Arrows Group’s CEO James Parsons explores the impact Brexit has had on talent considering a UK career move, and how Arrows Group has seen a 10% reduction of EU skilled workers relocating to the UK since the Brexit vote.
– Computer Business Review
Sponsored by Arrows Group, this exclusive Women in Business event positively challenged the under-representation of women in the technology industry, and explored how we can attract female leaders of the future to develop a more diverse culture in the tech space.
Guest speakers and panellists included Helen Pitcher (Chairman, Advanced Boardroom Excellence), Claire Darley (Head of Multi-Channel Transformation at Telefonica UK & Chair of the Women’s Network at Telefonica UK), Yelena Parker (Head of Customer Success and Operations for Teamseer at Access Group), and James Parsons (CEO and Co-founder of Arrows Group).
Mike Jones, Director at Arrows Group and Chair of the panel commented, “This event was a fantastic forum for our clients to hear how we can start to alter behaviours to make room for budding female talent. As a global workforce provider within the technology sector, we are very aware of the industry’s need to make a cultural shift to encourage a more diverse workforce, particularly in terms of gender.”
In a major step towards tackling child poverty, the UK’s Charities Commission approved Arrows Group’s application to register the Foundation as a charity. Following a lengthy vetting process and due diligence, the Commission officially entered The Arrows Group Foundation onto the Register of Charities with its Registered Charity Number (1163325).
Mentoring Programme & Office Visit – Smiles All Around!
As part of the Foundation’s employment-readiness initiatives, we were privileged to welcome to our Gurgaon office some of the girls from the Udayan Care home that we support. The visit is part of a series of mentoring programs for the older kids that will run until the end of the calendar year, focused on employment skills, career focus, and building confidence in them. In parallel, we are ready to sign the corporate mentoring program with school going kids who will visit our Gurgaon offices on a Friday and receive mentoring on a topic of their choice.
After a traditional Indian welcome with garlands of flowers, we showed the girls around the office and then set up a VC with Adrian and Naveen to (hopefully!) inspire and motivate them. Truth be told, it was the other way round and they continue to inspire us with their positive attitude and outlook, and remind us of why we’re doing this.
#everybodycanhelpsomebody
Question: What links Britain’s most successful mountaineer to Banksy artwork and private Strictly Come Dancing lessons?
Answer: Arrows Group Foundation’s sparkling charity dinner and auction.
Held in collaboration with the Royal Bank of Scotland to support the life-changing work of the Arrows Group Foundation in India, over £55,000 was raised on the night. This is enough for the Foundation, which exists to tackle child poverty through employability, to fund a new orphanage for girls in central Delhi, where there are estimated to be around 50,000 children who live on the streets.
Since its inception in 2015, the Arrows Group Foundation has been built around the core Arrows Group Global vision of ‘employee empowerment’. Aiming to empower vulnerable children born into poverty in India, the Foundation focuses on constructive causes including education, mentoring and career readiness, in order to change lives in the long term.
The room at RBS Bishopsgate was packed out with guests keen to support the cause. The full tables listened to a moving account from Foundation co-founder Adrian Treacy, describing in vivid detail his first-hand encounter with a young girl, the age of his son, orphaned and on the streets in India. The moment inspired him to establish the charity.
Emphasising the practical actions which can be taken to defeat child poverty, Adrian then gave up the stage to Kenton Cool, Britain’s most successful mountaineer. Having scaled the dizzying heights of Mount Everest 12 times, he spoke passionately about what first drew him to the Himalayas. Kenton has also raised millions of pounds for charity, and in sharing his extraordinary stories about what one individual can achieve, he inspired listening guests to make a push for higher summits when fighting for change.
Following Kenton’s accounts of standing on the top of the world, the mountaineering theme continued into the auction: the host of ‘money can’t buy’ experiences included a piece of rock from the summit of Everest, donated by Kenton himself.
When the auctions – both silent and public – opened, bidding was intense and exciting. Engaged in the cause Adrian had set so movingly in context, guests were raring to bid for items as diverse as a Luxury Villa holiday in Bali, Banksy artwork, and private Strictly Come Dancing lessons. Some items attracted a frenzy of bidding – Usain Bolt’s signed running shoe was a particular favourite.
