News & Insights

Harvey Nash Belgium, the leading global technology recruitment business has named Laurence Bauwelinckx, the winner of its second Contractor of the Year Award in recognition of her exemplary performance in an administrative role, highlighting unparalleled customer service, remarkable flexibility in handling diverse tasks, creative problem-solving skills, and outstanding multitasking abilities, all of which significantly enhanced the efficiency and effectiveness of the workplace. Laurence will now automatically be entered into the Global Contractor of the Year process, along with all other winners from Canada, Germany, Netherlands, Poland, Switzerland, and the UK. Working with over 11,000 active contractors each year Harvey Nash has established this award and the Global Contractor of the Year Award to recognise the value these individuals deliver to businesses and economies across the world, using their skills and experience to deliver vital projects for organisations. Laurence was selected as the country winner for Belgium from a pool of highly qualified and passionate nominees. At the age of 42, boasts a robust 16-year career as a freelancer. Prior to embarking on this journey, she immersed herself in office management roles within various corporate landscapes, often navigating the intricacies of large organizations where individuals could easily feel like mere statistics. Placing a profound emphasis on human interaction, Laurence finds that receiving recognition not only validates her efforts but also fuels her enthusiasm. The diversity inherent in her work is a cornerstone of her professional identity. Her decision to transition into freelance office management was fuelled by a desire to engage in a spectrum of tasks and connect with diverse individuals and personalities. As a freelancer, she recognizes the significance of infusing a personal touch into her work, ensuring that she offers something extra and unique. Having traversed through various industries such as accounting, real estate, consulting, IT, architecture, pharmaceuticals, and more, Laurence's professional portfolio is enriched by her ownership of management and real estate companies. This entrepreneurial venture provides her with a profound sense of fulfilment, continually presenting opportunities to learn and innovate with each project. The expertise cultivated in one company consistently proves valuable, either by infusing creativity into new client projects or offering additional insights. Intriguingly, the scrutiny faced by someone with a diverse job history, often encountered in the traditional employment sphere, becomes a testament to Laurence's strength and creativity as a freelance office manager. Her adaptability and multifaceted experience only serve to fortify her professional capabilities. As she navigates her current role, Laurence collaborates with multiple clients, experiencing a role that dynamically evolves. A typical day for her begins with the anticipation of unpredictability. Following a wholesome breakfast, she delves into a spectrum of communication channels, managing emails, WhatsApp messages, Teams notifications, Messenger, and LinkedIn—acknowledging the ease of communication in today's interconnected world. Prioritizing based on the day's urgencies; she addresses the most pressing issues first. In her capacity as an executive assistant, Laurence's responsibilities span booking travel arrangements, managing diverse agendas, scheduling appointments, orchestrating events, budgeting, occasional recruitment tasks, team support, and aiding EU or US teams as needed. This diverse array of responsibilities ensures that no two days are the same. Simultaneously, in her role as an event and finance manager for Belgium, France, and Luxembourg, Laurence takes charge of financial operations, coordinates both internal and external events, supports the sales department, handles HR matters, manages payroll, and tackles a substantial administrative workload. Post-client work, Laurence turns her attention to overseeing her four companies. This involves financial stewardship, payment management, administrative duties (claiming the top position in Belgium), customer relations, and the management of her real estate business. This glimpse into her professional life is juxtaposed with her commitment to quality time during weekends, where Laurence prioritizes moments with her family, friends, and beloved pets—a pair of dogs and a cat. “I am delighted to extend my heartfelt congratulations to Laurence as she embarks on her new mission as COTY Belgium. Her dedication, expertise, and unwavering commitment have been instrumental in our success. Wishing Laurence continued success on her journey to the global title. Let us rally behind her and celebrate this remarkable achievement together!” - Ronny Lommelen, Managing Director Harvey Nash Belgium. Commenting on being named the 2024 Contractor of the Year for Belgium, Laurence added, “I am deeply honoured and humbled by this recognition. It symbolizes not merely a moment of achievement but rather a culmination of dedication, hard work, and collaboration. This award serves as a reminder of the trust and confidence vested in me by my colleagues, customers, and family, propelling me to persist in striving for excellence in every small action I undertake. This award is not just a personal achievement but also a recognition for all freelancers in my sector. The role of an all-around assistant is notably demanding in terms of time and energy. Our availability, responsiveness, and capacity to handle last-minute tasks constitute significant facets of our professional personality. These aspects contribute to the excitement and diversity inherent in our profession.” Laurence will now go through as a finalist for the Global Contractor of the Year Award, the winner of which will be announced in April. For more information about the Harvey Nash Contractor of the Year award please contact Rachel.Watts@HarveyNash.com

