Recruitment Down Under: The APSCo Australia Podcast
Recruitment Down Under: The APSCo Australia Podcast
Boosting business performance through DE&I - featuring Helen McGuire
Unlock the secrets to transforming your recruitment strategies with Helen McGuire, the CEO and co-founder of Diversely (acquired by the Access Group n 2023), to uncover the hidden power of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DE&I) in the recruitment and staffing industry.
With insights from the Access Group's eye-opening report, "Proving the Diversity Business Case," Helen reveals how well-executed DE&I initiatives can dramatically enhance business performance and talent pipelines.
Please join our host, APSCo Australia MD, Lesley Horsburgh and thank you for listening to Recruitment Down Under.
www.apscoau.org
Welcome to Recruitment Down Under. This episode of the APSCO Australia podcast delves into the transformative power of diversity, equity and inclusion within the staffing and recruitment industry. Featuring the former CEO and co-founder of Diversely, Helen Maguire, we explore a groundbreaking report by the Access Group that sheds light on the significant impact of DE&I tools and strategies on business performance and talent pipelines. Please join Lesley Horsburgh and Helen Maguire and thank you for listening to Recruitment Down Under.
Speaker 2:Hello, thank you for joining me.
Speaker 3:Welcome, thank you. It's so nice to be here, really nice to be here. Thanks, lesley.
Speaker 2:Yeah, lovely to meet you. You are obviously on the other side well, I'd say the other side. You are on the other side of the world, really, aren't you? You're sat in Dubai and we've just been tuned back over the weather uh, me moaning about the cold and you're talking about the uh, the rain in Dubai.
Speaker 3:So yeah, so weird international relations.
Speaker 2:um, we are here to talk about DE&I and um a particular report that the access group have have recently um put out out concerning the staffing market and, I guess, a very, very in-depth look at where we're at, what the drivers are, the motivators, I guess, to engage and invest in equity and diversity from a staffing firm point of view and possibly some of the hurdles or obstacles that we might have. So, before we delve in the report I believe is called Proving the Diversity Business Case and was undertaken- late last year is that right.
Speaker 3:Yes, so the research itself was towards the end of last year and the report came out early this year.
Speaker 2:Yeah, OK, can you tell us a little bit about what triggered the report? Why did, why did you commission the report? What was the thinking behind it? And, yeah, a little bit of context and background. Yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah, no, of course. A little bit of context and background before we do. Yeah, no, of course, um. So I I guess really to set this up, what would be useful to understand is is my role in all of this, um. To a certain extent so, um, I was the former ceo and co-founder of a tech platform, diversity, equity and inclusion related tech platform called diversely, um, which was acquired by the Access Group in September of last year. The tools within that include quite a lot around diversity, data tracking, measuring and improving that, as well as AI driven capabilities to help businesses to remove bias, level the playing field and increase the diversity of their talent pipelines, is now integrated within Access Group recruitment technology, so specifically within Volcanic for your listeners who are familiar with that and also through VinCherry, and will be rolled out further over the next three to six months.
Speaker 3:And when that acquisition happened, I think for us as a relatively small tech startup of kind of less than four years old, there hadn't been a huge amount of research, detailed research into the impact of diversity, equity, inclusion on the recruitment and staffing industry. We were very aware of it because of our roles within the industry. Our main clients were in recruitment and staffing, or at least within HR, within larger corporates as well, and so we'd seen the impact that getting this right for businesses had had. There's a lot of research out there that's a bit looser, that's a bit more around the impact of diversity, let's say, on a business's bottom line or on its ROI in some cases, but there wasn't a huge amount around the impact of getting diversity, equity and inclusion right for the staffing industry and for their business. You know. Know, not just for their end clients and for their talent pipelines, but also for their own business, and we'd seen how positive this had been for so many of our clients over the last kind of few years previous.
Speaker 3:So when we joined access, the idea really was to commission a piece of research that really got to the bottom of these issues around diversity, equity and inclusion the challenges you know, as you mentioned, in terms of what was going wrong, what wasn't happening and why it wasn't happening, but also understanding for those who were taking the charge on this, who were leading on diversity, equity and inclusion within staffing and recruitment, what their wins had been you know how this has actually worked out for them and to put some numbers around it, to really get some stats and some facts around this as a genuine business case rather than just being the right thing to do for us as professionals.
