In light of the anticipated skills shortages, the upcoming General Election, and planned employment legislation in 2024, leading professionals in Human Resources (HR), Talent Acquisition (TA), and procurement are advocating for a significant overhaul in the hiring landscape. This call for change, spearheaded by the APSCo OutSource Client Community, a prestigious assembly of HR, TA, and procurement experts, stresses the need for a cohesive effort across all sectors of the workforce supply chain.

Central to this initiative is an eight-point plan designed to revolutionise talent acquisition and management. This plan emphasises the creation of a unified system for assessing skills and workforce competencies, improving the understanding of existing skills through enhanced transparency, adapting job requirements to focus on potential, reevaluating and streamlining traditional practices, judiciously integrating AI in workforce management, ensuring supply chain compliance, and achieving a balance between governance and flexibility. The ultimate goal is to realise true Total Talent Management by the end of 2024.

Melanie Forbes, Managing Director of APSCo OutSource, commented on the current economic landscape and the unique opportunities it presents: “As we kick off the New Year in what continues to be a challenging and uncertain economic landscape, there are a number of opportunities to reshape talent acquisition. Throughout my career I’ve witnessed firsthand the frustrations that those in recruitment and contingent workforce management have faced and I believe that the current environment presents a brilliant opportunity to address these.”

Forbes highlights the rapid evolution in how businesses perceive skills and the pressing need for change: “How every business views skills has changed drastically, but we are all now looking to define what best practice talent attraction and retention looks like. There’s clearly a need – and indeed desire – for change which must happen with some speed this year. Worker shortages aren’t going to go away overnight and collaboration is required by us all. It won’t be an easy year for the UK with an election looming, but there’s an array of opportunities that we need to capitalise on before new norms set in.”

Acknowledging the volatile nature of the economic climate, Forbes remains optimistic about turning challenges into opportunities for positive change: “As we’ve all come to acknowledge, it is incredibly difficult to plan too far in advance given the volatile nature of the economic climate. However, while there may be challenges ahead, each of these can be turned into an opportunity for positive change. HR, TA, procurement, staffing firms and outsourcing providers have an opportunity to collaborate and create new approaches to address skills shortages. But we all need to be willing to challenge ourselves and each other to achieve this.”