By Mahe Bayireddi, CEO & co-founder of Phenom
Phenom’s purpose is to help a billion people find the right work. When people find their passion — a role that aligns with their values and challenges them — they’re more fulfilled and their lives have greater meaning. We support this journey with our Intelligent Talent Experience platform, which is used by many of the world’s largest brands to hire faster, develop better, and retain talent longer.
The most critical task HR must now address is how their companies will empower individuals to transfer their potential into the skills and competencies needed for current and future markets. HR challenges have become business challenges, and every organization is on a transformation journey that’s being driven by disruptive technologies, the constant evolution of skills, and economic challenges.
Disruptive innovations have been around since the wheel was first created. Throughout history, new innovations have driven significant change in all industries — farming, transportation, and health care, to name a few. Today, artificial intelligence (AI) is the biggest disruptor — but what’s different with AI is the speed at which change is currently happening, and it will only accelerate.
AI is like oxygen. It’s all around us powering many of the personalized consumer experiences we’ve come to expect. Savvy businesses are also leveraging it to hyper-personalize the job search experience for candidates, ensuring they find the right jobs faster. Multiple industries remain in highly competitive hiring markets with open roles costing them millions, and enhancing the candidate experience is the first step to addressing this issue. Providing personalized experiences for job seekers is only possible through intelligence and automation — particularly when hiring at scale.
AI also helps organizations plan for the future by collecting and drawing insights from employee, team, and organization-wide skills that can be applied across talent acquisition and talent management. Not only can it identify ways to address skills gaps before management is aware of them, it provides employees with learning opportunities to develop existing skills or add new ones based on their career goals. Skills also empower talent acquisition teams to make stronger hiring decisions, while enhancing the experience for job seekers.
However, skills are being overhyped and under-delivered. Most organizations aspire to have a skills-forward approach to address disruptive technologies, yet many do not know where to start. Phenom helps HR teams have a clear understanding of how to roll out the right skills ontology, take immediate action and power the best experiences for all stakeholders.
We give talent acquisition, talent management, managers, HRBPs, HRIS, and CHROs the information needed to truly understand how to approach and practically deploy solutions that mitigate the risk of losing high performers and fill critical roles faster.
Economic pressures are being felt by organizations around the world. Compounded by challenging labor markets, organizations are being tasked to do more with less. At Phenom, we believe intelligence and automation made possible with AI are essential to improve inefficiencies, accelerate hiring, and strengthen employee development and retention. But the way intelligence and automation are applied depends on the job zone or type of role.
Job zones, as defined by the Occupational Information Network (O*Net), are a way to group different types of jobs based on the level of preparation (this can include education, training, and experience) that is typically required to perform the roles. There are five job zones, ranging from job zone 1 — which includes jobs that typically require little to no education or training — to job zone 5 — which includes jobs that usually require a high level of education, training, and experience. Job zones help employers and job seekers understand what qualifications are typically required for different types of jobs and can help guide career planning and job training efforts.
Automation provides tremendous advantages to jobs in zones 1 and 2 because these jobs don’t typically require as much in-depth personal touch for screening or interviewing. Automation can reduce friction in every step of the hiring process to ensure organizations are quickly and efficiently attracting, engaging, and hiring for high-volume roles such as frontline positions. Phenom supports this through solutions including conversational chatbots, automated workflows, AI scheduling, one-way interviews, and pre-hire assessments.
AI enhances the way candidates for job zones 4 and 5 find their next job. It also streamlines how recruiting teams screen, schedule, interview, and hire these candidates. As employees, they can more easily identify future roles within their organization and develop required skills through training, certifications, and mentors. The best AI-powered technology can solve small, practical and effective areas, and leaves room for human-in-the-loop feedback to ensure accuracy.
With intelligence, automation and experience, the Phenom platform enables companies to hire faster, develop better, and retain talent longer. An amazing workplace provides employees with room to grow, evolve, and push their boundaries. Giving employees the trust and tools to own and actualize their career paths builds stronger workforces.
