A Round Up of #TREC17

June 21 saw the return of the annual Talent Recruitment & Employment Conference (TREC), the flagship event of the REC’s Good Recruitment Campaign. Each year the event is jam-packed with fascinating key-note speakers, panel sessions and roundtable discussions that inspire delegates to make a positive change within their business. TREC has been running for the past 4 years, and this year’s event proved to be even more special.

Our latest research

The event was kicked off by the REC’s chief executive Kevin Green who immediately made an impact with some shocking statistics from the REC’s latest report, Perfect match: making the right hire and the cost of getting it wrong. The report calculates that a bad hire could cost a business as much as three times the original salary. With 85% of HR decision-makers admitting to making a bad hire, and two in five hires turning out to be ‘bad hires’ within the first 18 months, avoiding the cost of bad recruitment should be shooting up the corporate agenda.

Panel sessions on key issues

The first panel session was chaired by Emma Stuart of Timewise, who discussed the topic of flexible working with Anouska Ramsay (Capgemini), Andrew Porter (Diageo), Gerard Murnaghan (Indeed), and Jo Brown (London Borough of Camden). With over 15 million UK employees looking for flexible work and only 1 in 10 job advertisements mentioning it as an option, the panel identified ways in which employers can incorporate flexible hiring into their attraction strategies to tap into a richer pool of talent.

The second panel session was chaired by Kevin Green, who discussed the topic of early careers with Adrian Wightman (Innogy), Stephen Isherwood (AGR), Charlotte Johns (TFL), and Dan Richards (EY). The audience got a fresh perspective on how some of the UK’s leading brands are approaching the recent apprenticeship levy, and getting rid of degree qualifications to enlarge and diversify their talent pool.

Insights from keynote speakers

TREC was also graced by two great keynote speakers: the returning Matthew Syed and the GRC panel recommended Dave Coplin. Mathew Syed provided another eye-opening perspective on treating mistakes as precious learning opportunities that result in marginal gains for overall organisational success.

You would have to be in attendance to understand what a pizza-eating DJ and elephant powder have to do with AI; nevertheless, Dave Coplin’s key takeaway message was simple yet profound. Despite the popular fear that AI is taking over our jobs, humans have irreplaceable traits of empathy, innovation, and accountability, and there needs to be a collective focus on using technology to design new ways of working, rather than simply speeding up pre-existing processes.

Each year, TREC brings together members of the REC and Good Recruitment Campaign signatories all under one roof to discuss recruitment and ensure that their recruitment process is effective and inclusive. If you missed out on TREC this year, don’t worry – you can still join the Good Recruitment Campaign and provide your organisation with a competitive advantage while making a positive change in the recruitment industry.