Experis: How to build sustainable talent solutions #techUKSmarterState

Public Sector Managers must balance cultural resistance and the need for skill development in the existing workforce while developing strategies to address and overcome these hot topics. The clear desire for pace and the abundance of ambition of migrating towards cloud and digital services in the Public Sector are impacted by a number of challenges, one of which is developing sustainable solutions to the well-documented skills gap. 

The Public Sector’s challenge when attracting top talent is compounded by competing with many private sector organisations; the impact of the high demand is the unprecedented increase in salaries.  Despite changing candidate priorities, good pay, work-life balance and flexibility remain important and for the most part is now expected; where the Public Sector may not be able to compete on salary, bodies can leverage the advantages they do have in creating a sense of purpose, diversity, and an environment that allows for the development of a flexible workforce and skills uplift. 

Additionally, when facing more challenging economic conditions, some organisations may pull back from the investment in Diversity, Equality & Inclusion (DEI), whereas the Public Sector remains committed to delivering this agenda, strengthening their proposition to the next generation who expect to see these robust strategies, future proofing and building long term agility through a truly diverse workforce and tapping into underrepresented talent pools, for example those who are Neurodiverse. 

 In response to the challenges faced and opportunity to leverage the advantages, sustainable resource solutions are taking a different form, with public sector bodies no longer relying on just traditional staffing solutions, we are seeing and speaking with more who are adopting a more flexible blended strategy to ‘build, borrow, bridge and buy’ to meet immediate and short-term skills gap needs while remaining cognizant of future proofing through upskilling, reskilling, knowledge retention and transfer and diversity. 

The key objectives of building sustainable technology talent solutions are as follows: 

• Flexible resource to meet changing demands and filling staffing and skill shortfalls 

• Attracting talent with relevant skillsets 

• Retaining talent by effective Talent Management Strategies 

• Future proofing through upskilling and reskilling 

• Knowledge retention and leveraging the existing public sector talent pool and skills 

Flexible resource to meet changing demands and filling staffing and skill shortfalls 

With the opportunity to engage through multiple frameworks, utilising interim resource can enable organisations to flex up and down to meet immediate demands by filling staffing and skill shortfalls.  Contractors can shape and shift culture, raising the bar and generating new ways of working coupled with a knowledge transfer strategy, contractors can upskill a permanent team. 

Attracting, retaining, and developing the right talent 

Talent management is an ongoing process that requires a multi-faceted approach to ensure you are using your time and resources efficiently. 

We have identified four key areas where organisations can focus their efforts in order to improve their talent acquisition process: 

• Understanding what makes an ideal candidate tick by understanding their motivations, aspirations and values 

• Making sure they have access to the right training programmes and development opportunities 

• Ensuring they feel engaged within the organisation through communication channels such as Social Media platforms like LinkedIn Groups or Slack Channels, which allow employees from different teams across departments to communicate with each other directly removing obstacles to interaction and providing across organisation knowledge share.  

Build a Sustainable Talent Management Strategy 

By building a sustainable talent management strategy, you can attract and retain the best IT talent and enable your digital transformation journey. A good talent management strategy should be aligned to your digital transformation journey, which is why it's important that it is part of the overall business strategy. This means aligning it with other parts of your business such as the technology strategy or business transformation programs. 

• Talent Management is not just about recruiting new people but also retaining existing employees by providing them with opportunities for career progression and development, while giving recognition for their achievements 

• Effective diversity and inclusion programs help organisations attract, retain and develop a diverse workforce by offering cultural competency training, work/life balance initiatives and programmes which encourage employees to reach their full potential through collaboration and mentorship opportunities 

• In today's globalised world, it is critical that we have an inclusive workforce that reflects the customers we serve. Organisations with a diverse workforce are better able to create products or services that meet the needs of all users because they understand them better than organisations whose employees don't reflect those same communities' demographics. 

• Develop a flexible strategy so you can utilise skilled talent when you need in accordance with your organisation’s needs 

Retaining talent is a key objective of building a sustainable technology talent solution, it is an important part of the digital transformation journey by ensuring that employees are motivated to adopt digital technologies and implement them in their work environment. The employee value proposition (EVP) or people proposition (PP) should be based on key performance indicators (KPIs) that incentivise employees towards adopting digital technologies. 

Leveraging the Existing talent pool by upskilling & reskilling 

Understanding what skills are required for digital transformation projects and creating an environment which enables employees to upskill themselves through continuous learning opportunities, and technology refresher courses etc. Retraining - re-training is a process of learning new skills to replace old ones (e.g., a programmer becomes a web developer). 

To build a sustainable technology talent solution to accelerate public sector's digital transformation, it is important to build talent by effective talent management programs which can help the public sector to attract and retain top talent and build a talent pool to deliver value to both its stakeholders and customers alike, whilst also creating an environment which enables employees to upskill themselves through continuous learning opportunities on new technology and increase the path for innovation. 

Conclusion 

Experis is working in partnership with multiple organisations in this space to support the Public Sector achieve their ambitions. We are combining a holistic yet innovative approach drawing on the benefits of a blend of solutions, incorporating traditional staffing services, Managed bespoke solutions (MSP, RPO, MV), SaaS and SoW all whilst ensuring we are championing the DEI agenda.

Find out more what Experis is doing in the Public Sector space and get in touch with their specialist advisors.

From 11 – 15 September techUK is running our annual Building the Smarter State Week in the run-up to the ninth edition of our flagship public services conference, Building the Smarter State, on Wednesday 27 September. Book your tickets here.