Harvey Nash, the global technology recruitment company has announced the launch of its second Global Contractor of the Year Award. Following on from the success of the inaugural award in 2023, Harvey Nash is extending this award to include even more geographies including Germany, Switzerland, Ireland and Australia. Working with over 11,000 active contractors each year, the award recognises the value these individuals deliver to businesses and economies across the world, using their skills and experience to deliver vital projects for organisations. Last year’s Harvey Nash Global Contractor of the Year Winner, Meisha Millwee was selected from an extremely strong pool of finalists from across the UK, USA, Netherlands, Poland and Belgium for her outstanding performance and commitment as a Harvey Nash contractor. Meisha then went on to be named American Staffing Association's 2024 National Staffing Employee of the Year for the Engineering, Information Technology, and Scientific Sector in the USA. Reflecting on the award Meisha said “Receiving this award was a wonderful surprise and I am truly humbled. I also recognise the importance of this award, not just for me, but also for my fellow contractors around the globe who make such an important contribution to businesses every day.” Nominations for the 2024 award will be sourced from existing Harvey Nash clients across the UK, Ireland, USA, Canada, Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany, Switzerland, Poland and Australia. This year’s award will also see contractors able to nominate themselves. All nominations will be judged by a panel comprised of global clients and the Harvey Nash leadership team before a winner for each country is named. Winners of the local country Contractor of the Year Award will then be entered into the Global Award with the overall Harvey Nash Global Contractor of the Year being announced in early 2024. Commenting on the launch of the second Global Harvey Nash Contractor of the Year Award, Bev White CEO of Nash Squared, Harvey Nash’s parent company said:“One of our core values is that we are human, and we understand the value each individual, whether a candidate, contractor or employee brings. This award not only allows us to recognise our talented contractors, it also allows us to say thank you publicly to them for all the value and skills they bring to organisations across the globe. Speaking personally to each of our finalists was a great honour and I’m very much looking forward to being part of the judging panel this year.” "The Contractor of the Year Award is a testament to our commitment to recognizing and celebrating the remarkable contributions of contractors in the tech industry. It's not just an event; it's a platform where dedication, skill, and innovation come to life. At Nash Squared our people have always been at the center of our attention. This is also the same for our employed contractors and freelancers. With the Contractor of the Year Award we want to provide them the platform they deserve." - Ronny Lommelen, Managing Director Harvey Nash Belgium For more information about the Harvey Nash Contractor of the Year award please contact Rachel.Watts@HarveyNash.com

Our CISO, Jim Tiller, answers a question he is asked often, and looks at the biggest cyber threats of the future. This article first appeared on ComputerWeekly.com. As a CISO and cyber specialist, I am often asked what I see as the big cyber threats of the future. Whilst I’m not a fan of crystal ball gazing for its own sake, nevertheless it can be helpful to think about what may be coming – and what we can do about it. So here are my four big threats – or what we may more colourfully term the four ‘horsemen of the apocalypse’ – together with some thoughts how we can prepare for them so that it doesn’t actually turn into the end of the world! 1 Virtual Humans With the advent of AI, especially natural language algorithms like ChatGPT, and their access to everything on the internet, combined with the ability to create essentially AI plug-ins for text-to-speech and imagery, very soon we’ll have more virtual humans online than real ones. Today we have botnets: networks of robots that were surreptitiously installed through malware onto computing systems around the world doing the bidding of cybercriminals. With the power of millions of computers at their disposal, industrious hackers can do everything from mine crypto to offer ransomware as a service to other criminals. Moving forward, cybercriminals and even nation states will have the ability to mobilize huge swaths of digital people seemingly operating independently but aligned with a larger mission. We see tiny examples of this today with virtual interviews resulting in unintentionally hiring a hacker or spy. Real humans are and will remain victims to fraud and confidence schemes. Even to this day, email borne attacks, such as phishing, are highly effective. Imagine a world where parents are having interactive video calls with their children asking for money. But what if that child is actually a digital fake? Given how much information there is about you as an individual, thanks to data breaches and social media posts, very rapidly there will emerge virtual