The war for talent is likely to become even more competitive as businesses now have equal access to top talent in each corner of the globe. With this in mind, there are some key considerations for leaders when it comes to aligning culture with talent.   Bill Thomas, CEO of KPMG states ”The crisis has accelerated strategies that were already in place around digital transformation and social responsibility. However, in other areas planning for the future is a lot harder, particularly thinking about future ways of working and problem solving. So it’s perhaps no surprise that CEOs are focused on the importance of talent to sustain and grow any future business” (1).   It is clear with the changes to the candidate landscape and known talent shortages that the focus for leaders needs to be on Talent Attraction, particularly on how to attract emerging talent, alongside existing talent.   Establishing culture as a strategic part of company objectives will be the key to unlocking these challenge

  Chris Buckingham (Director & Co-Founder) and Charlie Gordon (Director & Co-Founder) of Avencia were recently joined by Diane Lightfoot, CEO of Business Disability Forum for the latest Avencia Consults article. Diane has extensive experience of working in the charity sector and specifically in the field of disability. For nearly 5 years she has been the CEO of Business Disability Forum, a not-for-profit member organisation that supports businesses of all shapes, sizes, and sectors to recruit and retain disabled employees and serve disabled customers. In today’s article, we find out how small to medium sized organisations can create opportunities for disabled talent. Diane, have you seen a positive attitudinal shift towards disabled talent in recent years? The pandemic has had both a positive and negative impact upon disabled talent. Overnight businesses and their employees had to drastically adapt their ways of working, with many having to operate from a fully remote landscape

Avencia support Learning and Development in several ways, from designing and delivering technology enhanced early careers talent acquisition programmes, through to aiding improvement in internal mobility through technology driven skills inventories and skills matching AI.  Customised technology applications enable internal talent pools to be developed, allowing in-house Recruiters, HR, or Learning and Development practitioners to quickly identify potential job matches internally and use a bespoke internal application process to fast-track employees. Features could include guaranteed interview programmes, customer questionnaires, and personalised email communications.  Automated skills-based matching features work by comparing the skills defined with your job to the candidate's experience and skills. Resulting scores are made available for recruiters to view at different points within the screening and selection process.  AI aims to save recruiting teams time during screening, parti

This week’s Avencia Asks blog post features Bianca Pennington, Avencia’s Principal Resourcing Consultant. Bianca, tell us about yourself, how long have you been working at Avencia? I studied Law at Liverpool University, and upon graduating decided not to pursue the traditional legal path, and instead embarked on my first role in IT recruitment in 2001 and never looked back! I joined Avencia’s parent company, Oliver James, in 2008 as their 19 th employee, specialising in Risk and Compliance within the London market for 12 years. In August 2020, I joined Avencia and can honestly say the past year has flown by. It has been a pleasure to see the business go from strength to strength and be part of an exciting new chapter within the RPO space. You previously worked as part of a recruitment agency; how does this differ to working as part of an outsourced solution? The main distinction is that an agency role is 360 degrees, involving both candidate interaction and business development across

Flexible and hybrid working has historically been a taboo subject for many individuals and businesses. Prior to the pandemic, discussing flexible and hybrid working during an interview process was a delicate negotiation, one which was often only raised if it was a pre-requisite of the role, for example, part-time hours.   People often feared judgement and rejection when requesting flexible working however, conversations around flexible and hybrid working patterns are becoming the norm, and in many cases a must!   In today’s Avencia Horizon’s blog, we are joined by Avencia’s Talent Solutions Specialist, Louisa Newell, who provides her insight into what constitutes true flexible working, the difference between flexible and hybrid working, and how flexibility has helped her to manage a successful and busy career, with an equally busy home life.   Louisa, what is your experience of flexible working?   My experience has mostly been a positive one. I have been lucky enough to enjoy the auton

This week’s Avencia Asks blog is with our Recruitment Business Partner, Carina Barclay. Carina provides an exclusive insight into her day-to-day life working ‘onsite’ as an MSP (Managed Service Provision) Recruitment Business Partner and what her role involves.   Carina, tell us about yourself; how long have you been working at Avencia and what first attracted you to the role? I joined Avencia in 2019 and have worked in the recruitment industry for 14 years. I started my career in a recruitment agency before moving to internal recruitment in 2009, and it was here that I was introduced into the world of Recruitment Process Outsourcing (RPO).   I was first attracted to Avencia as I had previously worked with their parent company Oliver James. I liked the way that they worked and that Avencia was a start-up that had the backing and security of the long-established Oliver James Group.   I had also crossed paths with Avencia’s Co-Founder Charlie Gordon in my previous role, and when the oppo