Mastering Tomorrow – Future skills unleashed 2024

John Tarrant, Managing Partner at DNA – Sponsor and Panellist at our Autumn event at Lincoln’s Inn – offers insight into areas companies can address in their talent acquisition strategy for 2024.

“May you live in interesting times”… while purporting to be a blessing, this is in fact a curse. (It’s also purported as being of ancient Chinese origin but is neither ancient or Chinese…). Anyway, blessing or curse, it really is an interesting time for all talent professionals. And some can only see the challenges of which there are many and, I’m sure, feel cursed. While others can see that for every challenge there is opportunity – and you can, with the right approach, not just compete but win in today’s ever changing talent market.

So, how do you get ahead of the game in a world where even now there are still more good jobs than people to do them and every HR and talent professional is expected to do more with less? What are the emerging themes, what should you do more of, less of, stop doing, start doing…? There are probably a hundred things I could suggest but the list of six below will help you enormously. 

Firstly, build your employer reputation externally and internally. Externally, if you want to be seen as a great place to work, you have to be seen. More than that, you can’t just spray and pray your messaging, target it correctly and earn the right to have a recruitment conversation. Internally, you have to build your employer reputation every day – after all your staff have to buy your brand every day.

And it’s not just about the sharing of the message, before any of that happens, it needs to be shaped carefully. We are a flexible, amenable bunch at DNA but our one non-negotiable is that your EVP has to be distinct, authentic and compelling. And it needs accurate segmentation to deliver the right message to the right subset in the right way and in so doing give you the bang for your buck that you need.

2023 has seen the rise of employee advocacy. Using your own employees as the most authentic and articulate (and believed) exponents of your employment experience is powerful. It doesn’t just happen and needs a clear plan to deliver the necessary KPIs and eliminate risk.

Social media more broadly is now better understood and utilised by some but unfortunately not the majority of recruiters. People think it’s free and it’s easy. It’s neither, but where you plan carefully, execute with flair and measure everything then good things can happen.

More organisations are getting to understand the importance of candidate experience, particularly those where every applicant is an existing or potential customer. More than that, you’re always going to reject more than you hire so to make it a branded, engaging experience not a cold (or even rude) process and again better things will happen in terms of your employer reputation and, critically, hiring metrics.

Talking of metrics, employer branding will make you money and save you money, delivering for all the important things like the bottom line, your customer experience and more. And it’s not a tenner here or there, DNA have created ROI of millions of pounds for clients. 2023 has seen organisations understand what effective employer branding can do. And in 2024 more will get it too.

So that’s six of the best. Why six? Well, we started in China and six is considered lucky as it sounds like the word that means ‘to flow’, so refers to a smooth progress in life. It can also mean well-off. Something that flows and a financial ROI. That would be an employer branding strategy blessing. Not only is it doable, your competitors might already be there…