replicas. Versions of you designed to leverage you for a greater gain by crossing ethical boundaries you are not willing to take. 2 Super Computing Quantum computing has leapt off the pages of sci-fi into reality and has been actively processing data not just for a few years now, but decades. Many companies have developed quantum computers, but the reason we have yet to see something dramatic is, in many ways, because they all use a different architecture. It’s like Apple and Microsoft in 1986, separate and completely incompatible. Moreover, thanks to the nuances of quantum mechanics, networking quantum computers has proven to be difficult. Nevertheless, both these barriers are diminishing rapidly. Soon the race for processing the most qubits will be shortened and accelerated as scientists solve the networking challenge. Overnight, the global human race will have access to thousands if not tens of thousands of qubits. From a cybersecurity perspective, most encryption will instantly be rendered useless. All of a sudden, your secure transaction to your bank or all the data transmitted over you VPN are no longer protected. In fact, every secure interaction you’ve ever made is likely to have been collected, allowing adversaries to go back and decrypt all those communications. The underlying basis of blockchain crumbles, permitting the ability to rewrite financial history. 3 The Expanding Ecosystem As we delve into the world of digital transformation and Web 3.0, the ecosystem of technology is becoming increasingly complex and layered. In the early days computers existed in a single room. Soon, individual computers were able to communicate. As networks expanded, along with processing speeds and availability of cheap storage, computer applications began to interact, requiring less and less standardization across platforms. With this evolution has come more points of interaction and the ability to leverage specific capabilities from a wider range of technologies, and at different layers of computing. Today, cybersecurity is just coming to grips with the challenges of third-party and supply chain risk in computing. Companies that are currently undergoing digital transformation will likely not simply have three or four layers of suppliers, but that rather closer to twenty. Moving forward the combined demand for pace, growth and innovation will require more and more from the computing ecosystem. These pressures will result in greater degrees of specialization in the supply chain causing it to expand rapidly. As such, it will be a primary target of cybercriminals because its manipulation can undermine trust in surface-level computing, permitting hackers to take control of any system without detection. 4 Smart Systems The role of technology and its importance in the physical world is increasing exponentially and will soon reach a point where computer-related issues, including everything from errors to hackers, will have a tangible impact in the real world. Today, we’re exploring self-driving vehicles, intelligent power distribution, and automation in industrial control systems, all of which have direct physical interactions with people and places. As we evolve, increasingly sophisticated technology will not only be embedded into everything from the mundane toaster to the most complex infrastructure but will also be interconnected and operated across a set of automated systems. For example, smart medical devices will become increasingly common and will quickly move beyond tactical monitoring to automated delivery of off the shelf medication, prioritization of emergency services, and even control access to various facilities. While these capabilities will greatly enhance human services, improve healthcare, and reduce accidents, cyberthreats will target these systems to perform everything from theft to terrorism. Instead of your data being held ransom, hackers may hold your car for ransom, withhold access to your home for money, or deny you medication or emergency services without payment. Getting Ahead of the Future In the face of these seemingly insurmountable challenges, is there any light at the end of the tunnel? Thankfully, I believe there is. For example, many companies are now developing quantum-resistant technologies, such as encryption algorithms, blockchain technology, and communication networks. These may help nullify some of the cyber risks of quantum computing – the challenge will be to develop the strength of the defenses in proportion to the magnitude of the risks as quantum computing takes off. In relation to the expanding ecosystem, although the supply chain is growing beyond comprehension, there are efforts such as Software Bill of Materials (SBOM), enhanced software updating and patching standards, and even IoT product labeling is being explored. Active expert thinking is being applied to the issue. When dealing with the future related to smart devices and now, with ChatGPT and its ilk, smart AI, I think we have to change our perspective of how we coexist as companies and individuals with technology. It’s less about being a hard target with strong defenses, and rapidly becoming all about being a resilient target rather than a victim. With solid planning and preparation, resilience is possible. Be aware of the risks and think ahead of them. Focus on having alternatives, out-of-band options, and, critically, awareness of potential threat capabilities so that your plan B and even plan C aren’t rendered useless. The cyber future may sound worrying – but at the same time, human ingenuity will also find ways to build new protections and mitigations.