Speaker 3:So that's really where the report came in. We commissioned the SIA to interview and research across around 300 staffing and recruitment businesses globally so a lot based in the US and the UK, but a lot of international businesses in there as well to understand exactly what their position was and what their outcomes have been. And that's really what the report details and it's yeah, it was quite not surprising to me, necessarily, but probably surprising to others in the industry just how unequivocal some of that, some of those facts and some of the evidences that came back.
Speaker 2:You've kind of anticipated by first question there which I mean I read it and there was, there was quite a lot of positive stuff in there. I have to say. Um, which has probably perhaps surprised me the most but you obviously you have a different background was was there anything in there? You said, maybe not so surprising for you, but where were the surprises?
Speaker 3:Maybe not for you, but for the others in Access.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I think for those who read it, they're probably surprised at how impactful getting this right can be and how challenging it actually is.
Speaker 3:You know, the report itself brings up the fact that. You know, for many people the huge challenge is around data, is around understanding what to do, where to start, how to do it, and also nervousness around their candidates response to having their data collected, not knowing how to have those conversations or how to act appropriately in some situations. But I think for me, probably the biggest surprise within that was the fact that 50% of people think that they're doing quite a good job where diversity, equity and inclusion, data is concerned, and knowing how challenging, both legally and compliance wise, this is actually not just within a country, but sometimes globally or sometimes within a particular industry. I'd be surprised if 50% of businesses are actually managing to get this right. It's an incredibly difficult thing to do well, manually, and the laws around this change a lot, and that's partly why the platform was built. That's why the data element of the platform is is baked into it, so that those challenges are automatically disregarded once you start using um the tools that we've put in place yeah, yeah, um, I think you're.
Speaker 2:I think this you mentioned earlier about people not necessarily knowing where to start, and I certainly think you know from my experience and the conversation that we've had with our members, that seems to be the first thing that people say is we're not really sure where to start or how to start. We know we should be doing more of this. It's definitely something that people are aware of. What would you say in response to that?
Speaker 3:So I would always say start at the beginning, and I think when we're talking particularly about staffing and recruitment industries, you know the companies within that industry. I would say that that, specifically for us, is around sourcing, and what we put in place with the tools and the data capabilities through the dashboard is to help businesses to understand where they are currently, what their talent pipeline looks like right now, so being able to collect data compliantly actually across eight different elements. So, yes, you know, we think about things like age and gender and race and ethnicity and so on, but also looking at stuff like socioeconomic status, religion, disability status, whether those candidates might be part of the LGBTQIAbtqia plus community, for example, and really getting a good hold on what that actually looks like, because without understanding where you're starting or at least what your current position is, it's very hard to know where you need to improve or how to start improving that, and that really comes back to the data. It comes back to the numbers, um, and you know this is why I was quite surprised that 50% of businesses felt that they were getting this right, because it's a very, very challenging thing to do right and to do compliantly, um, but I think for you know, to really understand whether you're making any progress, you know you need to know where, where you're starting, and that applies to every single department.
Speaker 3:Any progress, you know you need to know where you're starting, and that applies to every single department in any business. You know, when you look at marketing, when you look at finance, when you look at HR, even as a general area, having the numbers and understanding what that looks like is just completely normal. I think within DEI, sometimes people are too afraid to look at it, they're too afraid to lift the lid on it and to really understand it. But without knowing that, um, how do you know which direction to move in? So that would be the first step I would say for any business, not just in staffing and recruitment, for any business out there thinking about, um, making improvements here and tackling this yeah, you mentioned earlier about the um, where people were not just in terms of um, the candidates they're placing with their own clients, but obviously internally within their own staffing firm.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I would imagine that actually starting there is a good way to make sure that the lens that you have on the end hiring for your clients is as diverse as it can be. Do you think that's a fair point?
Speaker 3:I think it's a very fair point.
