Berwick Talent Solutions Launch Event

On Wednesday 1st November, we hosted a drinks reception for senior HR and Talent Acquisition leaders at our London office.

The evening marked a significant step in the development of the Odgers Berndtson Group – the launch of Berwick Talent Solutions.  It was also an opportunity to hear about the initial findings from our recent thought leadership survey on the adoption of Strategic Workforce Planning.

Hosted by Richard Love, Managing Director of Berwick Partners and Berwick Talent Solutions we were joined by HR professionals from a broad range of sectors including Leisure, Retail, Consumer, Media, Engineering, Government and Education.

The launch of Berwick Talent Solutions has been driven by the Group’s entrepreneurial, agile and client-led approach to the market. The core value proposition of Berwick Talent Solutions is project and volume recruitment, market mapping and talent pipelining and its  key differentiators are:

• The ability to provide clients with superior quality, insight and creativity befitting its executive search heritage.
• Offering unrivalled sector and function expertise with a structured project managed approach.
• Enabling through technology without replacing personal engagement.

The event provided an opportunity for us to highlight some of the initial findings from our recent Strategic Workforce Planning survey:

• Over 220 respondents, globally, across over 20 different industry sectors
• Businesses are optimistic in the face of ‘VUCA’ (volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity) with almost 70% in either peak or expansion mode
• HR increasingly has greater influence on boardroom decisions, with over 60% having a seat on the Executive Committee
• Although it is widely recognised that SWP could add significant value, only 4% of businesses responding had formally embedded it.
• The biggest challenge to implementation is a lack of time, resource and knowledge
• Acquisition and retention continue to be the two biggest headaches on the talent agenda – D&I, AI and economic uncertainly are also recognised as significant challenges / disruptors
• Encouragingly over 60% feel that these challenges will help them to build a case for SWP internally.

Guests were then able network with peers and engage in lively discussion and debate around the key themes raised. The evening was a tremendous success.

A full research paper will be published in early 2018 to include all of the findings and trends from the SWP survey.