[00:00:00] Hi, it's Matt. Just before we start the show, I want to tell you about a great live event
[00:00:06] I've got coming up on the 27th of March. To celebrate 600 episodes of Recruiting
[00:00:13] Future, I'm going to be hosting a live Ask Me Anything webinar. This is your chance
[00:00:19] to pick my brain on anything you like, including market trends and predictions, the impact
[00:00:26] of AI on Recruiting, Skills-based Hiring, the changing role of recruiters, podcasting
[00:00:33] tips or even my favourite Scottish Tourist destinations and whiskeys. Literally ask
[00:00:40] me anything. I'll also be joined by some surprise special guests who will be adding their
[00:00:45] perspectives to the conversation. You can sign up now by going to matolder.me-a-m-a.
[00:00:55] That's matolder.me-a-m-a and I really look forward to seeing you there. That web address
[00:01:03] one last time. matolder.me-a-m-a.
[00:01:09] There's been more of scientific discovery, more of technical advancement and material progress
[00:01:18] in your lifetime of a month at all the ages of history.
[00:01:25] Hi there. Welcome to episode 601 of Recruiting Future with me, Matt Alder.
[00:01:35] Real shortages. Shortening skill life spans. Digital transformation. The AI revolution.
[00:01:43] Hiring freezes and layoffs. These are just some of the many factors currently reshaping
[00:01:49] how companies think about talent. It's clear that this level of disruption is now the
[00:01:56] new normal rather than a short term trend. So how do T-8 teams respond? And what role do
[00:02:04] they have in helping employers redefine their thinking about talent, skills and hiring?
[00:02:11] My guess this week is Rich Wilson, CEO and co-founder of gig.ai. Before he became a founder,
[00:02:18] Rich had a successful career as a recruiter. And spent time as a gardener analyst specialising
[00:02:24] in digital transformation and the future of work. In our conversation we discuss skills
[00:02:29] focus strategies to reinvent hiring and the part that T-8 teams have to play in this critical
[00:02:36] transformation.
[00:02:59] I'm Rich Wilson. I'm the co-founder and CEO of gig.ai. A talent acquisition and talent management
[00:03:12] platform. As the name suggests we break work into short term gigs and then match to both
[00:03:20] internal and external talent pools. Before that I was a recruiter for 12 years with
[00:03:26] a leadership group and after that I spent three years as an advisor mainly in the future
[00:03:31] of work at Gartner, to CIOs and CEOs at Fortune 500 and FITC100 companies. So always been
[00:03:39] involved in recruiting and talent management in some way.
[00:03:42] Fantastic stuff. That's kind of a really unique set of experiences and I think obviously
[00:03:46] very relevant for the kind of crazy times that we're going through at the moment. Now
[00:03:51] I know that you do a lot of thinking and a lot of research and you know publish a lot
[00:03:55] of interesting reports as part of everything that you do. And you've gig.ai have recently
[00:04:00] published a new report. One of the big focuses of it is around skills shortages. Now for
[00:04:06] people who aren't necessarily involved in technology hiring, a lot of the narrative around
[00:04:14] tech jobs is all around layoffs and the layoffs that big organisations are making. Talk us
[00:04:20] through what's actually going on in the industry, particularly around skills shortages.
[00:04:24] Yeah so it's an interesting time. If you think about your skills shortages and layoffs
[00:04:31] everywhere, there's also a lot of reports that went around even last week around a lot
[00:04:36] of these jobs are being lost because of general FBI. Not true right? I think you've got
[00:04:41] Microsoft are letting all these people go because they've been replaced with general
[00:04:45] FBI. I think a lot of things going on from a job title perspective. If you think about
[00:04:52] it, if you break it down, if you're a hiring manager in the UK and this is, you know, we've
[00:04:58] been very specific, the skills shortages obviously everywhere but very specifically in the
[00:05:04] UK, you've got a lot going on right? Microeconomic being one of them. So obviously Brexit took
[00:05:11] a lot of skilled jobs. That's continued to happen. So that's a big one. The skills
[00:05:18] being higher continue to change. Digital transformation, even though it's quite an old term, is
[00:05:24] right? You obviously talk a lot about it in your book. Every single FITC100 company and
[00:05:31] 250 and even SMBs are doing some form of digital transformation just now. That requires a
[00:05:38] certain skillset. You need certain skills, especially now if you're doing a general
[00:05:41] of the AI pilot, you might go out to markets and say hey I need some genie-eye skills.