Speaker 3:I think, however, knowing the recruitment industry as I do, Knowing the recruitment industry as I do, I would say it very rarely starts there for that industry because they are so hyper focused on clients.
Speaker 3:You know, they're so focused on the service that they give to those clients. The end results, obviously the placements and the fees that come off the back of that. So getting that right for their clients actually is often the first place that many recruitment and staffing businesses start, because we've solved them ourselves and we understand what that looks and feels like and we can honestly have these conversations, both internally as well as with you guys, but more importantly, with candidates that are coming through. That may be from some of these backgrounds, strengthens your position as a recruitment agency enormously and really puts you in a different category, One that genuinely understands the market, that can genuinely have conversations and attract candidates from all types of backgrounds in order to serve the best person for your client, not to serve the person who is the most diverse. There is no such thing but to find the best person, to open that door as widely as you possibly can to those conversations and to make sure that the best people are walking through it.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. I want to pick up on a couple of things that I guess stood out to me and probably I would say are the big wins. When you look at I think there's 47 percent of employers cite lack of candidate diversity from agencies as a barrier, barrier to implementing de and I so suggesting that there's strong demand for clients, um, but they're not getting that diversity from their then 2.7 times advantage in winning um tenders, which has got to be. Yeah, space for a big driver, yeah, communicating that to the staffing profession and then, on the flip side, saying clients are seeing that lack of diversity. How do we get into the middle point where the scales tip or rebalance?
Speaker 3:Look, I think the point really of those two stats is that there is enormous pressure on recruitment agencies to deliver on this stuff, to deliver on this stuff. So sometimes that comes from conversations, particularly if you're having conversations with, let's say, multinational clients who, if you're a smaller recruitment agency, will likely be leaps and bounds ahead of you in terms of their maturity around diversity, equity and inclusion. They want to know that they're being looked after by a business that understands that, understands that they have reporting, not just needs, but, you know, a legal obligation to report on their diversity, equity and inclusion. And they need to know that they're getting as diverse a slate from you as their agency as possible. So there's pressure there. There's often pressure as well within rfps. So our research showed that up to 30 percent of every rfp is now made up of diversity, equity, inclusion related questions. Um, I've seen rfps that are 80 percent and it really depends on the industry that we're talking about there and if you don't have good answers in those RFPs for those clients, then unfortunately that business is just going to go down the road, it's going to go to a competition, it's going to go to another agency, which means that you've automatically missed out.
Speaker 3:It may be a conversation around how are you approaching this dear recruiter in terms of ensuring that there is no bias in your processes? How do you know that that's not creeping in in terms of your levels of applications that are coming through, in terms of the candidates you're attracting, in terms of your processes of putting those candidates forward? You know, through your own internal recruitment teams. So there's multiple different pressures and multiple different ways. I've just mentioned a few there, um, that are coming through to recruiters.
Speaker 3:Now, if, as a recruiter, you can sit there and you can honestly document and say here is my diversity, action, inclusion, um data, um, that that I've collected on everyone that's come through the process.
Speaker 3:Here are my processes to make sure that bias is not creeping into my job ads, that bias is not creeping into where I'm posting and how I'm posting, that bias is not creeping into how I'm making decisions on that shortlist for you. And this is all documented through data, through AI, through algorithms. It's all there on a dashboard. Then really you can tick those boxes as well as showing reports that can demonstrate that to those end clients. If you can get that and if you can get to that point where it's part of your day-to-day, which is exactly what we've implemented within volcanic and within vinceri then you have a far better chance as that report says, almost three times the chance of winning that business. So you know, the pressures are there, the challenges are there, but where there is challenge in business there is also opportunity, and this is really a gap in the market for so many recruiters to grab that opportunity absolutely.
Speaker 2:80 is huge, 80 that was in construction.
