company culture, like Candace had said, right, your culture is rooted in your organization’s DNA. And that becomes part of your brand that creates both internal and external perception, which then helps attract and retain your talent, right. So in addition to all the great things that Candice had recommended, you know, even including statements of growth and stability, for example, in your job postings, and using that as a selling point, right, so preparing examples to demonstrate how others have progressed within the organization, highlighting employee testimonials, you know, and those could be something, it doesn’t have to be fancy, it could be a short record recording that an employee makes on their own on their own phone or on Zoom. You know, we’ve done that here at Weill Cornell, and they’ve been truly impactful. But also one of the last things you just mentioned, Rob, kind of making sure it’s integrated throughout the process. So even during the hiring process, ensure that the interviewer is discussing, you know, future plans, potential career path for that position that candidate is interviewing for being considered for because this will help make that job offer much more attractive, they can see that this could be their next home. It’s not just a job, that could be a career.
Rob Markovic (Global Vice President, Workforce Planning and Talent Acquisition at PHC Group) 31:41
Yeah, absolutely. I think it’s a huge point that this is something that can be done relatively inexpensively. It’s not like you have to get a video company to come out and do all these things you can do. You can do it really homegrown and still have a huge impact. All right, very good. Well, that’s all the questions that we have right now. What I’d like to do is go back to the panel, and just get your final thoughts and anything that came up through the conversation that you’d like to share with the team. So Vandi, I’ll, I’ll start with you again, on that, please.
Vandi Theriot (Career & HR Coach at RiseSmart) 32:14
Sure, I think, you know, kind of agree with, you know, the way to stand out is to really showcase your investment and your workforce. And I think now, at a time where, you know, the workforce and candidates are, are not really confident, you know, in terms of long term or stability just in general, I think now’s the time for, you know, employers to really shine to say, you know, instead of an easy reduction in force, we’ve looked proactively at how we can upskill and, you know, promote and grow the careers and the people and the capabilities that we have. And I think that employers that are able to do that and have that narrative on Glassdoor and Timberline, they’re going to really stand out quite a bit. You know, and in terms of being an employer of choice, there was a question, just, you know, that I wanted to take really quick and terms of, you know, how do you help, you know, with those that candidates that, you know, probably equally equalizing the playing field in terms of diversity and inclusion. And I think some of what we talked about today, hits that, you know, in terms of not going for, like all the requirements and looking, you know, really encouraging candidates to apply, as well as just that internal growth as well. Yeah, are two examples that I can think of around that. All right, thank you.
Rob Markovic (Global Vice President, Workforce Planning and Talent Acquisition at PHC Group) 33:45
Yeah, thank you, Mandy. Candice, how about your final thoughts?
Candace R. Griffith (Senior Vice President Human Resources at Health Prime) 33:51
Yeah, I liked what Michael had said earlier about the skill adjacency. So we’re actually going through that process now. And we’re really exploring, understanding the skills that our current workforce has, because it is more than just what the skills we need them to do for the job. There are other jobs, other projects that are going to be coming up, you know, throughout the year for us that we would like to really take a deep dive internally. And so one of the things we’re working on this year is really strengthening our kind of talent management side of our operations, and to understand what the talent profile of our current staff is. And although we know the skills that they’re using on the jobs now, what other skills that do they have that will be useful six months from now, nine months from now, and we have new clients and new business coming through the door so that we can begin forecasting and be ready for that business and be ahead of the curve. You know, oftentimes, I think, in a lot of companies, you know, we may win a contract or whatever it is, and then we realize, okay, we need five new candidates that have X, Y, and Z, and to have that information that understanding that your current time talent pool within your own company already has this stuff. They may not be using it right now in their current job, but they do have that skill set that’s right now just untapped. So we’re really taking a focus approach on that. And 2024 again, understanding that talent profile, understanding where those additional skills may come in, in handy for us in the future. And also working a little bit more on our talent management review and understanding not only where we expect the employees to grow, but making sure it’s an alignment where they want to grow, so that our priorities are aligned, and they’re not out of whack when it comes time to make these decisions. So for us here at Health prime, um, like I said, just talent management in general, is something we’re really putting the focus on in 2024.
Rob Markovic (Global Vice President, Workforce Planning and Talent Acquisition at PHC Group) 35:46
Fantastic. Thank you. Nicole, what about you? Any last thoughts? Sure.
