Training and technology. Training is essential for every company, but it’s especially vital for staffing companies. In order to work cohesively and successfully as a unit, each employee needs to understand their role and the value of the work they are doing. There are some companies that don’t see the benefit of training or continuing to educate their employees. They worry that after investing time and money into their staff, they will leave. But research proves training has quite the opposite effect — 86% of HR managers believe training aids in employee retention (SHRM Research Institute and TalentLMS).

PREMIUM CONTENT: North America Staffing Company Survey 2022: Staffing Firm Plans for Use of Vendor-Provided Services

Role-based training. When it comes to implementing training protocols, many employers use outdated practices and make the mistake of leaving training responsibilities up to individual leaders. Instead, businesses should consider utilizing role-based training, which involves several different team members, aligns with the responsibility of each role and provides training for employees based on what’s expected of them. The opportunity to be involved in new employees’ training also gives rise to more tenured team members and further promotes staff retention.

Upskilling. Another training tactic to consider is upskilling, an approach focused on building existing employees’ skills to prepare them to fill new positions. As various industries leverage new technologies across the board, it’s important to close the digital talent gap and fill positions with candidates who have the specialized skills needed while maintaining your current workforce.

Investing in technology. Aside from creating opportunities for upskilling, technology also plays a massive role in the success of a staffing business. Small boutique firms might still run on paper ink and basic Excel or Word formats, but all they are doing is getting by. You have to invest in technology as it will bring you the greatest efficiencies that save you time and money in the long run. At Spherion, we have an entire team who stay up to date on staffing and recruiting technology and determine which systems and processes will help our franchisees and their teams operate at the highest capacity. That level of constant research can be an insurmountable task for an individual group, but is handled quite readily through a franchise brand like Spherion.

In the second part of this series, we’ll explore additional tactics and considerations that will help you stay agile in your recruiting strategy.

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In turn, the past decade has seen an explosion of litigation under the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA), which empowers people to resolve errors in credit reports and background checks, among other provisions. The number of FCRA lawsuits has nearly tripled since 2011, reaching 5,400 suits in 2021. Meanwhile, background check-related lawsuits have forced companies like Aerotek, Kelly Services, AT&T, Home Depot, and Whole Foods to pay more than $325 million in settlements. As just one example, Starbucks recently settled lawsuits alleging the company used flawed data from background checks to deny work to thousands of jobseekers.

Yet there is little reason to think employers have become less concerned for their workers. Rather, the broker-centered verification system has simply dominated the US workforce for decades, and it has become normal for employers to hire background check firms that buy their verification data from brokers like Equifax or Experian, which collect and sell billions of records on workers’ income, education, employment and more. Some verification firms are even subsidiaries of the brokers themselves. For instance, Equifax’s The Work Number service collects payroll data on more than half of the entire US workforce.

PREMIUM CONTENT: October 2022 US Jobs Report

Unfortunately, this system creates enormous risks for both workers and employers. Beyond the threat of data breaches — like the infamous 2017 hack at Equifax — or the fact that brokers re-sell worker data to countless buyers, it is incredibly easy for data errors to go undetected when workers are not included in their own verification process. Where data brokers assume there will always be errors across the billions of records they process, mistakes like inaccurate criminal histories, missing jobs and even small misspellings will be obvious and urgently important to the workers involved. And where 78% of employers aim to offer identity theft prevention as a worker benefit, employers can avoid all the added costs of this benefit if their workers can simply review their data and flag any anomalies.

This verification system is outdated and inefficient, and it treats workers like products rather than clients or consumers. Meanwhile, Equifax raised the price of its employment verification by 31% in the past year, passing these costs to job seekers, home buyers and staffing firm customers.

However, new technologies are emerging that allow workers to take control of their own payroll data, offering personal, encrypted vaults to store their data, review it for accuracy and share it with specific third parties with the knowledge that the authenticity of their data is guaranteed.

