How are digitalisation and uncertain times affecting the labour market? And where do digital tools come into play? Erik Wirz, CEO of a headhunting company, has the answers and also explains what's important - and what's not - for your digital personality.
"There are large companies that haven't been able to efficiently enable people to work from home," says Wirz. (Collage: persoenlich.com, Photo: Aniela Lea Schafroth, Background: Pexels/Alex Green)
by Loric Lemann / persoenlich.com
Mr. Wirz, how is the pandemic and the subsequent push towards digitalisation affecting headhunting?
We have noticed that the issue of digitalisation has become much more prominent in the top-level profiles we are looking for. Board or CFO positions now have to deal more with digital issues. Everything that used to involve retrospective analysis is now expected to provide the decision-making body with forward-looking statements using today's technologies. This often requires a change in the attributes of the profiles we are looking for. We also see this in our searches.
Please continue.
We are currently seeing significant changes at the operational level for CEOs, COOs and CFOs, who are increasingly in demand at the moment. There are a number of reasons for this, which go beyond the usual reasons for job changes such as reorientation, retirement or internal disputes. Many companies are now making personnel decisions more quickly than they would have without the pandemic because of the tense situation.
Why is that?
Because there is more pressure on results, and certain issues that were not as critical before are now coming to the fore. For CFOs in particular, it is extremely important to plan ahead and anticipate different scenarios, and this is particularly challenging during this pandemic. As a result, the profile of these individuals is changing less in terms of their traditional roles, but they are moving into advisory roles where their arguments need to be backed up by data. Larger companies have already undergone this transformation, as their learning curve for new technologies is generally higher.
"It shouldn't be the CFO's job to come into the office to make payments."
What about smaller companies?
Since the end of 2019, we've seen similar changes in larger SMEs, even at the strategic level of the board. Because things were going well in the past, the critical examination of strategy was somewhat neglected.
So this was happening before the pandemic?
Digitisation is not a new issue. Shortcomings in digitisation and transformation were quickly and sometimes dramatically exposed by the pandemic. Some companies had to learn the hard way that it was not a good idea to avoid digitalisation, and in some cases they did not survive because of it.
How does this play out with today's home office requirements?
Some large companies still haven't been able to efficiently enable people to work from home. Digitalisation, of course, has a strong technological aspect that needs to be managed. This includes issues such as cyber security, governance or processes that need to be digitised and run without interruption. It cannot be the case that the CFO has to come into the office to make payments. What many companies have underestimated is the change in management culture required to manage employees working from home.
"Going digital doesn't just mean using MS Teams and having laptops at home".
What does it look like?
Employees need to be intrinsically motivated to work efficiently from home, which requires certain structures. Many companies have the mindset that if employees are not in the office, they are not working efficiently. Going digital doesn't just mean using Microsoft Teams and having laptops at home. The pandemic has prompted many companies that once categorically ruled out home working to start long overdue change processes. This process of organisational and cultural change will take longer than the pandemic will - hopefully - last.
Some tech-savvy companies have been doing this well for some time. Google, for example, plans to allow employees to work from home by the end of 2021. Some companies have offshore models where people work from different time zones. This means that organisations and management need to manage the autonomy of these individuals differently. It takes a lot of people to drive this change process, and it's not the responsibility of the employees, it's the responsibility of the leaders.
What about employee identification with the organisation?
This becomes more difficult when employees are sitting at home.
It is clearly the responsibility of management to engage with employees in this regard. This can be done through virtual coffee breaks, sharing sessions, but also through direct interpersonal communication between management and employees. When interacting with your employees, it's important to talk about personal matters as well as work. These are things that should be clear, but if they were not done before, they are now understandably more difficult.
"Control is the wrong lever."
What does this change in attitude require?
It requires different behaviours and approaches from certain individuals who may not be aware that they haven't done it before or that the culture hasn't emphasised it. Another aspect is to empower people to work independently by clearly defining their task competence and responsibility. Communication plays an important role in this.
So would you say it requires more control or less?
Control is the wrong lever. The moment a person feels socially disconnected and that they are constantly being monitored, you have lost them. It's about giving people clear tasks so they understand how important they are to the whole company. As Richard Branson once said, "If you take care of your people, they'll take care of your customers and your business". If people know why they come into the office every day without being constantly monitored, it works.
Let's talk about new technologies: What changes do you see in HR?
In HR, the war for talent has intensified. Traditional channels for people to apply for jobs are becoming less important, especially for highly skilled people. Today, companies are actually applying to potential candidates. This is why digital storytelling and employer branding are becoming increasingly important in HR in general. However, digitalisation in HR is not limited to portal solutions where CVs can be uploaded and automatically evaluated; it also involves active communication management in the market, which changes the HR profile. We see this at all levels of management.
"The machine can only deliver results as good as the data it has."
