Employer Brand and Talent Strategy with Bryan Adams and Graeme Johnson

And we're live. Good afternoon, good morning, good evening, whatever time it is on the 6th of May. For those of you tuned in, welcome to this week's the shortlist. It's Wednesday, 6th of May. I'm Johnny Campbell, CEO, co founder of Social Talent. And we have another great show for you today. Over the next 45 minutes on the shortlist, it's week, it's month three of lockdown for most of us. So we're kind of getting to a more mature understanding of what's happening with regard to talent and hiring a lot of businesses. And we've got two excellent guests, two of my favorite people joining us today to have a chat about employer branding, but also talent strategy and how you have to change in a crisis. I encourage any of you who are watching or listening to, please chime in with your questions. Whether you're on YouTube or LinkedIn or wherever you're tuning in on podcasts, do chime in with your questions. We'd like to take your questions live, if you're listening live, and try and tackle those. Both of our contestants or contestants, both of our guests today are well up for whatever you have to throw at them. So I'm going to hand over to them to introduce themselves. We've got Brian Adams and Graeme Johnson going to hand over to Brian to tell the world about who he is and then pass over to Graeme. Brian, you're up.

Cheers, Johnny. Hi, everybody. I'm Brian Adams, CEO and founder of PH Creative. We're a global employer brand agency. We specialize in working with large organizations with complex talent audiences.

Thanks, Brian. Over to you, Graham.

Hey, guys. Contestant number two, Graham Johnson. So I'm director of resourcing talent and development at GBC Group. So we're the world's largest sports betting and gaming business.

So, lads, I'm too used to doing these kind of zoom quiz shows with work with people at the weekends. It's like I just alternating the screen in front of me. It's like, where's my point? And what question are we on next? And who wants to be even in there? Right, so not quite there yet. So we're going to start with the news as we do every week on the show. We got three articles we want to have a discussion around. So I'm going to ask nad to bring up our first article and three great articles this week and tons to choose from. And the first is around, I guess, the risks of reopening and the conversation, which I know when Ireland started last week when we announced our roadmap to get back to work. But in most parts of the world in the last few weeks, they've announced a roadmap to get back to work and that's leading to a conversation in businesses about, well, are we going back to work? When would that happen? So I came to hear your thoughts. Graham and Brian around, who go back to work, what jobs, what roles, et cetera. What does that look like? When is the right time? Know when will we have normality, if there's such a thing as normality in the office place again. So maybe, Graham, your thoughts on that maybe applicable to your business? Yeah. What are you guys thinking about?

Yeah, cheers, Johnny. I mean, it's a real live debate for us. Actually was on a call this morning with the leadership team, just kicking around our plans and interesting. In the article I picked out, it was like 58% of people are concerned and it was US audience, US pool, which Brian will be an expert in. But I think that that's probably an underestimate. I think. I think if you were to look at Europe or UK in particular for us, I think there would be more anxiety about going back to work right now. Particularly, you know, you're not really seeing that death rate, recovery rate come down yet. We're waiting to see what government are going to announce this week. But for us, I mean, one thing I really loved was like a really bold, brave statement that it's a guy called Rich Barton who runs Zillow in the us. He pushed that out on. I think it was on Twitter the other week and it was. There's no expectation whatsoever if you don't need to go into an office, you don't have to go into one for the rest of the year. And I think companies that have been a bit more brave and a bit more bold about statements like that, that really drop the anxiety levels of their staff, I think that's really important. But I think there's also like a balance between, you know, there are people who maybe don't have the right conditions at home, maybe need to be part of a team and working in our business, certainly we've got traders who have incredible amount of kit, we've got betting control teams, you know, and they work best in an office. So what we're thinking through and working through is for those that practically need to be in, what are the steps we need to take, what's the, you know, capacity level in an office that's sensible and safe, but absolutely putting people's safety first and not, you know, not doing anything to kind of jump the gun. Just a time for us to be conservative really and stay at home as long as we can.

What do you got, Jim? Brad?

Yeah, so personally with ph, we'll probably take a more conservative approach and I don't think there's anything wrong with swift, decisive action as long as you're doing it with the best interests of your people in mind and you're communicating that with empathy. So we'll probably be more conservative than most just because we know that there is nervousness within our team. And what we're doing now is taking the time in between to assess what we're going back to because it's all about the next normal. And I think we're probably in an unprecedented time of socially accepted vulnerability. So we can be more transparent and there's just a sense of empathy across the world right now with every organization. So we're just sort of taking it step by step, not jumping into anything, but we're being more transparent with our people. And I think that's what's being appreciated the most.

