The creation of The Talent Movement was fueled by a combination of events, conversations, personal feelings and experiences, including over a decade of working in the recruitment industry. Reflecting on the challenges many businesses share – especially those in manufacturing, engineering, construction, and tech – in terms of fewer females on the board, in leadership roles and a lack of diversity in application, I decided that, if I were to go back into recruitment after having my own children, it had to be about more than just earning fees: I needed to make a positive impact on the way companies hire.
Recruiting for equity
The UK Recruitment Industry is worth over £86bn to the UK economy and places over £1 million people into work every year. That’s a lot of opportunity for positive change to hiring behaviors and attitudes.
The Talent Movement is about finding and unlocking the best talent for industries – regardless of gender – and having a more open and diverse recruitment process: hiring purely on skills and attributes.
It’s fantastic that businesses are now putting diversity, equity and inclusiveness higher up on their agendas. Most businesses really do want to do the right thing – what can be hard is the how – and a lot of the challenges start with recruitment and hiring. At present, I believe there is a disconnect between the diversity and inclusion policies of organisations and those of recruiters.
Why the Talent Movement was Founded
I founded the Talent Movement to work with businesses across the UK, to improve diversity and inclusion in recruitment, to work with the personal needs and aspirations of candidates and help them achieve a career that is perfectly matched. The Talent Movement was founded to make positive change in the way companies hire, placement by placement.
If Covid has taught me anything, it’s the effect of personal responsibility: how one person’s actions can have a domino effect, positive and/or negative. I love being a Recruiter. I’ve always remained hands-on and will continue to do so, but the recruitment industry, as a whole, has a reputation for being ruthless, target heavy and purely profit-focused. There are some truly incredible recruiters out there, but, having spent a decade working in recruitment, I know first-hand that reputation can be fairly well-matched with reality. The Talent Movement will respectfully challenge the way companies recruit, look to provide alternative strategies to hire, and promote roles to reach greater, more diverse audiences.
A Movement to Unlock Talent
There are huge pools of talented people out there – unseen and unheard.
One of those groups is parents, in particular mothers, feeling conflicted by having to choose between family and career: hugely talented and skilled people stepping out of the world of work completely, because of a lack of options, or taking up part-time roles that massively under utilise their skills and offer a much lower salary. As a mum to two young boys – aged three and one – I’ve been there, I’ve felt it: I’ve been racked with guilt as the last one to pick them up and first to drop them off as I raced to another meeting 45 miles away.
I’m not alone in this. Many women all over the country have these feelings – those who are lucky enough to have found the right balance are much happier: more focused, less stressed, more productive and have a huge mutual respect and understanding for each other and their employers, which brings with it increased loyalty and commitment. What company wouldn’t want those things? Looking at flexible working options is a fantastic way to improve diversity in, and add value to, an organisation.
Join the Movement
It takes time, resource, investment and collaboration, but by creating talent strategies that work to create a more diverse workplace, businesses benefit from increased productivity, increased wellbeing, retention, diverse leadership, innovation and are typically more profitable.
The Talent Movement works with UK business in the manufacturing, engineering, construction and tech sectors – with more sectors to be added in time – to challenge the status quo and develop innovative talent strategies that unlock the very best talent.
The Talent Movement provides an end-to-end recruitment service, from planning to placement. We also work with HR Leaders to ensure existing recruitment strategies are fit for purpose. To find out more about The Talent Movement, email:kate@thetalentmovement.co.uk