Nicky Garcea, Chief Customer Officer
This was the unexpected topic of a panel I chaired at this year’s ISE Global Conference. Supported by panel members - Bob Athwal (Senior Consultant for Early Years and Student Experience), Jessica Grundy (Head of Early Talent Recruitment Strategy – EMEA at Johnson & Johnson) and Joe Voelcker (Global Head of Early Talent Recruitment at GSK) – we talked about global recruiting and future graduates.
I say the unexpected topic because our programmed title was How ready are graduates to join global
organisations. However, by the third day of the ISE event, my three panel
members felt the focus needed to be reversed. We needed to examine how ready we
are as global organisations for emerging talent.
It was a popular topic with involvement and much discussion
from the audience which included recruiters, talent development leads and
suppliers as well as the panel members themselves.
Key points are summarised here:
1. Is your global competency framework out of
touch with the emerging talent that you are recruiting for?
Many global frameworks are built on what
the organisation needs or what the current high performers demonstrate. Increasingly,
this leads to criteria such as ‘Technology / Digital Mindset’ being included in
a framework because it is based on what is lacking within the organisation
today. However, as Joe from GSK highlighted, criteria focused on technology is
less relevant for a digital native workforce. So should emerging talent be examined
on the basis of an organisation’s future talent needs rather than those generated
from incumbent performers?
2. Is your approach sufficiently agile to meet
the development needs of the workforce?
Jessica from Johnson & Johnson
highlighted how at her time at Accenture, she witnessed the benefits of an
organisation building an agile approach to learning and development. This meant
that training has a ‘just in time’ feel and could be better aligned to the
needs of individuals and trends across a cohort once they are in the business. This
approach requires a level of fluidity and time to understand the needs of new
recruits rather than trying to pre-empt this before they join.
3. Are managers ready to harness the talent of
the graduates, apprentices and interns joining their teams?
Each member of the panel reported on the
success that reverse mentoring can have in helping managers truly understand
the needs and desires of emerging talent. It also helps to dispel some of the
stereotypes that can build when emerging talent is only thought of as
homogenous group.
4.
Are
managers clear in communicating a realistic description of what a role involves?
The
panel talked about the risk of ‘overselling’ a job when talking about what’s
needed from a global role. There is a risk that we go out and recruit people
who will challenge the status quo and who have a diversity of perspectives and
styles but then we bring them into roles where the organisational culture
crushes all that creativity out of them.
5. Are all aspects of diversity being attended
to by educational institutions and organisations globally?
Bob Athwal has found that Careers Services are
having great success in helping diverse talent understand their strengths and
build confidence in applying to global organisations, although Joe highlighted
the need to understand across country nuances in diversity.
The overall feeling of the panel and
audience was that universities and organisations are making good strides with
diversity but a greater focus on all aspects of disability and mental health will
be imperative in the coming years.
6. Are we future proofing emerging talent
needs along-side organisational transformation needs?
With many jobs disappearing and components of
existing jobs being taken on by technology, the talent requirements of an
organisation are sometimes hard to predict. The panel and audience discussed
the need for greater dialogue with educational institutions so candidates are
made aware of these changing and ambiguous times. Organisations will also need
to examine whether the programmes they are offering emerging talent today, will
still be relevant over the next two or three years.
Throughout the lively session it became clear that there is
some really great practice being deployed within education and in organisations.
Those that are truly succeeding in preparing for emerging talent are agile,
listening and future proofing their approaches.
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