It's funny, I heard two stories. One was from a couple of weeks back. Again, they're third hand, so I can't say they're 100% true of these organizations. But I believe the CFO of ebay in Ireland had an all hands a couple weeks ago with the team here, about 1300 people, they're based at North Dublin outside the city in a big building and announced that, you know, the future is going to incorporate virtual and they don't ever plan to have 1300 people back in that building. And then a buddy of mine who's in with Amazon here in senior role in Dublin was telling me he was informed during the week that they can continue to work home in perpetuity. You know, there's an office there for them to come back to when it's ready. But don't worry about it. If you want to, if you're comfortable doing this, we will never have to ask you back. I don't know if that applies to all levels of jobs, you know, but maybe it's, maybe it's more the tech companies are kind of being brave, as you say, Graham, making those bold statements. Now not everyone's in a position to do that. And you know, you don't jump the gun three weeks in and say, hey, this is great, let's do it forever. And then eight weeks in, go, why did I say that?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's definitely, I think, I mean, there's interesting piece in The FT this week as well, about like 25% of CFOs are reviewing their property strategy. All economic predictions you see are, you know, a virtual work. It's almost like this period is going to fast track the move, that some businesses maybe being a bit hesitant or reluctant, but they've actually proven they can do it. So I think, you know, there's implications there for commercial properties. You know, what's. What's London in our case going to look like? It'd be really, really interesting in the sort of weeks and months to come. But I think people, there's some businesses making smarter moves to have, like, campuses and, you know, where they've got three or four offices in one one location. Just go to one and reduce. And I think that'll be a big trend.

I'd say we'll see a lot of innovation in commercial property. You know, we were only thinking about our circumstances, right. You know, I was like, should we just go move to a WeWork and have a certain amount of WeWork spaces available? But actually, even we work as it is, as I understand it today, that doesn't really work because people still don't want to commute to a city to sit in a desk. Maybe they don't want to be at home with their kids, to your point, Graham. Right. Or anyone else that's making noise in the house all day long to get their job done. But maybe they just want to go down the road two miles and maybe. I'm hoping you'll see innovation where commercial property companies like WeWork start opening really small satellite offices everywhere, so that literally there's always a place to go five miles from your house, and you can buy a membership card and go somewhere that suits you that's not in a crazy commuting kind of city or whatever. But I think I'm hoping. Never underestimate the power of entrepreneurs that come up with ways of. Of leveraging new solutions for companies that are all faced with these decisions. I'm going to move to our next article, actually, because it's very related. I think it's a good point to make at this point, which is the fact that. Thanks, Niall. This is from Business Insider, and we're talking about remote working and we're talking about people. Will they work from offices or not? The reality is, we all know is that's not representative of the entire workforce. Some people just will always have to go back to their place of work, do their job. But it's interesting here, looking at the countries in terms of the top 10 countries in the world by GDP, what percentage of jobs, an estimate of the percent of jobs that can be done at home and the ranges. And one of the kind of challenging things that I saw in this article was that the richer countries typically can do more of their jobs at home and poorer countries tend not to be. So that's not really balanced view of the world. So what did you guys get from this article?

Well, I think it's a snapshot in time and I think if you, if you fast forward six months, think those stats will probably change radically because as you say, you know, innovation kicks in, needs must and people adapt, you know, so it'd be interesting to see the trend of those figures, not just the, the snapshots. I noticed UK is not on there at all actually.

Yeah.

You know, so I'd be interested to see, you know, the change. Not necessarily, you know, take, take those, those numbers and center a discussion around what is now or even, you know, three months ago, six months ago. It's probably different.

Yeah. And I think I've just added to that. I think it's got an interesting implication for companies, big companies that have offshored a lot to like India, Asia, you know, talking about our operations, it's been hardest to kind of jump to a business continuity plan in the Philippines, in Hyderabad actually. And I think that companies might rethink, you know, whether they'll do some reshoring activity. And I think it's been a good test for a company to see how they can cope. So yeah, I agree with Brian. Like there were stats sort of a little bit of skeptical about. I think a lot more companies and countries can do it when they set their minds to it. And I think that will probably look quite different in the next six months.