Regardless of the specific technology, it is critical that employers explore these new platforms. Beyond legal liability, mistakes in payroll data can devastate workers, ruin job opportunities and damage relationships with employers. For instance, the world recently learned Apple labeled former employees as “associates,” regardless of their title. Since these workers did not verify their own records, some were shocked to learn this error had derailed other job offers. Moreover, taking a bold step to protect your workers’ data can signal to your clients that they can entrust their own sensitive data to your company and your contractors.

To avoid litigation, PR crises, worker turmoil and corporate distrust, experts urge employers to arm themselves with policies, documentation and redundant compliance measures. And while these are good precautions, they can never fully shield a company that relies on data from massive brokers to vet their workers.

There was certainly a reason employers relied on data brokers in the past, but things have changed. Laws and technologies are shifting, leaving employers with a choice: Stick with the old system and do your best to defend against liability, breaches and distraught workers, or cut out brokers as middlemen and give workers a voice in their own employment story.

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Evaluating Processes and Technology

Today, software enables agencies across the globe to reduce their administrative burden and speed up the placement process. This is especially pertinent within the current market as agencies grapple with rapid regulatory changes in the domain of candidate screening and compliance. It has never been more urgent for recruitment businesses to assess their tech stack in line with ever-changing needs.

Whether large or small, tech-savvy or tech-starved, all agencies should go through calculated decision-making when introducing new software into their organization. Firstly, leaders need to consider the overall aims of the implementation project and their desired end state. Only then can they start to determine what processes they are looking to change and automate and envisage what the tech stack might look like by the end of the project.

This future-gazing approach involves evaluating the existing resources within the agency to ensure that any new software will be integrated and adopted throughout the business. Recruitment firms that are in the early stages of the digital transformation process should opt for a stack that can be easily maintained without additional resources. Most agencies will now choose cloud-based solutions where the software is delivered as a service over the internet and the provider is responsible for security, availability and performance freeing users from complex software and hardware management.

Once these initial decisions have been made, decision-makers can begin to review the market and what suppliers can offer.

PREMIUM CONTENT: Largest Staffing Firms in Canada and Market Outlook 2022

Structuring the Tech Stack so Operations Run Seamlessly

Recruitment technology is diversifying at a rapid rate with a wide range of offerings on the market.  Buyers should therefore ensure that they delve deep into the software’s capabilities, ensuring that they thoroughly research what the software can do for their business. Alongside current functionality, it’s important to discover what is in the roadmap, determine how frequently the software will be upgraded and assess the credentials of the provider.

For recruitment organizations with outdated technology in their stack, upgrading to an efficient recruitment CRM to handle all aspects of permanent and temporary placements is vital to stay ahead of the competition. By avoiding manual systems and siloed data, consultants can better collaborate with their team to place workers at speed.

For high-volume staffing agencies, a CRM that offers strong shift management needs to be paired with effective payment and billing software allowing them to process hundreds of timesheets for dozens of clients simultaneously. Having access to software which automates the payment and billing process not only saves time but ensures a high level of accuracy that keeps clients and candidates on side and compliance in check.

Delivering High Returns for Business Growth

As with any major business purchase, there will always be an adjustment period whilst employees get to grips with any new software’s capabilities and an understanding and buy-in as to how it improves their workflows.

Businesses need to ensure that they are receiving a significant return on their investment by measuring the results and tracking associated KPIs.

For example, consultants may currently manually schedule candidate interviews using external video-conferencing software. This may only take a couple of minutes, but when considering how many candidates consultants engage with on a daily basis, the minutes begin to add up. What if consultants could seamlessly schedule video interviews within their recruitment CRM? Measuring speed to hire is an important metric with time saved invested into placing more candidates and ultimately driving revenue.

Knowing that the impact of the software will be inspected may also help to increase adoption, especially if best use cases are shared and celebrated.