[00:05:45] Essentially they're going to hire 35,000 genie experts in the next two years. Well where
[00:05:50] are you going to find these people? There's less people coming through university. Especially
[00:05:54] in Scotland, you know computer science and data science degrees, there's less local people
[00:05:59] coming into them than ever before. So if you think about it, yes there's a lot of layoffs
[00:06:04] but those layoffs are very much capex OPEX switches. People are still needed. They're
[00:06:11] still a demand for someone to do it, but they're just going to look to hire that person in
[00:06:15] a different way. They're going to outsource it to a TCS or whoever, they're going to
[00:06:20] look maybe for a consultant from Deloy, they're going to hire some contractors, they're
[00:06:24] going to hire different models. Then the data demand is still there for people on digital
[00:06:29] transformations more than ever. It's not slowing down, but the talent pool in terms of where
[00:06:36] you would normally go to has shrunk considerably. And again that is there's just not enough
[00:06:42] supply to deal with the demand. There's some legislation going on there as well, you
[00:06:47] know there's a lot going on around taxation especially in Scotland and England. There's
[00:06:52] obviously I-35 which is causing a lot of uncertainty as well. There's obviously election, general
[00:06:58] election, Scottish election, there's lot of elections going on in the next 12 to 18 months.
[00:07:03] So all of that is creating a perfect store and if you are hiring my manager right now
[00:07:09] going out to look to bring in a new skill, you have got headache and it's not the case
[00:07:14] so that all these layoffs are just making more people to go into your jobs. It's just
[00:07:18] not correlating that way. I don't think we've ever seen like this.
[00:07:22] Now when I think the skill thinks is so interesting as well because about a number of
[00:07:26] conversations in the last few weeks with people for the podcast about skills and really
[00:07:31] the lifespan of skills. I was talking to a chief people officer who was saying in some
[00:07:37] cases, the lifespan of some of the skills they needed six months. So massive effect on
[00:07:43] how people think about hiring. A lot earlier when you said about hiring 30,000 Gen AI specialists
[00:07:49] because sadly I'm old enough to remember that the E-commerce revolution around the year
[00:07:55] 50,000 and it was full of people wanting to hire 50,000 E-commerce specialists when
[00:07:59] E-commerce had only just been invented. So it's kind of interesting that that's kind of
[00:08:03] come around again but obviously at a time where the lifespan of skills is so much shorter.
[00:08:09] Yeah well I think we've seen it with a blockchain bubble two to three years ago, right? Web
[00:08:15] three everywhere. There was lots of solidity developers, lots of demand for all these skills
[00:08:19] and those skills are pretty much disappeared, right? Mainly because the success or use
[00:08:24] cases for blockchain was quite minimal. They're success in use cases for it to work makes a
[00:08:28] lot of sense but for the widespread organizations it doesn't, right? So I think we've been through
[00:08:35] that similar experiment at the moment. How many actual successful use cases are we going
[00:08:41] to see for Gen AI? There are some obvious ones and there's some great ones already. We've
[00:08:46] integrated it pretty early. Sorry, our most used feature is our Gen AI feature, most used
[00:08:51] one by a countryman. So that is what but you're seeing more and more of that. So yeah this
[00:08:58] like you said that that is changing in terms of the levels of demand, the type of skill.
[00:09:05] Prompt Engine Eurons, one of the biggest ones, are you going to need a prompt engine
[00:09:09] year in 12 months when most people have got a digital dexterity to do it? Probably not,
[00:09:13] right? But you're going to need more cybersecurity experts, data privacy experts probably. Right?