I know some economies are more manufacturing and more agricultural oriented than others, but I'm one of the bottom countries. As in a low percentage of your jobs according to that stack can be done remote. I'd look to the countries that have a high percentage and say that's achievable. We could get there. It might not be where we are today, but what's Luxembourg doing? What's unique about Switzerland? What's unique about Sweden? Norway. Sweden and Norway have large manufacturing bases as well. It's not as if they're pure tech, you know. So how does that compare to Austria for example? You know, how could Germany learn from that and try and open up more opportunities for that?

I think part of it will be talent led as well, you know, if suddenly there's People out there saying, well actually I've never considered working from home, but this has given me a much better balanced life. I see more of my kids, I can get my work done. I don't like the commute anyway. You know, this is what I want. Now you for organizations paying huge overheads in London for offices housing hundreds of tech developers and software engineers and all the rest of it, that could change. So the options of being able to onshore roles that previously made sense to outsource to different countries could well change very quickly because people are in the short term certainly more than happy to sacrifice salary for quality of life, work, life balance and working from home. And then, you know, if you see commercial property decline because of that, you know, you'll probably find commuter city to towns around London, you know, the domestic house prices will probably grow because people can work and have more flexibility and that kind of stuff. So it's going to be on that.

Point, let's jump to article number three because I think that's, this is probably where we're getting to the conversation right now is an unprecedented opportunity to hire great talent. This is a Harvard Business Review article that I think we're beginning to touch on these points. I won't comment actually because I know, Graham, you're about to jump in there and I think it's, you know, we're seeing the opportunity. What do you see as the opportunity? What are you seeing as the potential for this?

Well, I was just going to sort of add to what Brian was saying and related to this article. I think any recruiters, sources thinking about practical things they'll be doing now, it's not asked questions like where does the talent exist in proximity to our where does the talent exist? And to give those insights. So for us, you know, we're looking at data scientists and we were constrained previously by trying to make sure it's sat in one of our hubs. But I think we're reconsidering that question now. So I think it's got those implications. One interesting thing for me about is how ready will people be to jump. So I think the next 12 months we're heading into a global recession. People who were ready to probably move from organizations will be looking for different things. Security will be one thing, how their employers treated them, how recession proof their organization is. I think what you might get is a bit of a slower movement of talent or it might be harder to get top talent out of an organization, you know. So I think there's some implications there about demand supply that we need to think through carefully without a shadow of.

A doubt, you know, and I think priorities of the talent audience have shifted dramatically just in a few, in a few weeks. But I think it is an unprecedented time to attract top talent. You know, there's massive opportunity, massive more opportunity, arguably. But also I think there's an even greater risk of pitfalls and making assumptions that, you know, could actually leave you high and dry. I mean, just assuming that top talent will come back to you if you've made massive layoffs, I think is, is a risk. You know, don't assume that once you fill the position that that's the end of the story as well, because people might just take a job because they need a job. And then, you know, how you're treating your people at the moment, I think will be a legacy that'll stay with you for many, many years, you know, and also, don't, don't assume that the talent that you've retained through this are going to stay as well, because they're having, you know, a lot of people are having epiphanies left, right and center and reassessing the life, you know, what was important a couple of weeks ago is suddenly doesn't matter, you know.

So I'm going to take some questions I want to hear. Brian, maybe you can answer because I think for your area of expertise, particularly around the plural, branding could be good. This is from Celine. I see that I didn't pronounce that correctly. A sourcing specialist, Goldman Sachs, asking how can we attract the talent during these uncertain times as candidates considering economic conditions and not so likely to look for new change? You know, maybe, Brian, what's your slant on this maybe addressing that employer brand topic we wanted to talk about? How does an organization gear up? What's, what's the right thing to do and the wrong thing to do to be in a position to attract this great talent in this unique market.

So the first thing is I think we're going to look back on 2020 as the year of employer brand. We might not recognize it until 2021, but there's never been a better time to exercise a strategic use of employer brand. And I think in such uncertain times, what people are looking for is security, certainty and clarity of an offer. But that can't happen without reassessing what the current reality is, what people care about and how you can match what you have to that. But, you know, I would implore anybody to lead with a much more transparent approach of being very clear with what the demands and expectations of your employee experience is, you know, so people know what they're walking into and you know, people are consciously now asking very different questions which get to the heart of your organization. So be there first. Control the narrative, be very transparent and know if, if you can inject more empathy and compassion into your offer, which is difficult sometimes as an employer brand leader, you know, it's. You're not controlling the why or what, you're controlling the how. But if there's fundamental change, you know, even if that means vulnerability, I would say lead, lead with that. There's never been a more socially acceptable time to be vulnerable and give somebody an opportunity to add impact and make a decision as to whether they want to come on that journey with you, you know, so I know there's a lot of things in there, but if you, if, if you do take that approach, I think there's a, a massive opportunity, a huge opportunity. And I think it'll be the difference between, I think there'll be a gulf in, in, in organizations performance over many years and we'll look back and it's because the great talent joined the, the compassionate, transparent organizations and, and the remaining organizations will wish they'd put performed better in the last few months.

