The New Face of Recruitment: Team Building and Skill Acquisition in 2021

Written by Michael Riall

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January 28, 2021

Last year we released an: eBook: The Future of Work; which was designed to give organizations information about the changes we were observing in the workplace, as well as help businesses navigate those changes. This year we want to continue that work, starting off by taking a look at the changes we’ve seen in recruitment.

What’s Changed?

The landscape for hiring and acquiring new talent for businesses changed dramatically last year, along with so many other things. Not only has the hiring process itself changed, but top talent, those with really valuable skills and experience, have changed their expectations as well—leading to a recruitment process focussed on filling skill gaps.

Why is this?

An increase in the capacity to work remotely means employers have access to more potential employees to fill a role than ever before.
However, the skills needed to fill roles and become an asset to a business are becoming more technical and specialized.
- Therefore, narrowing down candidates can be difficult for those who don’t possess those skills.
- Recruiting, hiring, onboarding, and managing the right individual(s) is not only hard to do, but has a higher amount of risk involved.

As discussed above, managing remotely has its own set of challenges. With many changes continuing to accelerate, particularly when it comes to a heavier reliance on technology by organizations—regardless of their industry—things are only becoming more difficult in terms of both finding the right people, and effectively managing them once they’ve been hired.

Building and managing teams remotely, particularly ones that include specially skilled recruits, is a major change that most leadership is still struggling to adapt to do effectively;
- But it’s still something vital to help organizations adapt and grow.
Part of this challenge lies in how hard it is to measure the results and productivity of an individual or team if you yourself don’t have the experience or knowledge set needed for the work or project.

Trends We’re Seeing

So, how are organizations managing this change?

What we’ve seen and helped facilitate for top consulting firms, as well organizations—that addresses all of the challenges associated with remote hiring, managing, team building, filling skill gaps, etc.—is something called Scalable Workforce Solutions.

This is recruitment and vetting done by an organization that specializes in finding the right resources with specialized skill sets, and also manages them once they’re in place.
Although not widely offered, the demand for this service has greatly risen.

As organizations are using more technology to adapt to crisis, keep up with accelerating trends to stay competitive, or meet various other demands, we expect this service will become more heavily utilized and integrated into organizational hiring and recruitment strategy.

Scalable Workforce Solutions differs from traditional recruitment or placement in a several key ways:

The organization responsible for the selection process takes a holistic approach to resource placement;
- Only high-caliber, senior level practitioners, that have been rigorously vetted by industry professionals are put up for consideration;
- Ensuring the resource is a good fit beyond their skills is equally important.
The resource is actively managed by an Engagement Lead, with frequent check-ins.
- This Lead also frequently checks in with the organization.
Mentoring, tools, and support are provided; the resource is proactively managed to greatly reduce risk.
This service is useful as not only a short-term solution, but a long-term one, as it helps pass on valuable expertise and knowledge to existing team members, as well as the organization as a whole.