Building a strong tech stack allows recruitment agencies to free up their consultants’ time, creates a more enjoyable candidate experience and aids worker retention. When leveraging the best recruitment software for enhanced automation, agencies can increase efficiency and, therefore, have the freedom to do more.

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Here are five ways that firms are leveraging automation that you can employ to address today’s challenges.

Leave repetitive tasks to your technology. Automation is great for the simple, repetitive tasks that eat up recruiters’ valuable time. A great starting point for firms considering automation is using it for simple tasks like leaving notes in the applicant tracking system (ATS), creating calendar appointments and sending internal reminders. This frees up time for recruiters to focus on tasks that add real value, such as nurturing client and candidate relationships.

Increasingly intelligent recruitment tools are also capable of more complex tasks, such as recommending candidates for jobs (and jobs for candidates). Tools with artificial intelligence capabilities can review details on candidates in an instant, providing recruiters with valuable recommendations. This is particularly useful for temp or contingent workers, as it can cut redeployment time.

Keep your talent engaged. According to Bullhorn’s recent survey of 2,000 candidates, poor communication is the top reason that talent became frustrated with the recruiting process. The good news is that automation can help. Many of the routine interactions in the recruiting process, such as updating a candidate on their application’s progress, are ideal for automation.

Keeping candidates in the loop without communications feeling robotic depends on a tightly integrated tech stack. The system must be able to collate information from across channels to accurately personalize the messages and deliver them both at the right time and on the right channel.

This technology is also useful for reaching out to candidates at other important points, such as when they are approaching the end of their contract. These interactions maintain a relationship and ensure that the recruiter will be top of mind when the candidate starts looking for a new job.

PREMIUM CONTENT: The US Gig Economy — 2022 Edition

Take the friction out of onboarding. Many recruitment firms are already using automation to fill out paperwork and complete other important onboarding tasks. This is particularly valuable for firms that work with several industries, as the system can automatically account for differing policies on topics like pay, benefits, harassment and more. This same logic applies to firms that work across multiple countries, where employment laws may be different. The result is a fast turnaround and the elimination of potentially costly back-office mistakes.

Declutter your ATS. Manually organizing the ATS is a time-consuming task that frequently winds up at the bottom of the to-do list. However, keeping a recruitment agency’s data in good working order is fundamental to its success.

Streamlining data management is a natural fit for automation. An automated system can comb through records in a fraction of the time it would take a person and identify outdated entries, duplicates, people without contact information and records with no recent activity, all without the risk of human error. It can even update job, company and contract status automatically.

However, this is only possible when data can flow freely between systems, so recruiters must ensure that their ATS is correctly integrated with the other tools and platforms they use before pursuing automation. Further, as with any technology that involves data on people, businesses must be aware of the regulatory restrictions. Most modern automation solutions are compliant with data protection and privacy laws when used properly, but it is a firm’s responsibility to ensure that all processing activities are legal.

Scale your marketing with your business. Reaching out to candidates and clients across channels is another task that is ripe for automation. The technology can automatically personalize the content to ensure that it is relevant and applicable to each audience across different channels like web, mobile, email and social. To target contacts with tailored content, recruiters can define segments and lists for the marketing workflow.

At every step, the system provides in-depth data for recruiters or the sales team to review and refine their approach. Stats to keep an eye on are engagement score, pipeline revenue and the new lead close rate.

Automation isn’t some faraway possibility for the recruitment industry. It’s already helping many recruitment firms to thrive in a challenging environment, and those that haven’t adopted it will quite soon be in the minority.

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So what is happening with layoffs ?

Late last month, Snap Inc., the parent company of Snapchat, announced it was laying off some 20% of its workforce — more than 1,200 employees, CNN reported.

The interesting phenomenon is that while layoffs are bad news all around, demand for IT talent remains strong. Take H-1B visas.