In today's digital age, job hunting has moved online, making it convenient yet leaving job seekers vulnerable to a new kind of threat: phishing scams disguised as enticing job opportunities. These scams are designed to steal personal information, financial data, and even infect your devices with malware. At Harvey Nash we take these scams extremely seriously and want to provide you with advice on how to spot these fake opportunities. How to spot a potential recruitment phishing scam. Often using a reputable company's name, brand, logo and tone of voice these recruitment scams may on the surface seem authentic, but the following checks and tips will help you to protect yourself. If in doubt, contact the company. Do not respond to the message directly, this goes for email as well as WhatsApp messages. Go to the company’s website and contact them from there to check the validity of the offer. Too good to be true. If an offer seems too good to be true it usually is, so trust your instincts. Examples can include seemingly attractive salaries for little work, promise of earning a lot of money quickly. Relevancy. If the job opportunity you are being contacted for has no relevancy to your skills it is likely to be a scam. Upfront payment requests. Harvey Nash will never ask you for any payment to get a job, nor will other reputable recruitment agencies. Unprofessional communication. Poor grammar, spelling mistakes, unprofessional email addresses or overseas phone numbers are all tell-tale signs of a scam. Urgency of response. If the offer insists on an immediate response without giving you enough time to think or research, be cautious. Unsolicited links or attachments. Never click on a link or open an attachment that you suspect to be a scam. What to do if you suspect a job scam using the Harvey Nash name or logo? If you are unsure if a Harvey Nash communication or job offer is genuine, please contact Harvey Nash directly by emailinginfo@harveynash.com. If contacted through WhatsApp we would also suggest blocking the sender and reporting the account.

George Lynch, Head of Technology Advisory at NashTech shares his thoughts on what generative AI mean for software developers. This article first appeared on ComputerWeekly.com. This year has seen a remarkable explosion of interest in Generative AI. Go back just six months, and most people had never heard of it. Now, it seems as though everyone – from tech professionals to students – is using it and experimenting, in particular, with the ‘poster child’ ChatGPT. This has also generated increasing discussion of whether AI and Gen AI spell the end for human roles, including in software development. Does ChatGPT and its Gen AI cousins (such as Bard, Copilot and Bing Chat) mean the demise of the software developer – given that Gen AI can already generate code snippets? It occurred to me that a good first step in considering this question was… to ask ChatGPT. As always, it gave an instant, eloquent answer, and the thrust of its response was ‘no’. ChatGPT and similar language models, it wrote, “are unlikely to replace software engineers entirely”. This is because software engineering “involves much more than just natural language processing” and requires a range of skills such as problem-solving and collaboration that are “beyond the scope” of Gen AI. However, it did also say that Gen AI “can automate certain aspects of software development” and “augment the capabilities of software engineers.” Clearly, then, it’s not a case of ‘RIP software developer’ – or at least, not yet. But at the same time, there is no doubt that the advent of Gen AI will bring about significant changes and disruptions. Field of opportunities It’s helpful to divide the impacts into opportunities and risks. So, I’ll start firstly with the many positives. Gen AI will significantly speed up certain aspects of the software development process. It can already manage some of the lower-level tasks, such as entry-level code writing, code snippets, testing and documentation. It can also write excellent comments in code – something software developers tend to be less enthusiastic about doing. And that’s just as at today. These capabilities could (almost certainly, will) rapidly improve and increase going forward. What catapulted ChatGPT into the mainstream was its ability to leverage modern advances in computing power that allow Large Language Models (that underpin ChatGPT) to be trained in a relatively short period of time. The potential for Gen AI to leverage advances in quantum computing could open up even more opportunities for developers. Who knows what agile will look like when Gen AI really develops? Imagine sprint cycles of not two weeks but two days or even two hours! The speed and productivity could be beyond our wildest dreams. The challenge will be handling all the code generated, curating it and managing it. In short, there is massive potential to do things faster, potentially more cheaply, and to spend more of the human time involved on the higher-end, value-adding aspects. These could all be huge positives in terms of productivity and client delivery. I don’t think there’s any question that senior developers and engineers will always be needed – they are where art meets science, they have the experience and the know-how and the creativity/problem-solving ability to bring it all together. The role of the programmer and indeed business analyst will still be to elicit requirements from clients that can then be converted into prompts for GenAI to generate, test and document code snippets. These will still need to be woven into the fabric of the overall solution. It’s also worth remembering that to get the most from Gen AI, you need well-constructed prompts. In a way prompting Gen AI is a protocol all of its own, akin to pseudo-code. Gen AI at the moment does not remove the need for thinking about how a software solution needs to be structured, which for the most part is the biggest value a software developer brings. A range of risks We must be honest and say that Gen AI