we.CONECT: The pop in your job — Chelsea, you work as Head of EMEA Hire Ahead Recruitment Team at Amazon — which of your tasks and responsibilities would you highlight as particularly interesting?
Chelsea: The Hire Ahead Recruitment Team, HART, works with the most incredible pipelines across Apprenticeships, Internships, Graduates, Military Veterans, MBA’s and ‘Returnships’ bringing folk back into the workforce. Each of these pipelines are hired 6-12 months ahead of respective start dates, as we support their specific needs completing studies or exiting military positions. I give this context to demonstrate the complexity of managing the careful weaving of these folk into talent planning.
I am fascinated by the manner in which we can align hiring talent that may not fully qualify for another four years (Apprentices), alongside experienced industry hiring, to ensure the right people in the right place at the right time. The necessity to look ahead for future trends in market, intended investment and projected skill gaps whilst remaining close to actual headcount and balanced ratios of Early Talent alongside experienced, is one of the most delectable challenges I get to work on each day.
we.CONECT: What is most exciting about your role and why are you passionate about your job?
Chelsea: Beyond the pipelines that we work with, which are an incredible blend of new generations and indicators of the future across the business, my true passion is my team. Seeing each of them grow on their respective paths, deliver novel, inventive ideas, or challenge the status quo to keep the team evolving is the most formidable motivation I can ask for. I believe to be future proof, we need to
build the next generation to learn from our experience but bringing their own lens to keep evolving leadership both as managers themselves, or individual contributors as specialists in their markets.
we.CONECT: At Talent Management Reloaded Europe 2023, you will present your case study “Year One experience programme — how to better engage and connect young talent”. How would you define your approach here?
The approach to First Year Experience is a workback from a problem: ‘Graduate attrition remains higher than industry hiring’. Whilst the Great Resignation could explain an increase in late 2020 to 2021, the spike has not decreased and in turn presents risks to the business and candidate experiences. From here we began to pull the threads to understand the ‘why’ behind that statement, what the feedback was and the specific areas of opportunity that increased structure and support can make an impact. We will go on to discuss these threads in more detail come Talent Management Reloaded and the respective actions established to monitor and improve.
we.CONECT: What were your biggest challenges over the course of this project and how did you overcome them?
Chelsea: The project is in its infancy, having completed initial research and structuring in Q4 2022, the ‘go live’ is January 2023. As such, many of our lessons learned will be ready for discussion come September. The most immediate learning has been the sheer scope of inconsistent experiences our graduates have received in their onboarding, with each business or even job type taking their own bespoke approach to engagement and training. In some instances, this includes beautifully structured month-long training to enable a holistic ramp into a leadership role, with others looking to more self-led training which is less engaging for an inexperienced hire.
Knowing what we do about the importance of warm welcome for Gen Z, the latter onboarding is a clear early indication for attrition. This gives us our first pillar: Consistent Onboarding. The other pillars wrap around with a focus on Manager Training, recognizing graduate onboarding differs from that of experienced hiring, and finally a key piece on Engagement. This last pillar is critical to ensuring we engage more than just the job profile, but the whole person taking the role, with elements like mentors and affinity groups made accessible from their start in Amazon.
we.CONECT: Looking to the future, what talent management trends do you predict in the next 12 months — how do you expect the market to develop?
Chelsea: We have a challenging fiscal future ahead of us, with recession on our doorsteps, cost of living continuing its climb and the first ‘pop’ of the Tech bubble since the exponential growth circa 1990’s. As leaders we have faced COVID, the move to virtual work and as we look forward we have the challenge of compensation engagement – all whilst balancing the broadest mixture of generations in the workforce. As a leader in Early Talent hiring, my belief is these factors will become most evident in our emerging talent pipelines, where we are already noticing a reduction in university attendance, paired with reducing population sizes as the average number of children per household reduces.
Over the coming 12 months I look to alternative education, Apprenticeships, Dual-Study Programs and Returnships, available both to internal and external talent, as we seek to close impending skill gaps with re-skilling or cross training. As for leaders in talent management, they will need to answer the call for empathy, creation of psychologically safe environments paired with frugality of resources and pin-point accurate hiring plans in ambiguity. The contradictive skills needed here highlights the importance of diverse leaders, beyond gender, looking to diversity of thought, skill, and experience to maintain equilibrium.
we.CONECT: What are your learning expectations from Talent Management Reloaded Europe? Which topics are particularly important for you?
Chelsea: Across these points I have referenced cost of living, psychological safety in another year of ambiguity following pandemic fatigue, changes in population and educational trends. Each of these future focused elements requiring ongoing research to ensure advice and strategies are set with a holistic view for the business. My focus going into Talent Management Reloaded is to seek to understand other business approaches, inputs, and ideation in these spaces – and those I have yet to identify. I am extremely excited to attend and have the opportunity in turn to share some of our learnings in turn.
we.CONECT: Thanks for sharing your insights, Chelsea! We’re looking forward to a productive exchange at Talent Management Reloaded Europe.
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