I don't know what you think of this, Brian, but I was thinking about like, how do you tap into the anxiety levels of the things that are going to be on people's minds that are actually going to stop them, prevent them from wanting to make a move like short term, next 12 months. And I think it's about, like partly about anxiety of how do you integrate into an organization if you're going to have to be onboarded Virtually your normal sort of move into a business is you build relationships in your first three months, you earn your stripes, you make an impact. It's going to be much harder to do if you're going to receive a laptop in the post. So how do you, how do you kind of, you know, from a week ago we're going to onboard you. We realize this might be a concern of yours. This is how we're going to support you on board yourself, but also some things we'll do to help set you up for success.

Well, I think it's a brilliant point you make, but, and this sounds counterintuitive, I know many things I say, but I don't know about your organizations, but I do suspect like ph, you know, we're all further apart physically than we've ever been, but we've never felt closer. And it's not Physical proximity. It's the sentiment of your messaging, it's the empathy behind that. It's listening and being human and getting through, you know, times thick and thin together. And I think you can onboard somebody virtually with more empathy and compassion and thought and transparency and togetherness if you decide to. So. So actually I would, I would be careful with that assumption.

Great. What are you guys doing in GBC in terms of strategy? I know a great question from Isan in the Coca Cola company here saying, you know, do you think this new normal will have a huge impact on employer branding strategies? Let's go up a level to just talent strategies. You know, you guys, I assume going into this had a talent strategy. How different is your current strategy today from eight weeks ago?

Yeah, I mean, the real challenge we faced is, you know, our retail estate in the UK is shut down. So, you know, we've shut our shops. But we're growing on our digital business in our gaming brands and we're growing in other markets in the US So we never switch off, you know, we're always hiring, we're always in the market and sourcing and talking to candidates. But I think our emphasis has changed so we're focusing on our digital strategy. We're looking at, you know, which markets are going to generate revenue for us and which roles are really critically important in the short term and making sure that we're prioritizing those. So we've gone down to kind of skeleton staff, reduce the amount of activity that we've got. But we're really focused, you know, about the types of roles that are going to make a big impact in the short term. So we shifted in terms of our talent strategy then from a business point of view, I mean, we've just been really clear with our people about the two objectives we've got. We're going to be conservative, we're going to do two things. We're going to protect all jobs and we're going to conserve cash. So everyone's got the same two objectives throughout the whole business. And when we come out of come out of this, there'll be a time to be more aggressive and we'll be aggressive. But you know, we've just been really clear to our people. You know, this is, this is the strategy right now.

And you know, what's the cool thing about that that you just said? There is, you know, it's an assumption that usually there's times like this there's a tension between the organization conserving cash and doing the best for the organization financially. And pulling against what's right for people. And actually with the transparent approach that you've just articulated, there's a phenomenal opportunity to galvanize people together. Don't leave it as an elephant in the room. It's like the best thing for all of us is because it can serve cash so we can actually employ people and pay wages and all the rest of it. Therefore, here's what we need from you and let's all pull in the same direction. And you know, I think once you start to look for the correlation between business health and employee welfare, that's where you start to find unity and you can, you know, dial up the messages of that will bring people impact, purpose and a sense of belonging.

Yeah, we've talked about it on the last couple of episodes of this show, but Sarah Gordon is bringing up a question that's kind of echoed a bit by Isabelle Isabel from Schneider is asking will the crisis lead to a change in performance management and evaluation? And then you actually, sorry, Paul Berry is asking, you know, will leadership let go control of people to work flexibly, remotely because it makes more. Makes total sense to work remotely, but takes trust in good performance measures. It does take trust, does take good performance measures, you know, will it will. Therefore people have to change the way they do performance management and evaluation because all that stuff is built for the old analog in office world. Like, what do you think?

