Around 40 per cent of the companies have a shortage of talent at the senior management level, a study has found. Also, technology and sales roles are hard to fill, according to Aon's 2017 talent acquisition study. Around 68 per cent of the employees are hired through online job portals, while 61 per cent through external recruitment consultants, reveals the study. Total 557 professionals took part in the study conducted across China, India, Southeast Asia and the Middle East.
Companies with a more engaged workforce consistently outperform their competitors, the study said. Since different people want different things from their work -- reward, recognition and career progression, or independence, personal growth and work-life balance -- if companies understand what drives their employees, they can strive to give them what they want. In return, these companies will achieve high performance as their employees will be fully engaged at work, says the study.
The study reveals 80 per cent of organizations with over 500 employees have a dedicated talent acquisition team but certain challeneges like developing the ability to respond rapidly to the changing needs in the market, achieving greater efficiency and plugging critical skills gaps by recruiting and retaining the right people still remain hurdles in achieving the desired goals.
According to the study, larger organisations are more concerned about operational metrics such as 'time to fill', 'cost per hire' and the 'application to hire ratio', while smaller firms are more likely to measure 'early attrition' and 'the percentage of positions filled through each channel'.
The report presents eight insights, including understanding talent gaps, building your brand, strategically sourcing your new employees, etc, which can help talent hiring professionals meet their core challenges.
So how can companies build a brand of talented professionals? The study says the first step when hiring talented employees is to know what you're looking for, by conducting a detailed job analysis. This will provide a blueprint of requirements. "Identifying the attributes that differentiate top performers, from average performers, in a role can help you to create a success profile for that position," says the study, adding that 62 per cent of the organisations included in the study don't measure the effectiveness of their employer branding.
It reveals employers who use technology-enabled assessment are the most likely to build their employer brand. It also found that the most cost effective channels for sourcing potential job candidates are employee referrals, online job portals and the organization's own careers webpage. Online job portals and external recruitment consultants deliver the highest ratio -- 68 per cent and 61 per cent -- of candidates who are hired.
The study also found that only 50 per cent of the participants are satisfied with their talent acquisition technology, and that there's a need to provide a positive candidate experience throughout their recruitment process. "About 80 per cent claim to be satisfied with the quality of the candidate experience delivered by their organisation. Yet, surprisingly, 43 per cent of organizations do not capture candidate feedback after the selection stage. 39 per cent only capture feedback from candidates who are hired; only 18 per cent attempt to capture feedback from every candidate," says the study.
Besides, only 22 per cent of organizations are utilizing technology-enabled assessments as budget constraints and cost concerns are cited as the main reasons for this. Only 39 per cent of participants were convinced that AI-based sourcing and interviews will be the 'next big thing' in recruitment.