does represent a threat to junior roles and entry level tasks. However, in a way this is no different to the new frameworks and automation tools that keep appearing in the market. It’s a factor the IT industry is already used to living with. It may be more pronounced with Gen AI, however, as clients may expect software firms and consultants to reduce the size of their (human) teams due to the fact that they can use Gen AI – either that or get jobs done faster (or both).An inflection point may therefore be coming. But tech has always been resilient and adaptable. It always reinvents itself. I have no doubt that new jobs and roles will be needed to support Gen AI (prompt engineers for example) that many junior team members can fill. Gen AI will be a disruptor, but I am confident that the industry will embrace Gen AI as it has other advances in computing science. Whilst the industry will not only survive but thrive, the level of disruption Gen AI has caused and will continue to create may be a step too far for some digital leaders. They may decide to step back, allowing a new crop of leaders to step forward. But there are other threats or risks that need to be managed, not just those around jobs. There is arguably a danger of stagnation if Gen AI can only generate code similar to code used to train the underlying models. Will it ever be able to make innovative leaps forward? This is where human intelligence will likely always be needed and will remain at a premium. Then there is the risk of error. There have already been cases of Gen AI being ‘confidently wrong’, suffering from ‘hallucinations’ caused by a lack of data, dirty data, or other constraints/errors in the models. Gen AI’s outputs, therefore, need to be checked, tested, validated etc – another area where humans are likely to keep their jobs. It is essential that this happens. Otherwise, the speed at which false and/or malicious information (or code) could spread could be truly frightening and have potentially serious consequences. Advice to digital leaders, consultants, practitioners So where does this leave everyone in or connected to the IT industry? My five key pieces of advice are as follows. Try it out. Actively engage, test it, and experiment. Don’t be held back by the ‘fear factor’. Be transparent within your business and with your own clients that you’re using or trialling Gen AI. After all, they probably are too! This can open up valuable exchanges of experience, insights and sharing. Trust, Risk, Security – these are the three key lenses to assess Gen AI through. Stay focused on those. Can you trust the outputs; is it introducing any substantial risks; is it safe and secure? Treat Gen AI like any other tech you’ve used, implemented or experimented with in your career. Apply the same principles and best practices that have always guided you. Don’t try to build your own – the cloud providers are all developing a host of applications and services, so make use of those. We are entering the “Gen AI as a service” era. As an example of how we are approaching it at NashTech, we’re actively trialling it and are about to start using a ChatGPT product, which we have developed and fine-tuned ourselves based on GPT4, for first line tech support for clients. A place to thrive These are exciting times. No one can really be sure of the scale of the changes to come, but we can be sure that they’re going to be significant. The advent of Gen AI has parallels with the advent of low-code/no-code in the last decade. Although low-code has replaced bespoke software development in many ways, there are actually more software developers now than a decade ago. This is because low-code/no-code, and also Gen AI, will always focus on the low hanging fruit of software development. Once those fruits have been picked, forward thinking enterprises are keen to climb the tree further for the next innovation, and usually that requires bespoke work. How high is the tree and will Gen AI/low-code ever get to the top of it? We think very, very high, and no. So, I don’t believe there is any danger of ‘RIP software developer’. Tech will remain a place where humans can thrive, building on the ever-more sophisticated outputs that AI brings us.

With 70 per cent of organisations struggling to keep up with the pace of change due to a skills shortage, digital leaders need to get creative with filling those gaps. Lily Haake, Head of Technology & Digital Executive Search at Harvey Nash and George Lynch, Head of Technology Advisory at NashTech share their thoughts in this article, which first appeared on ComputerWeekly.com. The technology market continues to be hampered by severe skills gaps and talent shortages, a problem which shows no sign of abating. In the 2022 Nash Squared Digital Leadership report, 70% of digital leaders said skills shortages are preventing them from keeping up with the pace of change. Everything from data analysts to cybersecurity specialists and technical architects are in short supply and in high demand. There are many facets to a successful talent recruitment strategy – attractive remuneration, flexible working arrangements, a strong brand, and a clear and compelling employee value proposition – but another key aspect is who you target. We would argue that exceptional times mean CIOs and other digital leaders must look beyond the traditional, established intake groups and channels. Fishing in non-traditional pools needs to become an integral part of the talent strategy. Here are five non-traditional groups/approaches that we believe are rich in potential, along with our thoughts on how to access them, based on what we are seeing amongst our clients in the market. 