One indicator of the strong demand came on Aug. 23, when US Citizenship and Immigration Services announced it had received enough petitions to reach the congressionally mandated 65,000 H-1B regular visa cap and the 20,000 H-1B US advanced degree exemption, also known as the master’s cap, for federal fiscal year 2023.

According to uscis.gov, H-1B is a nonimmigrant classification that allows people who are not US citizens to work in the States in positions that require a degree of high-level specialty knowledge. Previously, the USCIS had announced it received 483,927 H-1B registrations in March for federal fiscal year 2023, up from 308,613 in fiscal year 2022.

“It really reflects the extraordinarily level of demand for talent,” said Mark Roberts, CEO of the TechServe Alliance. He noted the number of registrations is up 57% year over year.

One note on the process: The initial electronic registration selection process was completed in March, and the USCIS conducted a random lottery to select the 127,600 registrations it estimated would be needed to meet the visa cap. The Society for Human Resource Management reported the USCIS selects more petitions than needed to fill the cap to account for employers who don’t follow through on the petition process as well as cases that are denied or withdrawn.

PREMIUM CONTENT: US Staffing Industry Forecast: September 2022 Update

H-1Bs aside, other indicators also point to strong demand for tech talent.

“Many IT consultants that work through IT staffing companies are still receiving multiple offers,” Roberts said. “Despite a few stories of layoffs and hiring freezes among some high-profile tech companies, overall demand for technical talent still significantly outstrips supply. So even if there is some slackening of demand in a particular industry, there are other sectors that will gladly absorb those IT professionals.”

The unemployment rate in IT (as of end of Q2) was approximately 2%. And the TechServe Alliance’s IT index shows overall IT employment has remained flat for the past year because of a lack of supply.

Our research at SIA shows growth in IT staffing has recently been particularly strong. There is talk of possible moderation in that growth, but those forecasts still see the market as strong.

Where do you see the IT market heading? Send me an email with your thoughts at cjohnson (at) staffingindustry (dot) com.

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Using No-Code Business Process Platforms to Automate LOA

Manual processes are the primary bottleneck to LOA process efficiency. To digitize, companies could attempt to code custom workflows, but many companies will have neither the personnel nor time to take on the task. Because of this, some companies opt to outsource LOA management, but that can cost upwards of $400 per LOA case. Luckily, there’s a better option: no-code business process automation (BPA) platforms.

These platforms operate using logic-driven systems and a visual development interface, allowing workflows to be digitized simply by dragging and dropping custom pieces of a visual workflow chart. To get started, companies simply identify the steps in existing workflows and input them into the visual workflow chart. No-code partners will then assist with custom automation triggers for each step.

Five Key Things to Look for in an Automation Platform for LOA

Full compliance with federal and state rules. With rules and forms changing constantly, managing compliance can be difficult for even the most well-staffed HR departments. With the right BPA platform, rules will automatically change depending on new legislation and reduce exposure to legal challenges.

Integrated recommendation engine. BPA platforms have turned the vast human knowledge in LOA into an integrated guidance engine that recommends the appropriate leave based on the leave reasons chosen by the team member.

PREMIUM CONTENT: Using AI: Risks and Challenges

Integration with your HRIS. Companies can realize the full ROI of their current HRIS by seamlessly integrating with a BPA platform. However, not all automation platforms are designed for the intricacies of LOA automation. Unless the platforms are integrated with the LOA system, there is always a duplication of work involved. Therefore, it is important to understand the level of integration offered to reap the full benefits of LOA automation.

Flexibility. One of the key benefits of a no-code automation platform is flexibility. One key question to ask when considering a platform for LOA automation: Can you shape the platform exactly to your processes and needs? For instance, can it send notifications to the supervisor during a specific milestone in your process? If your employees respond better to text, you will also want to see if it can send text messages to the employee at a given milestone.

Process focus. While some BPA platforms focus on data management, HR departments require an automation platform with a process focus. Because good data is a byproduct of good processes, when a BPA focuses on processes, the result is both streamlined processes and high quality data.