Speaker 3:That was a major construction company. Um, uh, that spoke to one of my clients diversely previously. They came to us within 24 hours we'd implemented our technology, um, within theirs. This was before the acquisition, but it just goes to show. You know, they then retained that business. Otherwise that business would have been lost and it was a huge contract with a you know, a huge construction company. So there is this is kind of future-proofing your business, essentially having this data so that you know that you've got that in place for that next RFP or if you're going after contracts that you know are going to ask you those questions. It's just making sure that that data is at your fingertips, you know, without you having to do a lot of heavy lifting or difficulty or ask too many questions. It's just there and it's sorted for you.
Speaker 2:And you're diversifying your candidate pool as well. You know, yeah, into, you know, some very capable talent pipeline that you may not be utilizing.
Speaker 3:I think that's the other thing. You know, we talk a lot in that report, particularly about the impact of business, of course, which relates to the staffing industry and their end client, something that we don't talk about as much as the impact on the candidate themselves and the fact that knowing that your data is being compliantly collected, having that explained to you as part of the process, knowing that you have a fair chance when you're making that application, because this software is in place and that's what you're using to apply for your job, so decisions are not being made on what your name is or what school you went to or how old you are, but actually whether you are the best fit for that role and it takes you know. That opens the doors much more widely to those candidates that might be on the fence, looking at that role and thinking I don't know if I want to enter that particular business. I don't know if I want to enter that particular industry because of X, y, z, difficulties or biases that I faced in the past.
Speaker 2:So it's as consultants and you know, grand-level staff, you've got, obviously, a business that may be open to investing in this technology, but it falls flat if the people that are at the coalface of the business and hiring aren't invested too. Aren't invested too? Yeah, um, tell me what a grade a client staffing firm that is utilizing your technology does well and what impact it has.
Speaker 3:yeah, that's finishes look, I think the major challenge that we've always had within the diversity, equity and inclusion industry is this feeling that it's just another thing to do, it's an extra burden. Nobody knows where to start. It generally kind of sits within HR, but actually is the responsibility of everybody in the business to get this right. But who has the time right, who has the time to really put that extra effort in to understand it? Um, never mind do the work to actually make it happen and make the difference and track all those changes, um, and be able to report on that. The difference, really, with what we've done with the technology is that it's all baked in to the day-to-day processes so that diversity, equity and inclusion dashboard is part of the Volcanic dashboard. You can see that through Vincheri as well, so you can understand exactly what your talent pipeline looks like without you having to do anything extra. There is no extra cost associated with this. It's not another module that you need to buy. It's not something else that you need to log into. It's all there as part of your regular process when you're using Volcanic and when you're using Venturi, if you also have Volcanic as well. And then there's a few steps within the software that help you to look at job ads, that take the bias out of that job ad, so removing or highlighting any non-inclusive language and structure, giving you a score, giving you recommendations, and again, that all happens within kind of 10 to 20 seconds. There's then also a way of you taking any identifying factors out of the candidates that are coming into the process, and all of this happens automatically so that you can understand who the best person for the job is, make sure that you're reaching as wide a talent pool as possible and, crucially, tracking, improving and reporting on that diversity, equity and inclusion data. So it's you know, the best case scenario is simply that you use the software as you normally would, but you're getting all of the results without having to do anything extra.
Speaker 3:And yeah, of course, I would always recommend that everybody is taken through these processes, which our customer service and customer success team is fully across. But equally, I don't want people to feel anymore that there is this kind of extra thing that's out there that they need to figure out. It is into the software and there's very good reason for that because, as I said, people do find it really challenging and really kind of. I think it induces a lot of anxiety in people as well, sometimes thinking that they don't want to say, they don't know where to start, they don't want to get it wrong, um, so that's why it was created and that's what it's there for I wanted to talk about, um, something that also piqued my interest in here, which was about the financial impact, um around this piece and um the improvement in financial performance.
Speaker 2:Can you, can you do that? I mean, if, if any recruiter listening to this isn't interested in increased financial performance, I'll be very surprised. So I'd like to unpack that a little bit, if we can.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so there are multiple benefits outside of just client benefits and and that comes down to you as a recruitment agency being able to attract better talent to your agency, obviously the improvement in the win rate of those clients kind of at least partly off the back of that, the improvement in the retention as well of the talent that you're managing to attract and the improvement in the skill levels and the qualification levels of that talent. So it's all really boosting your own business. You know, if you're taking this approach for your own business as well as for your client's business and there's no reason why, as a business, you wouldn't be doing that if you're using the software, it's all kind of available to you to use for your own jobs as much as it is to use for your, your client's business as well. So that, yes, there is. You know there are multiple benefits there, internally, um, as well as externally, if, if you like to, to staffing and recruitment companies um, I might be putting you on the spot here, but what would you say?