1. Recruitment remotely from overseas In the post-Covid, hybrid working environment, a new truth is being established: anyone can work for anybody from anywhere. Last year’s Digital Leadership Report established that this has already become a pattern – a quarter of UK organisations said that they had begun to recruit people based abroad. It’s an extraordinary thought that you may have people who are part of your team that you’ve never physically met – but it’s a reality today. Talent sourcing from overseas is no longer a cost-driven decision, but rather a simple matter of availability. We are seeing evidence of this growing trend in the tech sector, with Home Office data recently showing that the number of applications for new skilled worker visas and visa extensions for programmers and software developers were up 36% in the third quarter of 2022 compared to the first quarter of 2021. If the talent exists in another market, why not bring it on board? Employment law and regulation can be a barrier in some cases but is rarely insurmountable. Accessing this talent is partly about finding a way to recruit with a global reach and mindset, and clearly, partners who have an international presence can help here. It’s also about taking advantage of today’s ‘global village’ – people are more connected with other people through social media and networking sites, so take advantage of that through contacts, recommendations and targeted outreach. 2. Automation and generative AI If you can’t find the people, could a machine do it for you instead? This may apply more to processes than whole roles, but what we’re seeing amongst technology teams is that they are eager embracers of generative AI in particular to help them do more with less, more quickly. In the tech team context, it doesn’t directly replace the need for people, but it can help them become more productive. This can have a longer-term easing effect on the recruitment challenge – instead of bringing in three people, maybe one person with expertise in using generative AI will achieve the same results? And that person can then help upskill the rest of the team so that they can harness it too. As a digital leader, make sure you’re actively exploring the possibilities of ChatGPT, Microsoft 365 Copilot, Github Copilot and the proliferating array of generative AI tools coming onto the market. And don’t forget ‘traditional’ automation too – you’re used to helping the business automate its workflows and processes, but are you turning the lens onto your own function as well? 3. Low Code/No Code It’s a simple equation: moving more technology onto low code/no code platforms will mean that fewer human tech skills are required. Rather than a software engineer, for example, a technical business analyst may be able to use a drag-and-drop platform to build an app themselves – perhaps with some extra support around specific aspects of security and data. It’s fair to say that low code/no code solutions are often regarded with some antipathy by traditional engineers and coders. Leaders need to be sensitive to this. But it feels like we have reached an inflection point. There is undoubtedly a middle ground where it can be exactly the right solution – and one that helps manage down the skills shortage pressure. 4. Cross-training and returners The problem is not that talent has disappeared – it’s how to access it. It’s essential to keep your intake channels open to as wide a range of sources as possible. Graduate intake is obviously key for some organisations, but less traditional mechanisms such as apprenticeships and programmes specifically geared to attracting more diverse talent are gaining huge traction. It’s also about recognising talent and ability at every stage of the career lifecycle – returning mothers, for example, and older workers looking to get back into the workforce. Don’t overlook the ‘double deeps’ either – people who are already working for you in one role, who worked in a technology role earlier in their career. They may need some support and upskilling, but there could be a wealth of technology talent hiding in plain sight. There are providers that can set up and run targeted talent intake schemes for you at pace. For example, Black Valley who specialise in recruiting black heritage tech talent in London, while at Harvey Nash a number of providers are supporting us with our own hire-train-deploy scheme, NextGen, which will launch next month. Meanwhile, there is a plethora of jobs boards focused on specific groups such as returning mothers. Understand what’s out there and develop your strategy to leverage it. 5. Outsourcing Outsourcing is not a ‘new’ tactic by any means – but it is changing. Whereas it used to be primarily about handing over a brief for a product or service and letting it run, we’re seeing organisations looking at their outsourcing providers very much as an extension of their own teams. It is less a case of ‘them and us’ now, and more about finding a service provider that supplements the team’s available talent and resources. You could almost say that outsourcing has become more like insourcing now! As a digital leader, ask yourself whether your outsourcing arrangements are helping strengthen your talent position rather than merely providing an arms’ length service. Is it enabling a process of co-creation? These are five non-traditional talent pools that we regard as key – but arguably there is a sixth, too: not doing a project. Key here is discussing the resourcing strategy of potential projects right up front, even before the project is signed off. What technically might look good on paper will stay there – on paper – if there is no one available to build it and often, deciding not to pursue a project or implementation where there are skills gaps is simply the more pragmatic and productive option. Or, alternatively, choose a technology that might be a slightly less bleeding-edge solution for which you do have the skills required. Talent is an ongoing challenge and there is no ‘silver bullet’. But widening your perspective has become an indispensable part of the solution. Think about a broader set of talent groups and, with your recruitment provider, work out the most effective strategy to reach them. Think too about how you can make emerging technology work harder for your own team. These measures won’t solve the problem on their own – but they could have a significant positive impact.