Attracting over 200 attendees, the events sponsors included KPMG, NatWest and ICG Medical, bringing together the City’s top players to make a lasting difference.
James Parsons, CEO and founder of Arrows Group Global commenting on the organisational and behavioural-based cultural change going on as the lines between tech, marketing, communications and the like begin to merge.
Arrows Group CEO James Parsons commenting on how digital transformation increases demand for digital talent.
Expanding service lines to support global mobility and digital economy
NEW DELHI, INDIA, March 9, 2016 – One year since opening its Indian centre of excellence, Arrows Group Global, provider of global talent solutions for the digital economy, has moved to new premises in Gurgaon as the company continues its client-led expansion strategy and remarkable growth trajectory. The move heralds a highly successful period of delivering total workforce solutions to its global customers, particularly those clients ready to embrace the benefits of multicultural and multi-geographical talent. This suits the company’s expanding client base of high-growth, high-tech companies and major corporates who all need to build their digital capability.
Mike Jones, Managing Director, comments, “The reality of today’s digital economy is that talent is dispersed across the world, and professional services firms like Arrows Group can help bring that global talent to our clients’ doorsteps. I’m proud of the team that we’ve built from scratch in India and the high-performance culture they’ve instilled that is integral to our DNA and success. Our growth is a direct reflection of how our clients have responded positively to our unique approach. Moving to larger offices signals to our staff and clients that Arrows Group Global is ready for the next chapter in business process outsourcing.”
Naveen Narayanan, Global Consulting Director, adds, “Navigating the complexities and challenges involved in global skills mobility is a significant hurdle for many clients and firms. We’ve spent the past year reinforcing our capability and infrastructure that is now delivering commercial advantages for our clients, many operating in highly competitive sectors and international markets. Arrows Group can target talent scarcity and attraction by opening up the global skills marketplace, and help reinvent how our clients think about their work, workers, and workspace. As a global practitioner of people best practice, it has been immensely rewarding to reflect on a transformative year for our staff in India, and I am excited for what the future holds in the new offices.”
The Demands of the Fourth Industrial Revolution
This year’s World Economic Forum in Davos included the Fourth Industrial Revolution as one of its primary themes in 2016. The Fourth Industrial Revolution centres on the blurring of lines between the physical and digital spheres. We are looking at a phenomenon that has the scope to disrupt production and organisational systems across the globe.
What is different about this revolution is the speed at which the change is taking place. Digital automation is taking over repetitive and mundane tasks at an exponential rate, often performing better than humans with lower margins of error. This gives us the opportunity to take up more productive and creative roles, rather than jobs that can be automated.
Companies need to ensure that they are ready to embrace these disruptive changes emerging across industries. A key step in this direction is to build an adaptable workforce, one that evolves with the changing technological scenario. This future workforce should have a whole new skill set that goes beyond proficiency in a particular task. In fact, the Accenture Technology Vision 2016 report that surveyed IT and business executives found that “deep expertise for the specialized task at hand” was only the fifth most important characteristic required for people to do well in a digital work environment. They ranked ‘ability to quickly learn’ and ’ability to multitask’ or ‘willingness to embrace change’ higher.
Here is how to start with building an adaptable workforce:
Continuous Training
Firms should develop training programmes that are not just an ad-hoc requirement, but a continuous aspect of the organisation. This will allow them to create the kind of skilled workforce they require, rather than wait for it to emerge. This also helps in keeping the workforce updated with upcoming innovations. They are also an investment towards enabling your old workforce acquire the skills required to transition into the digital age. And when your teams are armed with the right skills, it is possible for them to identify the opportunities created by changing technology and act on them much faster than the competition. For example, GE’s FastWorks methodology, that embeds lean startup practices into the workforce, “enabled it to build a new regulation-compliant diesel engine for ships nearly two years ahead of its competitors”*.