[00:09:19] That's going to be the next plan of worms which is going to happen. You'll have to imagine
[00:09:23] in three years time that one of the biggest most in demand skills are going to be cybersecurity
[00:09:29] and going to be data engineering. We talked about it in the report, how AT have been
[00:09:34] working to re-skill a lot of the people in their shops, sales managers in an EEO shop
[00:09:41] are being re-trained to cyber security consultants. We're going to see much more of this upskilling
[00:09:45] and re-skilling as we try and as big companies try and plug the gap. I want to come back
[00:09:50] to upskilling, re-skilling and also how this affects the way companies think about recruiting
[00:09:56] just a little bit later. Before we do though, one of the really interesting parts of the
[00:10:00] report for me is where you talk about some of the future of work trends that you're seeing
[00:10:05] and their impact. Focus through some of those. Yeah, so every year, Gartner releases its future work
[00:10:13] trends and to be honest, the ones that people look to the most for inspiration and this year I
[00:10:20] think it's been really interesting. I think some, I'm not sure if I totally agree but some
[00:10:25] I totally agree with. So, you know, the nine trends have really focused on different areas but
[00:10:32] the number one of it is the cost of work, surprisingly. So that was the number one future
[00:10:38] work trend for 2020-24 is around the cost of work and that is all around the mental, the physical
[00:10:44] and obviously the monetary side of actually people doing the work. And that is why we're starting
[00:10:52] to see companies shrink their workforce because the sheer cost and that people are starting to work
[00:11:00] want to work different ways around for their mental health. And this is where we're starting to see
[00:11:05] around, you know, around these directives to come back to work. Some of them are going down
[00:11:11] like I said balloon. The third biggest trend that Gartner cited was the four day working week
[00:11:17] and how it's going to become normal this year. Again, not sure I've really buy into that based on
[00:11:24] that I think we're still in this whole remote versus hybrid versus back in the office mandate.
[00:11:29] And I think until that is blown over, I don't think the four day work will really crack on.
[00:11:37] But then it's talking around how AI creates a new workforce opportunity. That's number two.
[00:11:42] And I think that is a really interesting one about how it's around its creating opportunity
[00:11:47] and it's not just about job replacement. You know, I very much and I write about it in a report.
[00:11:53] I definitely see Genie I as an augmentation. It's a way to make people more productive. I really
[00:11:58] don't think it's going to have the mass, the massly off. Sorry, anything to do with that.
[00:12:02] And I'll think we're going to see lots of jobs replaced because of what's going on with
[00:12:07] the genitive AI. And that kind of puts me to the next point. Number five on their trends was
[00:12:13] that Genie I will have painful costs. And I think those costs like some of the, I don't know if
[00:12:20] you've seen some of them out there. Like somebody bought a car for one dollar. You know,
[00:12:24] about places using chatbots without training them. I think unless you do, you know, pilot and Genie
[00:12:31] I in a safe space makes a lot of sense. So we're going to see tons of Genie pilots. One of the
[00:12:36] biggest things we get asked for is skills around genitive AI pilots. I think piloting around use cases
[00:12:41] is really sensible but we will see some data privacy issues this year. We will see some cyber security
[00:12:48] problems and we need to be really mindful of that. You know, if you think back in the day,
[00:12:54] I forget what one bit. Don't know if you remember was it a chancellor that read their left.
[00:12:59] The one is brief cases on a, you know, on a underground tube underground,
[00:13:04] so in London. Yeah, it happened quite a few times actually people leaving things on the on the
[00:13:08] cheap. Genie I, if you're a CEO using some Genie I tools, it's kind of similar, right? And that's
[00:13:15] the painful cost. If you put some really highly confidential information and as I
[00:13:20] asking it to, you know, rewrite or review this for me, you really need to be careful around your
[00:13:26] data privacy and it's the same thing, right? So I think we will see some of, I think we will see
[00:13:31] that briefcase moment used by a general via tool and I think that is where, where we need to be
[00:13:37] really careful. And do you think that, you know, you're saying that Genie I's not going to take jobs
[00:13:42] away. Do you think it might fill some of these skills shortages, though? There's going to
[00:13:48] two answers to that. I think first one, what we've seen in a report from the research that we've
[00:13:52] done 51% of high reminders are considered on using Genie I to help with the skills shortage.
