NH237 Consulting and WDAD Communications - Research on the future intentions and challenges facing the UK’s employers

Summary The opportunities for the Employer Branding profession have never been greater and neither have the challenges 2 The opportunities for the Employer Branding profession have never been greater - but it faces challenges in terms of message consistency, diversity, investment, metrics, internal communications alignment and experiential impacts. If nothing else, the events of the last year have emphasised both the robustness and the agility of the UK labour market. It’s entirely excusable to have assumed that the pandemic would have brought about an absolute meltdown as far as domestic unemployment was concerned. And, quite clearly, there has been much personal, professional and sectoral suffering. According to the ONS, some 693,000 jobs were lost in the year endingMarch 2021. Fields such hospitality and non-food retail have struggled hugely and account for nearly 500,000 of those lost jobs. However, there are some tangible, topical signs that our labour market is starting to pick up. The ONS reports a 16% surge in vacancies in this year’s Q1. This is the steepest level of job creation in four years. Adzuna reports, again via the ONS, that online job postings fromApril 9th matched those from pre-pandemic February 2020. Mid April saw Robert Walters report a 349%weekly increase in London-based banking jobs. And the PMI index rose to 60, its highest reading since 2013 in April. The Bank of England, too, is now forecasting that UK GDP will increase by 7.25% this year - the fastest growth since the second world war In February, its estimate was just 5%. This has been an incredibly challenging last year for employers, employees and would-be employees alike. However, the jobs market is hugely sensitive to changes in sentiment and outlook. These are changes that Talent Acquisition specialists need to keep close to and understand their implications. Competition for digital, engineering and healthcare talent never went away. And, with the lockdown being incrementally dismantled, even the hospitality sector is hiring once again. It’s for these reasons, that I decided to take the pulse of the UK Employer Branding marketplace, in order to gain an understanding of intentions and activities looking ahead, not back. The following statistics and insights are the result of an online survey conducted amongst in-house Talent Acquisition professionals this month. Just short of 100 such professionals very kindly responded on an anonymous basis. I hope you find the white paper interesting, insightful and potentially challenging.