How does an organization’s expertise acquisition perform tie in with expertise administration? And might expertise acquisition (TA) transfer the needle on remodeling a corporation’s general expertise technique?
That’s the remit Ben Handyside, Director of Expertise Administration for EMEA, was introduced with when he joined Colliers in 2020. The corporate had already applied SmartRecruiters two years earlier than, however its hiring practices have been nonetheless inconsistent throughout its 119 places of work and 42 nations within the area. “Everybody acquired excited within the first section of SmartRecruiters implementation, however within the second 12 months, utilization dropped off,” Ben mentioned.
In a quest to rent higher folks, enhance retention, and assist staff develop their careers in Colliers’ decentralized expertise framework, the corporate launched into a holistic effort to rework expertise administration. “Expertise acquisition was one pillar of a broader group that was put in place to drive better ranges of consistency and maturity in expertise administration general,” Ben defined.
After digging into the info, Ben and his staff noticed gaps within the firm’s adoption of SmartRecruiters. As soon as he related together with his SmartRecruiters consultant, the lightbulbs began to go off. “I shortly realized that the facility of the system is its simplicity,” he mentioned. “It’s simple to make use of. However whenever you mix that with the connection and the flexibility to debate and analyze the info, it enabled me to know the place we wanted to go strategically.”
SmartRecruiters lined the extra tactical items of the expertise acquisition transformation in our success story, How Colliers Decreased Company Spending with SmartRecruiters. That doc tells the story of how constant hiring practices mixed with recruitment advertising, a CRM, and the corporate’s employer branding efforts resulted in a large enchancment within the firm’s means to make direct hires. However behind the scenes, the story is extra nuanced – and profound. Sure, you need your organization to save cash, however you additionally wish to make higher hires as a result of these are the individuals who shall be driving income for the enterprise sooner or later.
Placing all of the items collectively that contribute to creating higher hires requires a shift in considering amongst executives, hiring managers, and recruiters throughout the group. Right here’s how the partnership with SmartRecruiters helped the Colliers EMEA expertise acquisition staff obtain an organizational mindset shift.
A Imaginative and prescient for Expertise Acquisition
The obvious hole was a necessity for consciousness and training – however the want went deeper than that. “There was a necessity for consistency in strategy, but additionally alignment to imaginative and prescient and an appreciation of what expertise acquisition can ship.”
With the imaginative and prescient in place, it turned Ben’s mission to place expertise acquisition as a strategic enabler for the enterprise. “Expertise acquisition itself can affect the underside and prime line,” Ben mentioned. “Folks don’t suppose like that in lots of companies. They only sort of suppose ‘why can’t you rent me somebody? Why is it taking so lengthy?’”
When expertise acquisition is positioned on the heart of a corporation, hiring managers turn out to be extra concerned in making considerate hiring selections. “Recruitment is an enterprise sport,” Ben mentioned. To make true change occur, although, Ben’s staff needed to educate not simply the HR neighborhood, but additionally the senior management staff. Knowledge proved to be the important thing to the success of the transformation.
Bettering Knowledge Literacy
Knowledge has the facility to teach, however folks want to know what the info means and the right way to ask extra questions of it. Stakeholders could also be consultants in a single kind of knowledge, however information literacy for expertise acquisition is an acquired ability set that evolves over time. Stakeholders wanted time to rise up to hurry and perceive the affect of changes to hiring practices, and Ben needed to decelerate his expectations that change may occur in a single day.
Conclusions that could be apparent to an skilled take time to land in others, particularly if the info signifies a necessity to regulate previous methods of considering and behaving. After a sequence of month-to-month stakeholder conferences, Ben mentioned, “The questions began to alter and shift, which meant they have been getting snug of their understanding.”
If recruitment is an enterprise sport, the work of a complete expertise transformation is one other kind of staff sport — one which’s supported with compelling studies. “Knowledge proved to be foundational in driving consciousness and understanding the place our gaps have been,” Ben mentioned. “While you speak to folks and ask a number of questions, you begin to get fascinating solutions. You additionally begin to see the massive image.”
Knowledge Facilitates Accountability
Supporting the brand new imaginative and prescient of expertise acquisition for Colliers requires that everybody utilizing SmartRecruiters makes use of the system correctly. “The philosophy of ‘do the fundamentals nicely’ drives a distinct degree of efficiency,” Ben mentioned. As soon as utilization began bettering, Colliers may see value financial savings when it comes to diminished company spending.
When persons are held accountable, they’re extra prone to undertake new processes. The speedy availability of knowledge in SmartRecruiters, plus the recurrently scheduled reporting conferences helped Colliers’ hiring groups see that their day by day actions may add as much as a huge impact. “What fascinates me about SmartRecruiters is which you can go to the day, the hour, the second of an intervention,” Ben mentioned. “It provides us the flexibility to know the developments in our recruitment enterprise, diagnose how nicely issues are working, and determine the place the alternatives sit. It’s additionally actually intuitive, so you may’t get it fallacious.”
Expertise Acquisition Strikes the Needle on Complete Expertise Transformation
Hiring folks at a decrease value was only the start of the TA transformation at Colliers. Enhancements in high quality of rent and retention are the place the actual transformation lies. Colliers had already famous that its employer branding and recruitment advertising helped appeal to a distinct caliber of individuals to the enterprise. The true consequence confirmed up downstream: Colliers noticed a 25% year-over-year improve in retention for first-year hires.
Beginning with expertise acquisition, Colliers achieved a complete expertise win: they attracted higher folks, stored candidates engaged to the purpose of rent, and efficiently engaged them as staff.
Folks + Know-how = Hiring Success
We requested Colliers the right way to summarize the elements that contribute to the achievement of hiring success. Ben’s first take was, “Make sure the product is straightforward to make use of as a result of then folks will use it.” Nevertheless it wasn’t simply the system that facilitated a serious change in the best way Colliers attracts and manages expertise. He defined, “the actual worth lies within the mixture of individuals and expertise.”
Mentioning his SmartRecruiters buyer success supervisor, Ben continued, “As your relationship evolves, you begin to speak much more about what actually issues to your enterprise and start to formulate a workable technique.” Typically you don’t know what’s potential till somebody exhibits you — and typically, you must know the boundaries of the system to make your efforts profitable.
“SmartRecruiters is one of the best system I’ve used,” Ben mentioned. “It’s a best-in-class system, and it’s backed up by assist. That human, interpersonal relationship is de facto necessary.”
Classes from Colliers
The place your organization begins and the place it must go could differ from Colliers, however these classes apply to anybody seeking to save on recruiting prices, enhance rent high quality, and improve retention of latest hires.
- Align expertise acquisition with the general expertise technique
- Create a imaginative and prescient for what TA can obtain
- Enlist a best-in-class expertise acquisition platform
- Accomplice together with your expertise supplier to get probably the most out of the system
- Maintain stakeholders accountable with metrics to make sure system adoption
- Again up outcomes with common reporting to stakeholders
- Be affected person as stakeholders acquire information literacy
- Join TA and HR metrics to measure the downstream affect
A full-scale expertise acquisition transformation is an evolution – and we’d like to companion with you to get began. For a deep dive into how one can lead extra strategically, obtain our e-book, A Seat on the Desk: A Information to Main a Strategic Expertise Acquisition Operate.