[00:13:59] I think there's definitely use cases when Genie I can help. You fill a gap in the short term.
[00:14:06] For example, you'll we've definitely seen your customers using Genie I maybe it's around
[00:14:13] digital marketing. Maybe it's around particular, you're creating particular designs.
[00:14:19] Definitely seeing that to help like that maybe the copyright and as well we've seen copyright
[00:14:24] tools get used. You have your China Builder and you product and you need to get the tag line in
[00:14:29] the website. You can use a general via tool to create that. I think what we're seeing largely is
[00:14:35] though this work still needs to be reviewed by an expert, you know, these tools are there. So
[00:14:40] I think there are definitely examples where it can actually help in the moment. But if you have
[00:14:46] a glaring gap, I am about to put out this new piece of software and I don't have a copywriter.
[00:14:52] Then Genie I could help you at least prolong that need maybe for a month or two. But when you go live
[00:15:00] and you've got to see your same right, you're about to go live in that product, you're going to want
[00:15:03] a human to review that copy, right? And an expert to review that copy. You know, and I think the
[00:15:08] same thing goes with code. If you're putting out your code or you're using a data analysis tool
[00:15:13] before that goes to the board or before that goes out to the world, you're going to want a human
[00:15:18] expert to review that, right? And I think we'll see a lot of roles become more of a review and
[00:15:24] augmentation of genitive AI but not as a full replacement for it. That's definitely the way
[00:15:31] we see it. But yeah, over half of managers are going out and using genitive AI tools to help with
[00:15:37] the hearing now. And I think most people, you know, if they were telling the truth, would say that
[00:15:42] probably doing the same. So you sort of mentioned that this is a perfect storm. There's so much going
[00:15:48] on in terms of skills shortages, skills going out of date very quickly, lots of unknowns about
[00:15:54] genie AI and what's it doing and what's it not doing? What do talent acquisition professionals
[00:16:02] need to do? What do they need to think about when it comes to recruiting in this kind of
[00:16:08] environment? How do they need to think about talent differently? Well, I think going back to the
[00:16:13] current trends that Gartner put out, I think two that are really worth looking at right in the hearing
[00:16:19] and now are number six is skills over degrees. You know, it's a bit really starting to look at skill
[00:16:25] based hiring over just hiring based on the fact that went to a university for four years and they've
[00:16:31] done something for three years, but really looking at different skills to have full skill gaps
[00:16:37] instead of thinking really long term. So I think that is something that is that we're going to
[00:16:43] see more and more of. And then the other one was that career's stereo types are collapsing.
[00:16:48] That's something that we're seeing a lot with gen Z. So, you know, 57% of gen Zs now take
[00:16:55] a freelancer contingent role before they take a permanent job. So I think those two alone,
[00:17:01] skill based hiring and looking at different ways you can onboard different types of talent is
[00:17:06] really, really important. You know, the days are just having a grad scheme or an early talent scheme
[00:17:12] and then having a parent scheme. Gartner predicts those days are gone and I do, I do too.
[00:17:19] I think going back to your question around, hey, you're in TA and what are you going to do this year?
