Demographic Change

Exploiting the opportunities of digitization in recruitment

Digital programs and automated processes not only make everyday work more efficient, they also make it easier for employees to communicate with customers and colleagues. Innovative technologies not only make employees more flexible, they also increase their opportunities to work more independently and globally. The home office has become firmly established as part of our working world. According to a study by the Cologne Institute for Economic Research, which examined the situation in Germany, Europe and the U.S. before and during the pandemic, the proportion of employees working from home or on the move has risen rapidly. While the figure was 12.9 percent in 2019, 45 percent were working from home in April 2021. Around half of employees in Germany who worked from home during the pandemic would like to continue doing so. Working from home, it seems, has finally arrived in our everyday lives. Digitization has thus achieved what was long considered impossible: thanks to powerful technologies, teams of employees work together in their home offices across locations, cities, countries or even continents almost as closely as if they were sitting together in one office.

Skills shortage and mobility

More and more companies are also using the new opportunity of digital collaboration to recruit more skilled workers from abroad. According to the MINT Report published by the Institute of the German Economy (IW), Germany alone currently lacks 276,900 skilled workers in the fields of mathematics, information technology, natural sciences and technology. To maintain its competitiveness, the German labor market is therefore urgently dependent on foreign specialists.

At the same time, however, fewer and fewer employees are willing to move abroad for a job. According to a survey by the Boston Consulting Group (BCG) and The Network, an association of job boards in 130 countries co-founded by the Stepstone job platform, 64 percent of respondents were still willing to work abroad in 2014. In 2018, the number dropped to 57 percent and in 2020 to 50 percent. In other words, nine years ago, two out of three employees would have moved abroad for the right job, but now only one in two is willing to do so. 

In many cases, however, relocation is no longer necessary. Thanks to increasing digital mobility, employees can now work for a foreign company virtually from their home country without any problems. Whether the home office is in Berlin, Brussels or Bangkok is becoming less and less important in many areas of activity.

Talent pools as an opportunity

To counteract the shortage of skilled workers on the local labor market, HR managers and recruiters are increasingly using international talent pools to search for suitable candidates who are not available regionally. A well-structured talent pool gives companies access to a large number of applicant profiles. Instead of the classic reactive application, they can recruit talent proactively here. This not only saves time, but also reduces the cost-per-hire. 

Recruiting platforms

Using global automated recruiting platforms, it is possible to comprehensively digitize recruitment and effectively support companies in their search for qualified candidates. Based on powerful automation technologies, these innovative recruiting channels simplify traditionally manual HR processes, from the applicant management system to online assessment centers and employee appraisals. Tedious administrative tasks that HR managers previously had to perform themselves by hand can now be completed in a fraction of the time. This includes tasks such as organizing interviews in several countries, sending offer letters or confirming the start date of new employees.

Almost every step can be automated with these end-to-end platforms in compliance with country-specific laws, from onboarding to payroll to changing employee status. The days of paper mountains and administrative chaos could be over once and for all. Global automated recruiting platforms can also efficiently support companies in their search for highly specialized professionals. For example, the software matches resumes against a set of central keywords to ensure that applicant profiles also meet essential qualifications.

Digital transformation in HR will not be implemented overnight. It is a longer and certainly not an easy process, but one that will sooner or later take hold in all companies. It will turn the tried-and-tested working world of many companies upside down, question business models, shift the boundaries of target markets, and create new interfaces to the customer. Digitization means change and therefore also changes in tasks and approaches. At the same time, it gives rise to new ways of working and new tasks, creating opportunities that would not be possible without the support of digital technologies.