How much do algorithms or artificial intelligence help you in your role as a headhunter?
There are many new tools that we can use. However, one of the things that is often overlooked, apart from the efficiency-enhancing technologies, is that data quality is the problem. Often the quality of the underlying data is very variable, which limits the results of the analysis. We can work very efficiently with the data we generate. In our identification and research workflow, we have been using tools such as data enhancement, AI and machine learning for years, from candidate outreach to qualification and support during the process. The process is completely digitalised, which helps us to work efficiently.
How do automated tools help you identify people?
The tools available today are, at best, tools to help you work faster. They allow you to process large amounts of data quickly and to make statements on certain topics more quickly. But it's important to realise that there is no consistent structure to the data sources, whether they are social networks, company websites or personal profiles. There is also no quality management. For example, a LinkedIn profile may list your place of work or your company's headquarters as your place of work, or it may mention your international employer or your local employer. So the data is quite imprecise. As a result, the machine is only as good as the quality of the data it has. That is one of the biggest challenges. The scores have improved, but the domain intelligence of a research team at a professional headhunter cannot be automated away.
Does this mean that the employee has to keep their details up to date on the Internet?
That would be the holy grail for us headhunters (laughs). But the reality is different. As long as someone is happy with their current position, the motivation to keep their information up to date on different platforms is low. On the other hand, for someone who has just found out about impending redundancies, it makes more sense to have a well-crafted and up-to-date profile. Whether it is meaningful and correctly filled in is another matter. This is where the headhunter comes in, to anticipate things that are not necessarily in the CV.
"When making claims, they should be substantiated, ideally with examples".
You haven't answered my question.
If you want to be visible, think about what you want to be found for. And you should avoid using internal acronyms that are only known within the company. It's important to have precise but general descriptions so that people outside the company know what you do and what you can do. You also need to be able to back them up. If you make claims, they should be backed up, ideally with examples. For journalists, this could be awards or work for prestigious publications. Pattern recognition and word clouds are used in combination with cross-platform data enrichment. This means that if the relevant data is not present in the profiles, no system can anticipate qualifications and skills. However, it cannot replace the domain intelligence of a research team at a professional headhunter. There are very interesting publications in the field of AI on this topic. Almost all of these machines have biases, so caution is required. This can lead to the disadvantage of certain groups, which should be avoided.
Won't these biases at least be reduced in the future?
Yes, I think they will. The speed of development and the motivation to advance such technology is also related to the markets that can be addressed and how much money can be made from it. One of the big challenges is to generate a minimum number of data points. Otherwise the machine cannot learn and work accurately. In Switzerland, we regularly find that the amount of data is too small to perform meaningful pattern recognition. With tools from the US, you often run into the difficulty that you don't have an intelligent return on investment within a reasonable timeframe to generate value, not to mention the language limitations that are often present.
Please continue.
Another important aspect, to go back to a theme from the beginning: We are quite advanced in the industry in terms of collecting and analysing data. But a lot of companies struggle with using this data to make decisions and to make sustainable improvements. This is something we are also trying to look at internally. We ask ourselves: What exactly can we improve with data? If you cannot answer that question, it becomes difficult.
"Many people think they need as many contacts as possible on LinkedIn, Xing or Facebook."
So we do not have enough data in Switzerland.
Is it important for jobseekers to have as much data as possible about themselves?
More is not always better. It's smarter to have one meaningful profile than ten profiles that are not maintained and, in the worst case, contradict each other. However, the information in your profile must be understandable, market-oriented from an external perspective, correct and, as mentioned earlier, substantiated. The machine and the human need to quickly assess whether what the person is trying to present is plausible. For example, many people believe they need as many contacts as possible on LinkedIn, Xing or Facebook. But we can quickly analyse whether they are 'contact hunters' or whether these people really belong to certain groups. This is an area where we rely on new tools that are very helpful.
And should you maintain your online identity whether you are looking for a job or not?
This is an interesting debate. I would say yes and no. If you consciously want to project a certain image, you can do that. Depending on the situation, you can also stand out by keeping your profile lean, in the sense of "it's already clear who I am and what I do". That would be the best possible option. But there are some industries where that's not possible, like marketing. So you have to use common sense. Ultimately, it is up to each individual to decide. It also has to do with very personal motivations or privacy. But if you are on a platform, it doesn't make sense to behave in a way that is not in line with the platform's norms. In other words, it doesn't make sense not to provide a photo, not to keep your information up to date, or not to share anything.
Erik Wirz, founder of Wirz & Partners, an executive search firm that acts as a headhunter in the fields of digitalisation, IT, management consulting, pharmaceuticals, medical technology and healthcare.
If you want to find out what Facebook, LinkedIn and similar platforms know about you, you can use this Tool from the University of Cambridge's Department of Psychometrics.