[00:17:26] Because I said, I don't think we've ever seen a more difficult time to be ahead of TA
[00:17:33] than we currently have, right? If you think about the massive overhiring that happened over the last
[00:17:38] few years. Again, that's not TA's fault, right? TA people had to jump in and deal with that hiring
[00:17:44] and then now if you think about the amount of TA people being made redundant, that are open for
[00:17:48] work, they're struggling to pick up, I know lots of amazingly talented TA people who are struggling
[00:17:52] to pick up a job, right? It's a really, really difficult time. And I think this is where you can really
[00:17:59] really look in different ways to stay valuable, stay relevant and add value to the C suite. So
[00:18:07] ironically, I know I said I was kind of look-alonging Gartner's Trends for 2024. I think a lot
[00:18:15] of the Ansularism Gartner's Trends in 2023. So the number one trend in 2023 was quiet hiring
[00:18:23] and I really, really believe that quiet hiring is something that TA teams really need to embrace
[00:18:31] this year. And it has three key components. So quiet hiring kind of got left behind or
[00:18:38] really cooled a little bit because it came right after quiet. Quite and remember that term came
[00:18:42] in leftist. Well quiet hiring came and I think it was written off because it was a bit of a
[00:18:48] clickbait title. But quiet hiring is actually, it's really, really simple, right? There's three key
[00:18:54] components to it. It's about internal mobility, upskilling and re-skilling. I don't know if they should
[00:19:01] probably make that four but they say it's three. And then the third one being contingent hiring.
[00:19:05] And I think if I was, if I was ahead of TA right now, you know, I would really be looking at
[00:19:11] those three things and going right, what what ones do we have to be able to get the right skills
[00:19:17] in place without necessarily having more permanent head count because what we're seeing go back
[00:19:24] to your first question about the layoffs, we are seeing hiring freezes. Right? 58% of the companies
[00:19:31] that we talk to and these are leaders in the UK, 58% say that currently have a hiring freeze right now.
[00:19:38] So if you have a hiring freeze right now and you're in TA, you're obviously, you're obviously feeling
[00:19:42] worried about that. But as I said, I think by embracing those three parts that are quite hiring,
[00:19:48] you can really add a lot of value. Talk us through them a little bit in terms of what you think
[00:19:52] to A people should be doing, what you're seeing with the employers that you work with.
[00:19:57] Yeah, so the first one is obviously internal mobility. You know, something you obviously talk
[00:20:03] about in the book. It was something that when I was a gardener, I didn't know anything about
[00:20:08] internal mobility before I was at Garter. Garter, I talked a lot about internal talent market
[00:20:13] places and gave a lot of advice to CHROs and CEOs and CEOs about why they should create internal
[00:20:20] talent market places. It's something that we've obviously built, a SaaS product which allows
[00:20:25] companies to create one very quickly but that is a really quick way whether you do it yourself or
[00:20:31] whether you use a piece of software like ours, been able to find a really good way to look internally
[00:20:37] before you go externally. I think in the book you said 5% of only 5% of companies actually look
[00:20:43] internally before they go externally. If you can have a good process to know what skills do you
[00:20:48] actually have in play and it goes back to gardeners trends this year, skills over degrees,
[00:20:53] what skills do I have in my current organisation? We're going out and saying we need a cyber security,
[00:20:59] we need a Python developer, we need someone that can do genie eye prompts.
[00:21:04] If you're an enterprise, you've got over 500 employees, there's a good chance of somebody in
[00:21:10] your organisation with that but right now most leaders either track the skills in an Excel spreadsheet
[00:21:18] or no disrespect to them but on what day and the day they signed up,
[00:21:24] the day they got the jobs already, they receive even interworkday,
[00:21:26] upload the skills and that's their skills but people's skills update. I think being able to
[00:21:32] you've been able to pilot and again I talked about genie eye pilots, been able to pilot
[00:21:38] internal mobility and a small scale is a really good way to show value because you can actually
[00:21:44] show an ROI really quickly because you can say how look we were actually about to put a requisition
[00:21:49] out for someone paying 80 000 pounds in the skill. We actually found that we actually had two people
[00:21:55] internally who could actually do it on a side basis or a sacronement or whatever but
[00:22:02] being able to do that is really really interesting and I think if you're tea leader that would be
[00:22:08] my number one advice to this year, pilot internal mobility. It's don't think it's really difficult
[00:22:15] to do, it's really not. I said they're software that can help you do it quite cheaply and quite
[00:22:19] easily there's definitely different ways to do it but it's something that we are seeing more
[00:22:26] more and more. A quick message from our sponsor Winolo. Hi everyone I want to tell you about
[00:22:34] Winolo, that's W-O-N-O-L-O. Winolo stands for work now locally. Winolo enables businesses to find
[00:22:44] quality workers for on-demand, seasonal, short term and long term work. Ditch the bulky paperwork
[00:22:50] and interview process and use Winolo to find quality workers fast and get work done even faster.