What Will Your Employees Remember from Pivotal Moments?

In an age of job-hopping and talent shortages, companies need, now more than ever, to make sure their employees are well cared for. When it comes to caring for your employees, how you treat them during crises will shape how they see you more than any other time. The first step of getting this right is making sure that they’re able to take the leave they need, hassle free, and nothing makes this easier than no-code business process automation platforms.

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Even if you know the benefits of hiring a younger audience, what can you do to recruit them? How can you catch the eyes of younger employees looking for work?

Let’s cover a few marketing techniques you can use to meet the needs of a younger audience so you can hire the best employees for your business while adopting a growth mindset for the future.

Promote Your Company Culture

Potential employees want to know what your brand stands for before they decide to join you. It’s important to have a platform and promote a company culture people are proud of. Surveys have shown that the most desirable values employees are looking for include:

• Good working conditions
• Fair pay
• Loyalty
• Job security
• Growth opportunities

It’s also important to promote a company culture that shows you care about the well-being of your employees. How are you promoting a healthy work-life balance? What are you doing for your workers’ mental health? Which organizations and causes are you involved in?

The more transparent you are with your culture, the easier it will be for younger audiences to see you and feel confident in working with you.

PREMIUM CONTENT: August 2022 US Jobs Report

Utilize Technology

Today’s younger generations were born into a world of technology, and it’s only become more advanced as they’ve gotten older. While your business can benefit from the skills younger audiences have when it comes to tech experience, you can also use the digital realm to help with recruitment marketing.

For starters, utilize social media. It’s a great way to humanize your business, engage with your audience and get people interested in working for you while learning about your business in a unique and interesting way.

You can also use technology to your advantage by obtaining certifications, networking with other professionals and offering digital mentoring programs. Utilizing tech in this way can be especially helpful if you’re a small business or you’re run by a minority group and you’re trying to recruit a specific audience.

If you’re not sure what’s working and what’s not, track which techniques are successful using business intelligence. If you’ve run specific marketing campaigns to recruit a younger audience, collect data on your efforts. If your campaign was on social media or through job posting sites, it’s easy to look at your analytics and determine which techniques were the most effective. That will help you tweak your efforts as you move forward.

Keep these marketing techniques in mind as you recruit a younger audience. Not only will your brand benefit from the skills this generation has to offer, you’ll end up learning more about what your business represents and whether you want to make adjustments to your culture to appeal to a wider audience.

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In today’s challenging hiring landscape, there are crucial steps to be followed by recruiters to actively improve the candidate experience. By speeding up time to hire and focusing on nurturing personal connections and authenticity, consultants will deliver on today’s candidates’ expectations and ensure a strong pipeline of talent for the roles they seek to fill.

Attract strong candidates with memorable branding. The need to build a strong brand to draw candidates to register with an agency has never been more urgent, especially with escalating job board costs. With such a large number of positions to be filled in any given sector or geographical area, agencies must truly innovate and stand out from the competition in order to be noticed.

Creating a strong brand profile is always the first step in candidate attraction. Building a strong reputation as a trustworthy agency by creating high-quality, memorable and consistent branding is an agency’s best chance at engaging with prospective candidates and convincing them to apply for open jobs. Working with a recruitment website provider with brand-focused design is key, but it’s easy to get caught up in the aesthetics. Most important is the user experience; the website needs to perform with navigation that is specifically built to maximize candidate engagement and job applications. A specialist recruitment website provider can also support with digital inclusivity, incorporating technical best practice.

PREMIUM CONTENT: RPO Global Landscape 2022

Offer an engaging candidate experience. Once candidates are registered, it’s all about moving them smoothly and quickly through the candidate journey to get the results that they deserve.