Melanie Hayes, Chief People Officer at Nash Squared, and Bill Boorman, Technology and Talent Advisor, discuss how generative AI theory is now being put into practice. This article first appeared on ComputerWeekly.com. It feels like we’ve been talking about the potential of AI and machine learning for years. So much so, that some people may have become sceptical about the extent to which it will all actually happen. But now, the remarkable rise of generative AI shows that it’s here and it’s real. ChatGPT and other generative AI applications are lifting off like rockets. They’re becoming embedded into ever more products and contexts. Millions of people – inside and outside the work environment – are trying them out. For those with long memories, it’s reminiscent of when the internet and email finally became available and changed everything. There was a huge leap, followed by a number of years of working out what it all actually meant for how we work and carry out the tasks that make up our jobs. With the advent of generative AI, the speed of change is set to become faster than ever. Individuals, businesses, regulators and governments have all got to work out how to keep pace. Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, recently told a US Senate committee that an agency needed to be created to regulate AI, warning that rogue AI could create “significant harm to the world”. The EU, meanwhile, is developing an AI Act which will include the regulation of ‘foundation models’ such as ChatGPT. Any such regulation will have its work cut out to keep covering all the bases. Productivity supercharge As custodians of the working culture – and the rules of engagement – HR professionals need to be in the vanguard of all this. There is no doubt that generative AI can and will impact on almost every job. There’s no role that wouldn’t benefit from some level of AI and/or automation, after all. First and foremost, it represents a huge opportunity to make individuals’ roles more productive. Generative AI can take away enormous swathes of the admin-based ‘heavy lifting’ that takes up so much of our time. Drafting communications, creating templates, researching subjects, transcribing notes – these can all be revolutionised with ChatGPT and its kind. Applications like Microsoft Copilot can create meeting notes from a verbal discussion, including who said what, where people are aligned, where they disagree and suggest action points. The days of appointing a note-taker who has to spend a couple of hours writing up a summary may soon be gone. Good news for junior team members everywhere! Because they learn from the feedback you give it, these applications can get better and better and also evolve their output to more accurately capture the tone of voice you want. This is something that both of us have experienced. For instance, Bill recently used ChatGPT to create texts to accompany over 100 of his short training videos that were being uploaded online – the tool improved (and sped up) significantly as the task went on. A relatively small number of edits were needed, after which most readers would have found it hard to tell that the texts weren’t actually written by a person. The app saved many hours of work. As generative AI rapidly improves (as it will), it will create the opportunity to reimagine jobs. It will take away admin-laden responsibilities and free people up for more value-adding aspects. In HR and recruitment, generative AI combined with other automation tools means we could actually reach that Nirvana of spending less time on admin, scheduling and routine comms and more time on the candidate experience, employee engagement, career coaching and high touch support. Critical success factors However, there are a number of critical elements for success and a number of risks to be managed. Effective use of generative AI requires specific skillsets. Generative AI is built around asking the right questions of the machine. It requires critical analysis to examine the results and then give further inputs to refine the output. It requires the ability to analyse the sources the tool is using to ensure they’re suitable and appropriate; and to stand back and analyse the way an output is structured and whether it could be improved. Our education system takes no account of generative AI as it stands. There needs to be a dialogue between employers and education providers to ensure we have a new generation coming through who have skills aligned to utilising generative AI. That said, judging from feedback from schools where pupils are already using ChatGPT from a young age to ‘cheat’ doing their homework, the next generation will naturally acquire the ability to use foundation model AI. The key will be to make sure they are equipped to suitably translate that into the workplace. Nor does generative AI remove the need for other human abilities. Knowledge will remain a major asset. People will still need to know their subject inside out in order to judge what the machine is producing. Creativity will remain key too, to bring generative AI outputs to life and give them real impact. Indeed, the more machines produce content, the more personal creativity will be at a premium. We will crave human creativity if we reach a point where everything – from writing to art to pieces of code – are the work of a machine. Five key risks Then there are the risks. We see five principal aspects where risk needs to be mitigated and managed. Firstly, there is the danger that, as with AI algorithms, bias could be built in – and replicated at massive scale and speed. In fact, there is the potential to do harm on a scale never envisaged. We need to be clear what we base our learning on and double-check our definitions of good to make sure machines don’t pick up on our imbalances. Secondly, there is the risk that the more generative AI is used, the less people use their own core skills and the less they understand the data. With a Boolean search today, for example, you don’t need to understand how the technology is working, but you do need to know whether the results you’re getting look right. There is a risk that we will lose our institutional