[00:22:58] With flexible workers and no platform fees you can save on operating costs, meet demand and
[00:23:05] maximize earnings with ease. Winolo is available in over a hundred markets including Chicago, Dallas,
[00:23:13] Atlanta, New York and Seattle. Get workers who are ready to work and spend less time finding them
[00:23:20] with Winolo. Go to www.winolo.com slash pod that's www.winolo.com slash pod and take the stress out
[00:23:36] of finding workers.
[00:23:37] The Jim Stroud Podcast explores the discoveries and trends forming the future of our lives.
[00:23:48] Brain-to-brain communication, robot bosses, microchip implants for workers and artificial
[00:23:54] intelligence replacing human workers are all happening now. If you want to know what's happening
[00:24:00] next subscribe now to the Jim Stroud Podcast.
[00:24:07] What about contingent hiring? That's obviously something that's very cool to what you do.
[00:24:13] How is that changing? How do people need to think about that differently?
[00:24:16] Yeah I think there's a big pile of then-shift needed here. Obviously I was a contract recruiter
[00:24:22] during the deep recession in 2008 and what came out of that. It's a space that I know
[00:24:30] perfectly well and really passionate about. I think in terms of traditionally we've always thought
[00:24:36] about contingent hiring really being one way and one way only and being contract hiring
[00:24:42] and that contract hiring being through an MSP obviously a VMS to manage and we've always kind
[00:24:48] of thought about these large contingent work programs. A lot of the time contingent hiring won't
[00:24:54] hit ahead of tea, there'll often be a team that will focus on the contingent work program.
[00:25:00] I think that is another paradigm that I think is going to change. A, you're going to expect more
[00:25:06] ownership under the one person. There's going to be less contingent work programs but I think
[00:25:13] there are so many other ways to hire talent that is not just through a contractor but it's short
[00:25:21] term. You talk a lot about statement of work. The statement of work market in the UK alone
[00:25:28] is 16 billion pounds right now. I was at SIA research. It's a huge market. It's nearly 300 million
[00:25:35] of talent that's hired through a statement of work. There's two types of statement of work,
[00:25:39] timing and material which is staff agencies do most consultancies work that way but then you get
[00:25:47] the one that this is one that I'm more passionate about throughout platform is outcome-based
[00:25:53] you're seeing more and more companies offer outcome-based, whereas you pay based on milestone
[00:25:58] and you tap into different talent pools. The other one being is interim hiring and we're seeing
[00:26:06] more fractional CTOs, fractional CFOs, we're seeing more leadership teams being hired.
[00:26:12] Fractional. One of the other ones I love just now is talent sharing. There's a UK based
[00:26:18] company called Detail that I really like. They do say conments. Let's say I have a finance
[00:26:26] assistant and that finance assistant, I don't have demand for that person right now.
[00:26:32] They've actually got a marketplace where all our companies can hire them on
[00:26:35] to conment. They just pick up their permanent salary and they actually build it to that company.
[00:26:40] So that company actually can generate revenue so if you think about it, there's companies like
[00:26:44] Vodafone who use that, who actually generate revenue from their current people. On our open
[00:26:51] talent platform I won't name the names but we've got some large global consultancies that have
[00:26:56] Bench resource on our platform. They're picking up work and that company is actually generating
[00:27:03] the revenue stream through that. So talent sharing is one that we're seeing more and more
[00:27:11] year-old. So again and that's not a contractor right but still contingent.
[00:27:15] Freelance and gig work obviously, up working Fiverr shares have doubled this year.