Speaker 2:there's going to be, you know, and you alluded to construction industry earlier but there's going to be some, some sectors that are more inclined um to to delve or go down this, this, this um track than others, or, you know, traditional roles, whatever, I'm sure you yeah yeah.
Speaker 2:so let's say we have a reluctant client, where do we start? What can we do to change that? Because I'm sure where we've got this disparity between what clients want and maybe what the staffing sector is providing, the pendulum might swing the other way in other sectors. So if you have the appetite, but your client does not, or is maybe a little bit more biased, whether that's consciously or not, how do you then have those softer conversations that are going to influence an outcome?
Speaker 3:you then have those softer conversations that are going to influence an outcome. I am very used to businesses not being 100% on board with this and I think recently we've seen a backlash somewhat in towards DEI, or at least towards what people imagine DEI is, and I just want to be really clear that diversity, equity and inclusion is not about favouritism, it's not about positive discrimination. It is about opening the doors and levelling the playing field so that everybody has a good chance at getting the role that they deserve For businesses or for end clients or even for recruitment agencies that are perhaps a little bit mystified about diversity, equity, inclusion, perhaps have a sense that it's unfair in some ways or that it isn't for them. What I would say is just to go back to that statement that it is about leveling the playing field in order to attract the best talent to a business, not about favoritism, not about positive discrimination. And really the outcomes of using inclusive hiring, of using the software that's baked into Volcanic, for example, but any kind of inclusive hiring approaches within a business are going to have multiple benefits for you because it's helping you to find um or ensuring really that you are finding the best talent for that business. So if there's a client that is um, you know, perhaps not on board with it, doesn't see it as important, I would say it doesn't particularly matter. You can still be using the software for them and demonstrate the results in terms of those candidates that you're offering them, because they will be of a better quality. The report is is very, very clear on that point.
Speaker 3:If you're using inclusive hiring methodologies and the tools and technology that we have within volcanic, for example, um, but if you wanted to take them on a journey with this, if you wanted to try to bring them over to your way of thinking, let's say, then we do also have some training within volcanic, a couple of modules that will help you um to this, along with your client, why it's important, what the impact is, what the outcomes are, what it looks like actually as part of the process, where those biases can crop up and why they can be damaging to a business. So there are a couple of modules there that at the moment, I think are on offer as complimentary within the software. So you know, there are ways and means of doing this. There's a huge amount of resources as well that we have on offer within Volcanic. There's actually an ROI calculator.
Speaker 3:So if you wanted to get into the numbers of what this could mean for your business, hop on over to volcaniccom, head to the blog DEI section, plug in your numbers and you'll literally see what you could have last year if you'd had these types of approaches in place. Um, so, you know, it does come come back down to the numbers, for sure, but I would say that you don't have to be explicit about this all the time. As a recruitment agency, you can just be doing this work anyway, um, because it is just helping you to find those better candidates and that will come through to your clients without them needing to necessarily know all about their data and their breakdowns and their uh, you know, their different diversity of their pipelines and so on yeah, yeah, is that I might be going down a different track here.
Speaker 2:But is there a danger, do you think? I mean, I guess the goals of the candidate or, you know, the expectation in terms of an inclusive employer has to align with the employer that recruiter abc introduces them to. So there is maybe not a danger, but there is a responsibility to ensure that the two are are kind of meeting somewhere in the middle and are aligned so that there isn't that sense of, you know, I'm being thrown at this because I might fit that this diverse pool, but actually this employer, isn't interested in inclusive hiring yeah and I.