Organisational Agility
The second element that firms need to incorporate is “agility”. This means the project teams and companies themselves, should be able to change directions and adapt to every major innovation in their industry. Companies have to give up the age old rigid division of work, and create free flowing structures that enable the people to move between tasks and projects, contributing their skills wherever required. An agile workforce is one that is built for change, and will bring in immense rewards in the digital age.
The Future of Jobs, Executive Summary document states that “Firms can no longer be passive consumers of ready-made human capital. They require a new mindset to meet their talent needs and to optimize social outcomes.” This is exactly why they need to reconsider hiring policies and prioritise the search for talent that is in sync with an evolving technological landscape. This new workforce of the future has been aptly described as the “Liquid Workforce” in Accenture’s Technology Vision 2016. This workforce needs to be, above all, a free flowing entity that will mould itself according to the needs of the time. And in a digital age, it is set to become a huge competitive advantage.
According to the 2015 Talent Shortage Survey by the Manpower Group, 38 percent of global businesses are struggling to find the right talent. We have our work cut out for us. At Arrows Group Global, we work towards finding talent that has the essential qualities to become a part of your ‘workforce of the future’. Working together, we can ensure that the impact of the Fourth Industrial Revolution is a world characterised by new opportunities that demand scientific and creative expertise, rather than replaceable cogs in a wheel.
*Accenture Liquid Workforce Technology Vision 2016
Arrows Group conducts successful first chat on Twitter
Arrows Group successfully organized its first Twitter Chat today ’Getting Your Talent Strategy Right for the Digital Economy’ with James Parsons, Co-Founder and CEO, Arrows Group, as the host. Despite this being the first such chat for Arrows Group, the event saw a phenomenal result with reach over 68,000 Twitter accounts, and 319,000 impressions being generated within the chat hour. The chat saw enthusiastic questions about smart robots taking over present-day jobs, adapting our hiring campaigns to the mobile revolution, and the increasing demand for employee retention.
its real and happening as is artificial intelligence and virtual reality. led in the US we find #digitalent https://t.co/JHPQfJo7aS
— James Parsons (@JamesWParsons1) February 25, 2016
A regular speaker at staffing and business events, James was keen on using the Twitter platform to reach out to a wider set of audience, to share his experience in building compelling employee value propositions for digital enterprises. James is encouraged by the great engagement he saw during the chat today.
With the rise of the Internet of Things (IoT) and Artificial Intelligence, traditional companies need to transform themselves into digital enterprises. And for this to happen, enterprises cannot just reinvent their business from the ground up, but also find the right talent to make it happen, talent that is not just digitally savvy, but digitally ‘smart.’ The Twitter chat focused on answering the key questions when designing the digital DNA of the present-day enterprise.
Answering key questions when designing the digital DNA of your enterprise
When: February 25, 2016; 1pm – 1.45pm (GMT)
First, it was the internet. Then, the big four forces of ‘SMAC’ (Social/Media/Analytics/Mobile). And now, it’s the Internet of Things and Artificial Intelligence. These sweeping changes have forced every organisation to transform itself into a digital enterprise or face irrelevance. To compete in the digital economy, companies today not only have to reinvent their business from the ground up, but also find the right talent to make it happen.
Digitally smart talent understands lean and agile, focuses on the right mix of business and technical skills, and always puts itself in the customer’s shoes. Join our Twitter Chat to learn how you can design the talent strategy most suited to your digital enterprise, and to ensure that your hiring proposition is as appealing as possible to the digital market.
Why Should You Join This Twitter Chat?
- You’re the CEO and you want ‘talent’ to be at the heart of your digitalenterprise
- Like every CxO, you want to ensure your hiring proposition is the most attractive in the market
- As the head of HR, you need an employee value proposition that sets a standard and framework for all HR activity
Your Host: James Parsons
James Parsons is Co-founder and CEO of Arrows Group Global, one of the fastest-growing privately-owned consultancies in Europe that has been integrating talent with digital enterprise since 2003. A regular speaker at staffing and business events, James champions the power of compelling employee value proposition when building winning teams and businesses.