Nicolle Barricella (Career Development Manager at Weill Cornell Medicine) 35:50
Yeah. And we’ve already touched upon this at some point today, but the whole idea of skilling, rescaling upskilling, you know, it’s an ongoing process, right. So if I have to give one piece of advice for what we should prioritize for 2024 and on it’s, you know, invest in learning. And I think companies should prioritize learning as a key component of their business strategy going forward, when employees against the opportunities for career growth are more likely to say contribute to a company’s success, of course. But I want to provide kind of a word of caution here, we just want to make sure that it’s not just an HR-led initiative, right. So to really ingrain learning into your culture, HR leaders need to partner with their business leaders. So you want to ask yourself, you know, is learning considered important to my organization to my employees? Or is it a nice to have, or I’ll get the chance one night, right? When you really commit to providing learning opportunities and resources, what do you want to think about? What’s the business problem that you’re looking to solve, and then design those learning opportunities around that. But then, most importantly, and I think this is something that you know, even if you have the best thoughts in mind, if you’re not thinking about are my employees, do they feel safe, and taking advantage of those learning opportunities within business hours, right, I think that’s an important piece. It’s hard to carve out time, we’re all super, super busy. But it’s something that employees, you know, should have the ability to do. So make sure you have a variety of tools in your toolbox. It could be anything from classroom and e-learning classes, it could be job on the job training, could be coaching, mentoring programs, these are all great tools to have and get a lot of different variety and options for your employees. And also just use pilots, you know, don’t bite off more than you can chew, so to speak, right? If you start small, you’ll be able to tweak and then scale.
Rob Markovic (Global Vice President, Workforce Planning and Talent Acquisition at PHC Group) 37:30
All right, perfect. Thank you, Nicole. Michael.
Michael Watson (Director of Global Customer Evangelism at Eightfold AI) 37:34
Yeah, I agree with everyone. Here, I think there’s some great insights, the one thing that stands out to me is as an organization, you need to be intentional, right? Whether it’s setting up programs, setting up your learning management, like listening to your isa get feedback. But to be intentional with everything you do and have it really centered around the employee is how you’re going to get buy in if they think it’s just talk and they’ve provided this feedback and satisfaction surveys and, and they don’t see anything come as a result of that, then your folks are gonna walk out the door, you’re gonna have high attrition rates, and there’s nothing you can really do to curb that, right. So be intentional with everything you do as an organization, whether it’s setting up internal mobility program, setting up job sharing, and different kind of project marketplace, if you will, functions allow people to experiment, go and try this for, you know, 10 hours a month, whatever it is, just be intentional in how you approach your employees. And when you do that, you’d be surprised at vantage point earlier, you’d be surprised at what all of a sudden you start seeing on Glassdoor, you’ll be surprised at what you start seeing in your estat responses and your surveys and the scores of the satisfaction just by being intentional. And if you say something, do it.
Rob Markovic (Global Vice President, Workforce Planning and Talent Acquisition at PHC Group) 39:01
I think that’ll make it grow organically. It’s very good there. All right. First off, I’d like to say thank you to the panel. This was a great discussion. I think we touched on so many things that are so important right now. So I really appreciate your time. We do have a few minutes for a couple of questions. So I’m just going to read the first one. If anybody would like to answer it, please just jump in. So the first question is how do we balance the need for immediate job-related skills with the long-term career development or goals of employees?
Michael Watson (Director of Global Customer Evangelism at Eightfold AI) 39:42
Yeah, I’m happy to maybe start there. I think obviously, you need to hire for the skills you need immediately but then not just that, but through your one-on-one and your coaching, just understanding what their long term goals are. Right Hey, we need you in this role for 18 months, two years? Do a great job. What’s important to you next, right? So yeah, I, you know, you can’t hire someone for the future job of three years from now, while the current job that you need done is sitting there languishing. But you know, I think if you’re once again, and you’re intentional with, with what you do your one on ones, your performance, coaching, understanding the needs of your employees, and really building out a plan for them to get there, then I think this takes care of itself, right, you’re taking care of that immediate need. But you’re also feeding into that career and those goals and aspirations of your employees, which turns them into all of a sudden, 1015 year 20 year tenured employees, which are great for the organization, right? Think about all the money you save and having to onboard folks and that gap between onboarding and productivity. Right? If you can do that, you’re gonna see a tremendous savings and increased productivity for your organization’s
Rob Markovic (Global Vice President, Workforce Planning and Talent Acquisition at PHC Group) 41:00
Yeah, and intentionality and transparency, let people know where they’re going. Alright, we have about 30 seconds left, I’m going to try and get one more question in and so whoever answers it that really quick answers. So in terms of making competitive offers, how can we effectively communicate the value of career growth and stability to potential candidates? And what role does ongoing support and mentorship play in that process?
Vandi Theriot (Career & HR Coach at RiseSmart) 41:32
I would say, being transparent about around your metrics, you know, what’s your internal succession rate, correlating that to skill growth and capabilities, whether that’s certifications, you know, lead dens got, you know, the promotional piece that I got my job through LinkedIn, you know, being able to showcase I got my certifications, you know, through this company, how many searches being transparent, I think on what you’ve invested in or what your data says about how you’ve grown people.
Rob Markovic (Global Vice President, Workforce Planning and Talent Acquisition at PHC Group) 42:03
All right, very good. Okay, I think that’s about all the time where you have Brittany, I’ll turn it back over to you. Great.
Brittany Sullivan (Argyle) 42:10
Well, guys, thank you so much for such an insightful panel discussion. I also want to take the time to thank everyone else who joined us today. This session, along with all of today’s content, will be made available on demand following the event. Our next session will begin shortly at 12:25 EST, which will be a thought leadership titled, “AI and the employee experience: Separating fact from fiction.” Please click on the Join button that will appear on your screen to be redirected. We look forward to seeing you there. Thank you all again.