Yeah, well, I mean, you're talking to. I mean, I work for more of an entrepreneurial organization where we don't have traditional performance management, you know, so we're actually just working through what performing at GVC looks like and it's kind of good career conversations, some goals. We don't look to kind of measure people with the scoring matrix. So we're slightly different in that respect. I think if people are kind of lumbered with a traditional performance management approach and wondering, like, how do you switch that if the strategy changes? I think I'd rip up your performance management strategy.

I agree. And I think there's disruptive change coming whether you like it or not. And I think using the word control is interesting because there might be a perception of control, but like any disruptive change, it's going to be audience led and people want, need and will ultimately demand something different. They'll respond to something different. So, you know, there's no rules at this point.

We just last week when we were kind of prepping for today, prepping being having a bit of banter and chat and then doing work. But I raised a question that been asked of me earlier in the crisis around, you know, is it the right time to do employer branding? Should, you know, should you be putting out there, We're a good old join when you know there's, there's no jobs perhaps, or you're furloughing people. Right. And both of you responded like with passion would be the wrong word almost. You raised a really interesting point about what who employer branding is for. Want to be wanted to take that and start discussing that because I, I thought was a great conversation.

I think our audience, contestant number one, fingers on the buzzers. You know, for those organizations who think that they can and can't do employer brand, it's just like when social media started and they thought they had a choice of whether their brand was on social media or not. I've knocked the monitor now with.

You.

Know, your, let's be clear, your employer brand is anything that impacts the perception or reality of the employee experience. It's, there's never been a better time to focus on your employer branding, to try and control the narrative of your employer brand. And you know, it's not about attracting talent. It's about who you are as an organization through the eyes of the relationship of an employer to an employer or associate. So everybody has an employer brand, whether it's by design or not. And if you want to stay in business, if you want to compete at the top and you want to retain great people and do the right thing by people and lead an organization with purpose, you need to look at your employer brand and make sure it's fit for purpose going forward. You know, I, I can't feel more passionately about that at all.

Yeah, I completely agree. I mean, it starts inside your organization, doesn't it? Always does. I think, you know, you need to have relationships with your internal comms team, your marketing teams. You need to be built from the ground, you know, and it's, it's a choice of like joining a conversation to talk about yourself and having a really clearly articulated story. But yeah, it's not, it's not an option of whether you do it. It's like saying, you know, do we choose to communicate or not?

Are you talking about yourself and your wife are working?

Definitely work. Definitely work.

So good question here from James P. How can a strategy be converted to an action plan? So to me, this is, I guess, the point of I get, you know, holistically, you know, your employer brand strategies about your people first and their experience and telling the world about that. We talked about transparency, honesty. Greg, you Talked about how your organization has a different approach to talent management. Right. But you could argue their ideas. Right. How does that actually turn into tactical stuff from a strategic change in your strategy plan, you know, in the last six to seven weeks down to what are the tactical things that are therefore happening that are different today as a result of that thinking?

Yeah, I mean, I'll give an answer. It's really practical, Brian. You can build on that. I mean, we've got a plan which is called making it stick, Right. So you have an employer brand, you research it, you communicate it effectively, you get your leadership team involved, and you really, you're just holding the mirror up and playing back to the organization what you found. So some key themes and how it plays out in the organization. This is what we think our lived experience is. This is what we think life is like here. Simple as that. And then you look at your touch points from, you know, from people when they consider joining a business, your traction channels, what you do on social, what you do in your career site, what your referral program looks like, the messages in that then all the way through to, you know, how you train people, what your leadership development content is, what you say about inclusion. And you have a plan for every single touch point within your employee experience. And you just work through, like, to what extent? If we embedded our employer brand across all these touch points, and in some cases it could take six months, some cases it can take 18 months, we're probably halfway through a plan at the moment of embedding ours. But it is a really practical thing.