[00:27:20] Seeing more and more demand through these freelance gig platforms. Again I wouldn't say
[00:27:27] that we're one of them. We're in that space but we're actually more of an outcome based
[00:27:32] platform and an internal talent marketplace. We're actually not trying to be a
[00:27:35] an up working Fiverr as people often think but as I said up work share price doubled this year.
[00:27:40] So far this year it is doubled because more and more companies are hiding that way.
[00:27:45] And then the one that I really like which I think we should see more in the UK. Nasa have been
[00:27:50] doing this for years, it's open innovation challenges. Putting out challenges, I've got things
[00:27:56] that you need done. Nasa built the data map for the asteroids via open innovation challenges.
[00:28:04] It's an amazing way and you can use gig platforms to do it but it's a way to tap in,
[00:28:09] for example on an open talent marketplace. The people that we have on that contractor share
[00:28:17] traditional freelancers but then there are the big consultancies I mentioned but the most
[00:28:22] interest in one and actually we're 70% of the skills that we place are site hustlots.
[00:28:30] So you can have people who are permanent but actually have their own consultancy on the side.
[00:28:36] So for example we had a huge shipping company and they hired, they needed their cyber security
[00:28:44] strategy reviewed. Now they went out to the big big boys but it was too expensive, they didn't have
[00:28:49] the budget so they put it onto our platform and they got to see so from a bank. So there's no
[00:28:56] there's no competition between a shipping company and a bank and that seesaw his own site company
[00:29:02] and all he does is review cyber security strategies for large companies. I think they were able
[00:29:09] to do it for $3,000 instead of $30,000 that they were quoted. Again it's just a different
[00:29:15] a different way in the specially if you're trying to tap into some of the genie-eye skills that I
[00:29:19] mentioned earlier in the podcast there are different ways to tap into that. The days that
[00:29:25] of hi a contingent is just a contractor through an MSP are gone. There are just so many different
[00:29:31] ways to tap into global workforce and again this is why I think we're grown so much this year
[00:29:38] is that especially in the UK companies are going how do I how do I tap into these talent? I have
[00:29:43] skills that I need right now. I don't have per head count. I can't hire a contractor and let's not
[00:29:50] forget the issues that IR35 is created right since it came in and obviously IR35 is not new but what
[00:29:57] happened in 2021 through the reform that created a lot of great areas with a lot of companies just
[00:30:05] put a blanket ban on outside actually by finding a way to completely hire outside IR35
[00:30:12] again you need to do it through a statement of work as a way to do it and through an outcome SOW is
[00:30:16] actually the way to do it completely if you can do that again the talent pool then broadens massively
[00:30:23] right and I think that's the massive opportunity that we have in T that traditionally it's being
[00:30:29] right. We have a thousand roles to fill how do we get all these roles filled permanently?
[00:30:36] Then we have the contractor MSP to bring in contractors quickly when we can't get someone in
[00:30:42] or we don't need them permanently but the huge opportunity we have now is that through internal
[00:30:47] mobility contingent upskilling, re-skilling and all the different technology platforms out there
[00:30:52] you can actually build amazing skills without having to have thousands and thousands of peron.
[00:30:59] Your Sam open the Open AI CEO has said I don't know if I totally agree with this but it said
[00:31:05] that we are not long away from seeing the first billion dollar company with one person
[00:31:10] and what he means by that is that through access to on demand talent and Genie AI you could build a really
[00:31:18] valuable business and I think this is the definitely a look at it right? Yeah absolutely.
[00:31:23] I'm just to kind of in a way summarize for us where is this all going to go if we were having
[00:31:29] this conversation in five years time what do you think the talent space will look like by then?
