4️⃣ Takeaways from LinkedIn’s Global Talent Trends Report

Welcome back to Talent Bites 🍔 your bi-weekly dose of short & relevant talent insights.

Little late again on this one, blaming my brother who decided to get married in Majorca this week, pic below 👇🏻☀️

This week I'm summarising some more insightful takeaways from the global report - The 2023 Future of Recruiting. ANZ version available here.

While the Great Reshuffle of 2020 pushed hiring levels up, the trend has subsided significantly since, aided in part by the current macroeconomic climate. LinkedIn’s latest data shows that hiring continues to slow around the world and APAC region: Australia saw a -35% reduction when comparing March 2023 with the same time last year. 

The previous trend of extensive hiring in our talent landscape seems to have been replaced by a more targeted and internal approach, as the prioritisation of skills in hiring becomes more prominent. This shift possibly signifies the beginning of a new and more sustainable journey towards the future, where skills become the primary currency in the workplace.

As organisations witness a rapid increase in the demand for new skills, factors such as educational background or personal connections should hold less significance compared to the skills an individual possesses. Adopting a skills-first hiring strategy enables organisations to expand their talent pool and efficiently fill their positions with greater effectiveness.

Insights from four industry experts share their insights on LinkedIn's latest Global Talent Trends Report. They provide valuable advice to assist recruiting professionals in adjusting their talent strategy for the future:

Tip #1: Build a strong talent pipeline by putting skills first 

As the hiring market cools, orienting your talent strategy around skills instead of traditional proxies like direct experience and paper qualifications can immediately widen your talent pool by a global average of 9.4x - this can be even more significant in markets like Australia 10.2x.

To make the shift towards a skills-first hiring strategy, Stacey Donovan Zapar, Founder of The Talent Agency, has two key recommendations:

   1. Start by taking the time to understand the skills that your organisation needs

   2. Invest in a strong employer brand, making sure that your employee value proposition is aligned with candidates’ priorities

How can LinkedIn help? You can use your Company Page’s new Commitment section to showcase up to five key values such as diversity, equity, and inclusion (DE&I), career growth and learning, work-life balance, workplace flexibility and more.

You can also use Talent Interest Pipeline, another new feature that allows candidates to express interest in working for your company without applying for a specific role, to automatically maintain a pipeline of warm candidates.

Tip #2: Leverage internal mobility as a tool for retention

While hiring decreases, internal mobility is rising in certain global industries, indicating that some companies prefer to fulfill their skill requirements from within during times of global uncertainty.

However, internal mobility is not a top priority for most employees in some APAC markets. According to our Workforce Confidence Index survey, employees in APAC are more likely to consider leaving the company than seeking internal opportunities. This suggests that employees may believe that career advancement requires switching employers. Nevertheless, there is an untapped opportunity in markets where employees are equally or nearly as likely to consider internal moves - Australia 1.1x.

This could be due to a lack of perceived internal opportunities. Therefore, it is crucial to actively promote internal mobility options to your employees.

To strengthen your internal mobility and hiring culture and process, LinkedIn Learning instructor Stacey Gordon suggests:

    1. Make it easy for internal candidates to find opportunities, such as through an internal job board

    2. Quantify the skills you’re looking for

    3. Build a culture of internal mobility and secure managers’ buy-in and support

As a recruiting professional, you can put LinkedIn hiring tools that you already know and use to good use, leveraging features like Internal Candidate Spotlight in Recruiter to find and connect internal talent to internal opportunities.

Tip #3: Invest in up-skilling and re-skilling the next generation of leaders

According to LinkedIn data on Global Talent Trends, GenZ employees display the lowest inclination to pursue internal moves within a company. I Individuals in management positions are more likely to derive advantages from internal mobility compared to those in individual contributor roles.

However, our Future of Recruiting 2023 report discovered that career progression and skill enhancement consistently ranked among the top six priorities for employees in ANZ. In fact, companies typically experience a 7% higher retention rate after three years with employees who have acquired skills through on-the-job learning.

Learning is clearly a compelling driver for both internal candidates and external hires. To help employees acquire the skills and achieve the growth that they desire, Christopher Lind, VP and Chief Learning Officer at ChenMed, recommends:

    1. Understand where employees are in their careers right now and what they need to progress internally

      2. Focus on leadership and management training

      3. Offer targeted mentorship programmes

Watch these five LinkedIn Learning courses to jump-start your company on implementing an inclusive, skills-first talent strategy — they’re free through July 28, 2023.

        1. Upskilling and Reskilling your Workforce with Lori Niles-Hofmann 

        2. Promoting Internal Mobility as a Manager with Alisa Cohn

        3. Attracting, Hiring, and Working with Gen Z with Sophie Wade

        4. Diversity Recruiting with Stacey Gordon

        5. Creating a Culture of Learning with Naphtali Bryant and Jason Mulero

Tip #4: Make the business case for skills

As the hiring market cools and businesses face the impact of the macroeconomic climate, employee retention becomes a significant concern for nearly all organisations. LinkedIn's 2023 Workplace Learning Report reveals that 94% of organisations in ANZ acknowledge this challenge, leading them to provide learning opportunities as a measure to reduce attrition.

Based on our Global Talent Trends data, companies that prioritise skill development can anticipate an approximately 10% higher retention rate.

Gallup estimates that replacing an employee can cost between 1.5 to 2 times their annual salary. While these figures may vary across different markets, more than 80% of Learning & Development professionals in APAC agree that reskilling an existing employee is less costly than hiring a new one.

How have you shifted your talent strategy recently?

Please share in the comments below, I'd love to hear from you ✍️

As always, thanks for reading & if you found this useful please share with your network ✨

See you next time! 🍔

Lauren