Absolutely. And I think first and foremost, a very basic thing is it needs to be aligned with the overall business strategy. And I think if you look, look at the top priorities in on your CEO's desk, you will find without question, and I'd love to be challenged by the audience, you will find a derivative people issue or challenge or an opportunity to improve. You know, so the main thing is making sure it's aligned there. But on a very practical level, like right now, for example, with your employer brand, how do you use it and put it to good, good purpose? We've been talking to our clients about, first of all, you've got to educate. People want certainty and clarity and they want to feel included and they want to know what's going on. You know, so educating so people understand what is the current reality and what is the future reality you're trying to move towards. And then being clear with, okay, how is the demands and expectations of the employee experience changed? Just give me education that's the first stage. Second stage for us is then to motivate people to want to contribute and want to play their role in helping the organisation move forward, helping each other move forward. So this constant sort of storytelling and looking for opportunities to add motivation throughout the organization. And the final one is to celebrate those successes. And those successes could be Johnny was struggling, working from home and wasn't coping on his own very well. So Graham shared a little insight that really made a significant difference to Johnny. And here, here it is. Well done. You know, and by even the tiniest win demonstrates that we're moving forward together. And, you know, if you haven't, if you've ever been in a foxhole with somebody, when you come out the other side, you know, you have a bond for life. Quite often, you know, there's opportunities to collect those stories and replay them to the organization and show them what you're made of. And if you can demonstrate concept consistency with the guiding principles you've been talking about for the last few years. You know, they say great pressure is revealed under pressure. Sorry, great character is revealed under pressure. You know, so if you can show, look, our values, our behaviors, the guiding principles still is true now, today, in crisis, as they were 12 months ago. People will thank you for that, you know, so it's an opportunity to galvanize and lead people through this with certainty and clarity.

I love that. It's a brilliant point. I think if, you know, you should be seeing the personality of your organization, like, at a heightened level right now, like it should be playing out. And if it's not, then, you know, you've probably got your employer brand wrong in the first place.

Yeah, I mean, your employer brand, I would say this, but your employer brand is a phenomenal example of that, Graham. You know, you can take the sentiment of each EVP proposition and put it to practical use really, really quickly, simply and easily. And in fact, you could use it, anyone in the organization could use it to make communication decisions and not be too far wrong.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, we're seeing that. I mean, we've got like our chief exec talking about doing the right thing by our people, doing the right thing by, you know, preserving jobs, preserving cash. And just like the story, the narrative that we've got, which is this stuff, I can't show that, like, history of the business, where we're headed and stuff, this is our story and it's playing out in reality now and people are clinging to it as well. It's like, um, it gives people like a Bit of an anchor, I think, right now.

Yeah. It's that sense of certainty, you know, familiarity that we talked about earlier.

But people need that in crisis. You, you, you clutch to things that are familiar or safe, are stable or constant. And if your workplace is not that, then the first opportunity, I think, after this, that you can get the hell out. You will get the hell out. It's like I thought I worked for this kind of an organization and then when the going got tough, they just didn't act in the way that I expected them. That's disastrous. There's going to be many companies doing that.

Absolutely. I think there's organizations who are. They've let people go or they're faced with an uphill challenge in the near future of hiring hundreds or thousands in many cases of people to fill gaps in their organization on the assumption that the people they have are going to stay. And that's dangerous because, I mean, I personally know of many people, many friends and family members who are in positions right now literally just waiting for the day that it's a bit more stable and they can get out of their current employer.

Yeah, yeah.

I want to talk about future talent for a second. Right. There's been a few comments that come through, so I'll read a couple of them. There one from Sarah Gordon talking about, you know, people work from home and don't have to spend thousands on train travel. Will we see salaries reduced or a continuation of stagnation? And Isabel talking about, you know, some companies were concerned with talent pipelining strategy. Is it best at the moment? How do you communicate if the hiring for open position has been postponed, et cetera, et cetera. So our last article we referenced at the very start of the show talked about that, you know, how now is the opportunity to maybe go after the great talent. Be brave. Don't stop all your hiring. No, you gotta, if you have a good balance sheet behind you as an organization, take the opportunity to find the great talent. Right now, I know a lot of recruiters are being asked to source and find talent, but there are implications as to, you know, are they finding talent in locations that are different to what we would have looked for eight weeks ago? Because they can. Because the certainty needed for you're a recruiter and you're hiring for a role that was based in Bristol and you were just looking at the local Bristol market. It's a place in the UK for anyone not from the uk.

Right.

But like, like, you know, do you now have the right to look for. Look for anyone in the world because it can be done remotely and without the clarity around some of those questions, a source or can pipeline, she can't screen the right candidates. You can't make plans for an organization. There is certainty required to make those decisions as a recruiter, don't you think?