[00:31:35] That's a great question. I think I thought we would see much more technology being adopted
[00:31:42] than over COVID we obviously seen a massive explosion in HR tech and HR tech has had its ups and
[00:31:49] downs with VC funding it's kind of backing it up again even this year alone we've seen more
[00:31:54] HR tech deals than we did pretty much all last year so I think we're going to see much more HR tech
[00:32:00] solutions we'll see much more consolidation between the large companies obviously what they've
[00:32:06] been on a massive acquisition spray but I think we'll see our consolidation but we will see HR
[00:32:12] tech technology being at the core of how we work. We will Genie AI will not go away but the use
[00:32:19] cases will then use cases that are successful will then be amplified so there will be elements of
[00:32:26] roles that will be largely staffed by AI agents your SDRs potentially been one of them you know
[00:32:34] there's a company in London called the Living X building your SDR and sales experts who are
[00:32:41] AI agents right they're not real people. They're not real people they're not real people but they're
[00:32:44] not real people. So I think there will we will see more of that augmentation of AI tools and
[00:32:50] rule and I think we will see a shrinkage of the amount of people that you actually need in a
[00:32:55] full-time basis like I said I don't think we will see a reduction in an amount of people we
[00:33:01] actually need to do digital transformations or to run companies but how those people are engaged
[00:33:08] will change massively. I was on an open assembly call last week which which is a collective of
[00:33:15] tea leaders, open talent CEOs you know just a real collection of people and they shared a
[00:33:21] this Harvard Business School were on sharing an example of USD which are a huge outsourcing company
[00:33:28] and they created a center excellence for open talent and they now hire 20% of all roles now
[00:33:34] that they hire through this open talent center excellence so instead of it being a permanent
[00:33:38] requisition now they go through open talent first then permanent if you think tradition contract
[00:33:44] hiring always was a higher permanent but can't hire a higher contractor until I find one. I think
[00:33:49] that whole pattern is just going to be blown up over the next five years and we will actually see
[00:33:55] open talent center of excellence will actually see generate of AI center of excellence or generate
[00:34:02] of AI leaders where certain areas are augmented with Jenny AI box with you know a small team overseeing
[00:34:12] what what like what that happens but I do think this is when over the next five years we will
[00:34:18] see more change than we have and over the last three years we've seen probably more than we've
[00:34:24] seen in ten years because of Covid but I think that Jenny's now out the bottle, generally I
[00:34:30] is now out the bottle I said blockchains you know definitely diminished but that's not a way
[00:34:34] content computing there's obviously the next big trend which means that we're going to be able
[00:34:38] to deal and process much more data much faster that's the next big trend coming so these technology
[00:34:46] trends are not going anywhere but I do think over the next five years we will see a real change
[00:34:52] in how we build knowledge workers and how we build companies I do think yeah you've seen
[00:34:59] these big emissive like 55,000 permanent employees we will see a reduction and that for sure
[00:35:05] it's more data but that rich thanks very much for talking to me no problem pleasure Matt
[00:35:12] my thanks to rich you can follow this podcast on Apple podcasts on Spotify or via your podcasting
[00:35:19] app of choice please also follow the show on Instagram you can find us by searching for recruiting
[00:35:26] feature you can search all the past episodes at recruitingfeature.com on that site you can also
[00:35:34] subscribe to our monthly newsletter recruiting feature feast and get the inside track about
[00:35:40] everything that's coming up on the show thanks very much for listening I'll be back next time
[00:35:45] and I hope you'll join me
[00:35:47] this is my show
[00:35:56] hi my name is Sara and I want to tell you about my podcast called can I offer you some feedback
[00:36:20] I'm a business consultant and executive coach with over 20 years experience in change management
[00:36:25] leadership development and naturally providing feedback to high performers my podcast is for those
[00:36:30] of you who have a complicated relationship with feedback whether giving receiving avoiding or
[00:36:35] seeking feedback is essential for our development in each episode you'll hear from real people
[00:36:40] across industries with their ideas perspectives and best practices on feedback I'll also be sharing
[00:36:46] business bites with you simple explanations of organizational tools management techniques and
[00:36:51] leadership philosophies that will help you and your businesses thrive you can listen to can I
[00:36:56] offer you some feedback on your favorite podcast app or learn more at evergreenpodcasts.com