Speaker 3:So, on this point, um, I would be very, very clear that we are not talking about pulling people out of a sourcing process because they match a particular diversity tick box exercise. That is positive discrimination. In many countries in the world that is illegal. Um, it's absolutely not what the goal is here, and actually what the software is doing, and what I would recommend to anybody when they're going through these processes is to make sure that you're taking out any kind of diversity attributes so you can't put somebody in just because you're, you know they're they're a woman and they're making a gender just because they're from a particular racial or ethnic background, for example. Um, so so that's the first step in terms of that um shortlist that you're presenting to to a client is not to be making the decisions based on their diversity, but to make sure that, through your processes, you're welcoming as many diverse candidates as possible.
Speaker 3:The second part of that really is then, as you say, the responsibility of the recruitment agency when that candidate is going into an interview process with an end client, to brief them properly on the types of questions that they could be asking, to make sure that you know there is no, let's say, baked in discrimination within that business that could then affect their career prospects if they should get the job or, of course, their mental health or experiences within that business if they were to enter it. So I think there is a level of responsibility there. But I would say that you know is the case for any recruitment process. You know you should be asking these difficult questions of the businesses that you're going to interview at. You know how supportive they are to you. Let's say, if you're a woman, for example, those are good questions to be asking anyway. So I don't think it's it's not a misalignment necessarily, but it is something that everybody should be aware of.
Speaker 2:What would you like to see change? If you could have a wish or change things and have an outcome this time, next year, the year after? What would you like to see improve or change and what would?
Speaker 3:that look like. I've been in diversity, equity and inclusion space for about 10 years now. I've seen the huge shifts and changes that have happened within that, you know, through various different movements, let's say, particularly over the last kind of five or six years, and what I would really like to see change is just an acceptance that this is the right way to approach recruitment, that it's not about discriminating, it's not about making up quotas or numbers, it's not about a tick box exercise. It's literally just being able to take the bias out of the processes, which is a very difficult thing to do. As a human being, we all have bias, whether it's conscious or unconscious.
Speaker 3:I still have it, even though I've been in this industry for such a long time, so that the best people are getting the roles that they deserve and we're making decisions based on that, not on what they look like, not on what their background is, not on what accent they have or how old they are, even, but actually whether they are the best fit for that role. It's a very tall order, for sure, but I think starting with these processes, starting with the numbers, starting with inclusive processes of taking bias out of sourcing, for example, is a great first step for any business and really has, as the report demonstrates, reaped so many rewards for so many businesses already and for those businesses that I guess are still, you know, reluctant, it's only going to be um, you're only going to get left behind.
Speaker 3:I think this is the thing, and it actually, you know, varies slightly more deeply within that report. There are facts and figures that say, you know, those that are taking this on now have um incremental benefits to those that are, you know, perhaps being left behind on this, because they are the ones that are gaining the buy-in, they're the ones that are gaining the business. In many, certainly in the US and the UK, reporting around diversity, equity and inclusion is mandatory across many different aspects of it. If you, as a recruitment organisation, cannot provide that data to your end clients or to your prospective clients, then you will get left behind. And I think it's also on, you know, the war on talent, essentially, particularly within the recruitment industry.
Speaker 3:Um, you know, gen z, gen a, are snapping at our heels. They are demanding, um that diversity, equity, inclusion be at the top of many businesses agendas. If they don't see representation within those businesses, they choose to go elsewhere. Um, so it really is future-proofing your business to get this stuff sorted and it is not as difficult as people imagine. It's very hard to do it manually. It's very easy to do it when you have the right tools and the right tech for the job um and that's essentially what volcanic is now providing yeah, fantastic and, like I say, huge opportunity.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's um, it's a very big, broad um subject, uh and um. You know one that we've delved into a little bit through our conference and things like that for our members, but it's really interesting to hear you talk about that. You know, when you remove that bias and you're just basically looking at you know, competency and skill and fit, you're removing all of that. What you've baked in through the tools is kind of removing what's baked into us, whether it's through family, upbringing, school, you know where, and and it kind of seems like it's a, it's a perfect fit really to do something that is incredibly human, which is give everybody an opportunity to to have a job or have a career. Yeah, for me is probably one of the most important aspects of our profession. The impact that we make on communities and people's lives is huge. But it isn't, it shouldn't be, something that's exclusive to one set of people.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's, I mean it's you know I think I did a talk um not that long ago actually for for apps, go around the intersection between dei and ai um, and how many people are fearful around that. But actually there is a massive opportunity here when that ai is built ethically which ours was built with the University of Nottingham, scientifically backed data gathering and so on. You know, when you get that right, the opportunity is massive because, as you say, you know, the reason that we decided to tackle this from a recruitment perspective is exactly what you said. You are at the coalface, you're at the frontline of giving people new opportunities, new lives, new options. You know whether that's within one industry, across industries, across countries, across the world, whatever it may be. So you know, getting the right person, that right opportunity is, is your job as a, as a recruiter, and it's only going to help you to win those fees, to win those placements. You know to go back to the financials on it, but I just you know.