Yeah, I think so. And I think it's about like the conversations that you have with the business leaders that run those functions. You know, depends what you've got in Bristol and can it be done elsewhere and is the leader open to that and does that fit in with the strategies? I think, you know, sources, recruiters should definitely be challenging where they're looking, I think why and sort of giving insights as well as to where other talent exists. I think that's our job to do that. Talking about how do you be more strategic. I think that's, that's one thing. The other thing I think Isabella raised. I was just looking at the question on the chat about communication honestly about, you know, pipelining how honest you be with people if you postpone a hiring. I think you just be brutally honest. I mean within our retail estate, we constantly recruit in retail. We never switch it off. We've got pipelines all over the country. We've got a list of hotspots that we're going to and we've just gone out with people, we've assessed them, we've taken them to a certain point in the process where we've kind of gone. We don't know when we're going to open yet. When we do, you're on a list, we want to talk to you and there'll be a job offer there. But until then we don't. So just be really honest, keeping in contact and just doing that CRM stuff really well, you know, not, not, you know, not avoiding the subject and you know, or misleading. I think just be really honest. Right now I think you've got permission to do that.

I think that's all you can do, isn't it? But I think, you know, there's definitely a small window of opportunity and some organizations, if they can move with more agility, they've probably got an opportunity to get an unfair advantage of top caliber talent right now. If they do take that, take that risk, I guess and if they don't, they perhaps might look back and wish, wish they had. But it's got to be done with brutal honesty and transparency.

Yeah, I was chatting with my boss like just before went into lockdown and we were talking about exactly this point. I was, you know, like the companies that Jump on. This is an opportunity to hire talent anywhere. They're going to be the ones that win. And I think that's still true.

So I think that honesty and transparency is really important. As I talked to a few talent leaders who said they've been challenged with the dilemma of do I leave my vacancies open on my website? Because we want a pipeline but we can't actually hire for them. It feels dishonest. And I spoke to one head of talent for a massive big global retailer who said that in her organization she had every single spec change to state. We want us to talk to you but we can't hire right now. They didn't just want to make the assumption that people would figure it out. They're like, there's ambiguity here. We got to go. We do want a pipeline because we don't know when we might need this person because we will need them soon. Want to talk to them. We're not ready. Let's change every single job spec on our website. And there's a lot of effort but I think it's really good.

It's the same like it's the same when you're on consumer website. I mean everyone's on Amazon buying stuff now, right? And it's like COVID 19 or not even Amazon's website because they're delivering stuff. But there's other things that I'm kind of waiting for but I know where it is because I've got a message saying it's not going to be ready yet. We've got deliveries. It's the same thing.

I don't know whether you need to put it on every job ad. I'll just put a global banner across the website. Probably save you some time but you know that, that transparent. I don't think I would add the word until if possible, you know, until at least July. Like expect setting expectations, you know, but still encouraging people to apply is. I think is. Is fair. And then you know, as soon as you have information, share it. But you know, it's a company, it's an organization's decision as to whether they can accelerate some of those decisions. And you know, in many cases it would be a smart move to do so if possible.

And I think it was more that they have those jobs reposted on third party websites. So I want to make sure they get indeed and all that kind of stuff.

No, no, that's, that's.

No you don't. It's kind of, it is a, it is a chicken and egg and you know I Think there are roles you want to hire for right now. There are roles you will need maybe in two weeks, maybe in two months. We're not really not sure. But to start again in two months is going to be damaging and you've got to have that, that pipeline there. I'm going to move towards, towards kind of getting some final advice. What we want to try and do in the shortlist, guys is get a kind of one top piece of advice from each guest. So I'm hoping for one each from each of you which is kind of eager to ask your recruiting child or nephew, who says dad, should I be a recruiter? Give them one piece of advice in recruiting. What's your best piece of recruiting advice either from now or you've always had. And Brian, I expect you to tell a good story because you're a master of storyteller. I'm going to take this last opportunity, big pressure, last opportunity for audience to ask us any questions they want to close off with before we sign off. So want to get those two points in early. Before we take final questions from Brian or Graham, give me your piece of advice to add to our short list of recruiting advice from great leaders, what would it be?

I would implore people to be more brave and more upfront and look at employer brand and the art of signs and art of attracting talent as less of a sort of magnet effect and more of a smart filter. And don't just accept the fact that every role or your organization isn't for everybody. Actively communicate that message. So we always say if it was your job to convince somebody not to join the organization, what would you say? Assuming you can't lie, be upfront with the adversities and harsh realities of your organization, you know, and, and protect the culture you've got by looking for people that are going to be a good match. Don't just attract people with sizzle because it doesn't work.