The candidate experience should always be led first and foremost by genuine human interaction. Jobseekers today are savvy and, with so many open roles, can choose who they engage with. Consultants need to make time for personal interaction, not only to build better relationships but to increase the likelihood of job acceptance through insights into candidate expectations. Recruiters who stay connected and deliver constructive and timely feedback will be able to place candidates more quickly and aid worker retention.

Automate administrative inefficiencies. Recruitment technologies have advanced significantly, so it’s crucial that recruiters leverage best-in-class software to increase efficiency and improve time to hire. Poor data synchronicity is a key issue that stands in the way of many staffing firms being as efficient as they could be.

An intuitive recruitment CRM should act as an agency’s central hub with all relevant information accessed from one place and integrated with their website and back office pay and bill solutions. For consultants, a clunky CRM that slows the recruitment process puts placements at risk. Automation of laborious administrative tasks frees consultants to spend more time with their candidates and clients. For example, digitizing candidate screening benefits both consultants and candidates alike by making the onboarding process more efficient and removing human error. Automated screening software enables consultants to verify candidates’ credentials and carry out background checks, including right to work, quickly and securely.

Strike the right balance between human connection and efficiency. The modern candidate wants a blend of authentic human interaction and a speedy hiring process. Recruitment agencies can achieve this by leveraging digital technologies to support skilled consultants acting with authenticity. By doing so, agencies can reduce the time to hire and ensure that they are attracting and placing quality candidates for their clients every single time.

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In other words, an Applicant Tracking System (ATS) serves as a workflow and compliance tool for management of applicants, while a CRM acts as a repository for passive and active job seekers as well as previous applicants. When an ATS is not well-designed, it can perform repetitive functions only, causing recruiting teams to waste time on non-value-added activities rather than focusing on strategic initiatives.

Integrate CRM with your ATS

Recruiters can take full advantage of the ATS database to shortlist and group the most qualified candidates, making better-informed recruitment decisions with greater ease. A CRM system can provide information about the success of marketing initiatives to HR professionals. These insights can be used to identify inefficiencies within the organization and improve recruitment campaigns. Integrating ATS and CRM software enables recruiters to develop lasting relationships with potential candidates.

Several Significant Benefits of CRM and ATS

Improves candidate quality and cost-per-hire. Employers who use an ATS experience reduced hiring costs and tend to hire better candidates than those who do not. The ATS can automate and reduce the number of manual activities that the employer performs.

Thus, companies increase productivity, lower hiring costs and increase efficiency. Additionally, ATS and CRM software facilitates communication between recruiters and candidates, allowing them to build rapport.

Communication is essential in recruitment. An employer who has a positive working relationship with a candidate will be more likely to want to hire them. Consequently, investing in an ATS and CRM system is an excellent approach to establish a positive relationship with prospective candidates.

PREMIUM CONTENT: Developments in Data Privacy: 2022 Global Update

Streamlines the review process. To find the best candidates, it can be a hectic and sometimes frustrating process to separate out applications and review resumes. An ATS is an intelligent, AI-powered tool that enables recruiters to automate steps such as screening, filtering and ranking applicants. It can analyze CVs for you, rank the candidates according to your criteria and present candidate information in a transparent manner that simplifies comparisons.

Makes posting jobs easy. A candidate tracking system allows you to post job openings across several platforms with a single click. To post a job, you do not need to set up an account on each social platform and manually log in. Furthermore, you do not need to monitor each social media platform and its results separately. Analyses from each platform will be collected by an automated ATS and presented individually.

Reports and analytics that have real-world impact. It is imperative for recruiting managers and hiring managers to use an AI-powered ATS to produce data-backed reports and tailored insights to monitor the entire recruitment process with ease. It provides statistics such as the success of a job posting, click-through rates, interactions with candidates, demographics and major characteristics of these candidates in order to develop future procedures and stages. It is a great tool for helping companies understand the market and improve their development to maximize the returns on their investment of time, resources and efforts.

