Insights from industry leaders across the consulting, technology and services sectors.
This issue of insight is published as Covid-19 continues to cause a global health and economic crisis. Working practices have fundamentally changed as people have adapted to restriction of movement and lockdowns. It is widely agreed that the pandemic has rapidly accelerated the pace of digital transformation across most industries and the public sector. Technology and services providers are at the forefront of this change and as a result their businesses have proven very resilient through this challenging period.
When the first lockdown was announced in March 2020, given the uncertainty over what the future would hold for all businesses, we found that certain organisations paused key hiring activity. However, as the year progressed, board level and investor confidence returned, search assignments were reactivated and by the autumn, hiring levels were equivalent to the pre-pandemic period. That momentum has been maintained in the early period of 2021, with many of our clients now planning ambitious growth agendas. The speed that we have seen companies adopt virtual hiring processes, punctuated with, when restrictions allow, a ‘coffee in the park’ is a pleasant surprise. We are also seeing the increased use of online assessment tools, such as TeamScope, to provide valuable data points to support key executive hiring decisions.