Yeah, yeah, completely agree. I mean to be, to be a good recruiter, I don't know if I would advise my boys to get into recruitment in my experience. But your business, like, you know, the recruiter role is the most important thing. You can have the best strategy, the best technology, the best tactics in the world, but the recruiter is the difference. So your ability to kind of build relationships, get people talking, build a network with inside your business and really understand your business, I mean that's going to what that'll be what makes you successful and a successful leader in the, in the recruitment talent acquisition space. I did have A really practical. Because I thought you said give me like a prediction or a tactical thing someone can do.

I've got a prediction for you if.

You want that one. I think there's something in this virtual onboarding stuff. You know, I think that people are going to be anxious about jumping ship and I think you need to play on that anxiety in the companies that do that really well that say to people, we know you might not want to move right now, but we think, you know, we think we've got a brilliant way to bring you on board and this is how we're going to do it to like really drop, you know, drop that anxiety level down and, and do that in a brilliant way. I think virtual onboarding is going to be the big thing in the next 12 months.

I've been having conversations with different talent leaders over the last few weeks and all on scale of grapple with that. How do we virtually onboard and come up with different solutions for it. And yeah, there's practical logistics of some countries just cannot ship a laptop because they can't deliver it. It's not fairly good right now. And you've got long places like India where you've got 90 day notice periods where there still are people who are hired pre Covid who haven't joined yet. Right. There's still a challenge there. I think you're right that there is an opportunity to do some really cool. I expect Brian will write about this in a year's time. The great examples in his next book. The great examples of companies who did something really cool like sent you stuff or got you set up with something or whatever as a way to kind of go, we've got you and we're with you at home. I think it's not for everyone though. I think, you know, as companies begin to tell each other, this is what we're telling our colleagues, this is what we're going to do and this is the way we're going to work from now on. Some people might go, wow, that's not for me, I get it, it's not for me. I'll go somewhere else. That to your point Brian, about be honest and transparent? I think you might go, oh crap, everyone's going virtual. We're not ready to go virtual after code, maybe it's kind of go, that's okay. There will be somebody for you who for them that will actually be the thing they prefer whatever that is for your organization if you just communicate it transparently and openly.

Absolutely. I couldn't agree more. Apart from the fact that I won't need to write that book next year because one of my biggest predictions is the smartest marketing dollars of 2020 and 2021 is to tell the stories of the people behind brands. And I think what we'll see is organizations being more empathetic to people as employees and consumers. You know, and it's one in one in the same. And I think, I think we will see those stories naturally be used in a whole variety of ways and we will probably see a trend of consumer habits changing based on how organizations have treated employees over the last few weeks in the sort of coming months.

Graham, where can people find. Oh, sorry. What kind of skills is your organization. Final shout out. What kind of skills are your organization, your organizing going to be needing over the next six months? And where can those types of people find out more information about the roles you're going to be hiring for?

Yeah, cool. We're going to do a big push on data scientists, business intelligence analytics, so they can find us on GVC careers.com.

Tons of easy roles that you'll definitely feel like. Thousands of CVs coming in for you.

The world is all right.

Awesome. Brian, tell us about your latest book and where can people find it? I know people are consuming so much more knowledge and learning. It's a good opportunity to read a great book like the one yourself and Charlotte have written.

Yeah. So you can, you can find that on Amazon, just search for give and get employer branding. Or you can look@giveandget.net or ph creative.com.

Gentlemen, thank you both. I'm trusting from our fantastic team backstage for telling me there's only compliments coming in rather than questions, which probably means there's loads of hate messages coming in right now. So, you know, we'll deal with that. So I'm going to ask both of you to hang on. We're going to jump off for a quick conversation afterwards. Thanks to everyone for listening. We've got a great show coming up for you next week, so I'm going to ask Niall to throw up some information if we haven't ready. So next week we've got my great friend Lars Schmidt. Lars is fantastic. You've never heard his podcast, 21st Century HR. I encourage you to start subscribing Lars. The last couple of years been interviewing a different chro or cpo. It's Chief People Officer every week and from the most interesting companies. He's a brilliant presenter, a fantastic thinker in this world. We ran a stage at Unleash in Paris last October seems like a lifetime ago. And Lars Talk on our stage was the most well attended. We had a packed audience come over to hear him. He'll be joining us next week at 4pm That's British Irish time. That's going to be 11am eastern in the US which is about 8am on the west coast of the United States. And that is about 11pm in Singapore time. So that's, that's our next week's show with Lar Schmidt. Please join us on YouTube, social talent or on my profile Johnny Campbell on LinkedIn. Until then, we'll see you soon.