Provides a better candidate experience. By using an ATS, you can quickly communicate with candidates through a single system. By doing so, you are able to communicate with them regarding their application status or request additional information from them. You are also able to keep candidates informed of the latest positions available at your company.

Due to the consistent and systematic communication process provided by an ATS, candidates feel more involved in the hiring process. It is much easier to schedule interviews, track application statuses and receive a job offer from a single source instead of waiting for phone calls or emails.

CRM and ATS are the latest tech trends when it comes to providing staffing solutions. From optimizing the customer experience, automation of repetitive operations in recruitment processes and enhancing the quality of hire, the joint integration of CRM and ATS into your staffing systems can help you significantly improve the cycle of your talent acquisition processes.

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While lockdowns have eased and workers are heading back into the office, many businesses have decided to stay either wholly or partially remote. This means the current workforce must be prepared to embrace new, technology-driven ways of working.

What Is the Digital Skills Shortage?

More and more businesses are turning to digital transformation, where technology is integrated into all business areas to change operations and deliver better value fundamentally.

Currently, over 70% of organizations have a digital transformation strategy, but it’s believed that only 61% of the working-age population in the UK has the necessary digital skills. The most basic of these skills include:

• Managing information, such as using a search engine
• Communication via email or online messaging
• Buying items or services online
• Problem-solving using online help
• Completing online application forms

The demand for these digital skills remains high, but the supply is startlingly low. A government report revealed that 82% of all jobs in the UK list digital skills as a requirement. Last year, employers struggled to fill one-third of the vacancies due to a lack of digital competency.

Of this limited number of skilled workers, only 28% currently participate in training programs. The most evident barriers to this are lack of time and guidance on professional development pathways.

Digital transformation is strategic and requires a cultural change where businesses must invest in learning and training programs to ready their employees for a new way of working.

PREMIUM CONTENT: Staffing Company Interim Planning Package 2022

The Benefits of Upskilling Employees

More and more companies are investing time and money into upskilling their workforce to prepare them for digital transformation projects. A highly skilled workforce is one of the best ways to future-proof a business while being better prepared for the changes that come naturally in the digital age, such as new technologies and dynamic consumer trends.

Upskilling is also a huge benefit to employees. A study by Salesforce shows that 70% of employees receiving this training are more engaged at work, leading to higher employee satisfaction rates. Offering this training can also mean higher retention rates for businesses, as around 93% of millennials and Gen-Z workers now expect employees to provide learning opportunities in their job roles.

There are many learning services available to working professionals. These range from one-off LinkedIn Learning videos and certifications that allow employees to learn when they want or entire learning courses that offer workshops, individual tutorials, dedicated points of contact and more.

The Skills Toolkit. At the height of the pandemic, the UK government introduced free online learning through The Skills Toolkit, which included courses covering practical maths, computer essentials, professional development, business and finance, and many more. All of these courses are designed to help gain new skills and/or change jobs, with each covering skills highly valued by employers.

Short online courses. Several learning platforms offer a range of courses for many different sectors. These platforms provide quick, practical courses, many of which lead to certifications that can be added to online profiles and resumes. Some of these services are LinkedIn Learning, HubSpot Academy, Udemy and SkillShare. Access to these short courses is often paid, though some do offer free alternatives.

Online learning programs. While these short online courses tend to be the first option for many looking into upskilling, more extended learning programs can offer comprehensive, productive learning environments with industry-recognized certifications. These courses can offer the flexibility of starting immediately and provide support through one-to-one tutorials with experts and easy access to learning platforms with content to help further learning when not in classes.

The impact of the pandemic and subsequent lockdowns will be felt for years to come. Businesses no longer run as they once did, and potential and current employees must learn about new technologies to keep themselves updated with the demand. At the same time, companies must offer these training opportunities to combat the skills shortage. Online learning is an excellent way for businesses to encourage a culture of upskilling, satisfy employees and keep retention rates high while running profitably and efficiently.

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