Speaker 3:I want to go back to a point quickly that you mentioned towards the beginning around you know, having clients on board with this and just to say that this is your trump card in your back pocket, whether your clients are asking for this, whether they're not, whether they're on board with it, whether they're not. Um, this is something that's going to give you the edge as a recruitment organization. Um, and that's exactly, you know, what the report has really has really pulled out. So I know that you know, in different parts of the world, we're not all up to speed. Certainly, um, we, we found that when we were working within diversely, there is a maturity spectrum across the world, but really, you know, this applies across the board, because it's just giving you a competitive advantage yeah, absolutely fantastic, helen.
Speaker 2:That's what we've got time for. It's been really interesting For those listening. We will put a link into the report so everyone can download that and have a read for themselves and, I'm sure, get in touch with Volcanic and have a look at those, the opportunity to use those tools. It's been an absolute pleasure talking to you. Really interesting, something that's I know we're probably going to catch up on again, I would imagine. You know I hope to see the report continue and you know, maybe the needle will shift a little bit over the next few years and we'll make some progress over the next few years and we'll make some progress. I think we've got a longer way to go in Australia, to be honest, but yeah, we, we we follow closely what's happening in the U?
Speaker 3:S and the UK, absolutely yeah absolutely, and and you'll be seeing a bit bit more of me, probably over your, your side of the world, at least from an online perspective, I would say, over the next kind of three to six months. So, yeah, anybody wants to reach out. I'm on LinkedIn, helen McGuire. Any questions, any thoughts, any critiques? Very, very happy to get into conversations about this stuff, so please feel free to ping me. And equally, yeah, you know I'm happy to show you around. What can I can show you what we can do.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we should.
Speaker 3:what we can do yeah, we should maybe have a look at um product demo for our, for our members, as well, I think, and yeah, absolutely, ai is is you know, as it is everywhere.
Speaker 2:Ai is on everybody's um lips at the moment and anything that you know can take that bias out you know?
Speaker 3:yeah, exactly, and it's about using the right. You know it's AI is such a generic term, isn't it? But it's about, as in the real world, selecting the right tool for the job, and you know there are some tools that perhaps aren't super helpful in this space.
Speaker 2:But yeah, and that in itself is quite daunting, you know?
Speaker 3:Oh, absolutely. Yeah, it's like, where do you start? You almost need a dictionary of AI or Google for AI. Don't you really around what's what's actually out there, because there's so much.
Speaker 2:But by the time it was published, I'd be out of date, that's, it just keeps moving too fast, so anyway, well, as I said, absolute pleasure, lovely to meet you and I will be in touch again, I'm sure, and you have a great.
Speaker 3:I don't even know what is the time in Dubai. It's so. We're nearing lunchtime, I guess. Late morning now, yeah.
Speaker 2:Well, we are at the end of our day, so you have a great rest of your day.
Speaker 3:Thanks so much, Leslie. Have a lovely evening. It's been great to chat.
Speaker 2:You too.
Speaker 3:Thank you, take care.
Speaker 1:Bye, Bye-bye. Thank you for listening to Recruitment Down Under, to Recruitment Down Under brought to you by APSCO. Join us next time. If it's happening in recruitment in Australia, we'll be talking about it.