knowledge around how to interpret and do things – gut feel, instinct, the knowledge that comes with actually doing and learning for ourselves. This reflects a wider danger in the use of technology generally – that we end up ‘managing by dashboard’ rather than by knowledge. We need to ensure that people keep their own skills current and use machines to supplement these, not replace them. Thirdly, there is the prospect of generative AI being used to cut costs – rather than to increase productivity. If it is used in that way, we won’t see the full power and benefits of it. Say you have a team of 100 recruiters and it’s possible to automate 80% of their work through generative AI and other automation – Would you reduce the team to 20 and save the costs of 80 people? Or would you keep the team of 100 and have them able to add hugely more value through better use of their time and skills? That’s the kind of short term vs long term debate generative AI is likely to create. Next is the ability of generative AI to generate fake content as well as plagiarise and copy. New validation and verification methods may be needed along with new areas of compliance. It will also increase the debate around what is and isn’t authentic and legitimate – and whether that matters. If someone uses ChatGPT to help them get through an online assessment process, for example, is that good, bad or indifferent? Or if someone ‘writes’ their CV with ChatGPT? Finally, there is the risk of people putting sensitive or confidential data into these open platforms, not realising that once it’s been ingested by the machine, it can be repeated and used in any content. Led by the HR function, organisations therefore need clear and thorough policies around generative AI. There is an argument for having a ‘driving license’ type system where only those individuals who have passed the test are able to use it. HR needs to lead from the front There are many aspects to consider. And these need to be thought about right now, not at a distant point in the future. HR leaders and their teams should be at the forefront of this, ensuring that generative AI is a tool that boosts the organisation rather than causing issues and becoming divisive. So, are you accommodating generative AI into how the HR team functions and thinking about how it can map across the organisation to reimagine and enhance work?

Automation is such a hot topic at the moment, but how does it work alongside your current human workforce? Melanie Hayes, Chief People Officer, Nash Squared, and George Lynch, Head of Technology Advisory, NashTech discuss this in the below article which first appeared on theHRdirector.com. Amidst continuing skills shortages, high inflation, rising salary demands and an increased need for cost efficiencies, if there was ever a time when automation would ‘have its day’, it would seem to be right now. But while there is a clear business case for automation, the relationship between the robotic and the human has never been straightforward. Media reports love to paint the scenario of the ‘robots taking over the world’ in a kind of futuristic Armageddon where humans become redundant from a whole swathe of jobs. The reality, however, is not quite so much like a Hollywood filmscript. It’s a more nuanced and subtle picture. It’s more about automating processes than whole jobs. And there is certainly huge scope for human and machine to work together in a positive symbiosis that maximises process efficiency and frees up people for more value-adding tasks. Achieving that balance must surely be one of the big strategic aims for any HR Director and their team. The growth of automation So how far have we come? We’ve been tracking automation and digital labour for several years in the Nash Squared Digital Leadership Report. In our 2022 research, we find that digital labour is very much on the agenda: amongst the digital leaders that we surveyed from countries around the world, the average expectation is that nearly one in six of the workforce will be automated in the next five years. Almost a third of digital leaders (29%) think that automation will be critical for gaining a competitive advantage over the next 12 months. Although growing at a slower pace than in previous years, the worldwide RPA market is expected to experience double-digit growth in 2023, growing 17.5% year on year according to Gartner research. We only have to look back at the results of our survey in 2018 to see just how pervasive digital labour has become today. Implementations have increased significantly across all departments. While in 2018 customer support was the second biggest area of automation after IT, today finance takes that position. We have also seen a big jump in HR automation. The sweet spot remains repetitive, low value, high volume tasks – data entry, for example, or invoice matching and processing. Machines, unlike humans, don’t get tired or make mistakes. They can work 24/7 at 100% accuracy if designed and implemented effectively. Multiple use cases for HR Thinking about HR itself, there is enormous potential for automation to make a difference – and it’s already in widespread use to different degrees. Technology can add value across the entire HR value chain. At the recruitment end, it can be used to screen CVs against specific criteria and to schedule interviews, saving significant amounts of human time, especially in volume recruitment scenarios. For onboarding, automated applications can help create consistent processes and flows to keep the joiner experience high – which can be a significant factor in boosting retention, given that the first six months are often where the risk of an employee leaving is highest. Intelligent tools can help HR teams analyse the employee experience and stay alert to risks. While AI-based capabilities embedded in learning and development platforms can make ‘Netflix-style’ recommendations to individuals for further training modules, adding significant value by helping them think about career-pathing and future development. For workforce management and planning, meanwhile, predictive analytics can be utilised to identify turnover or absence risks based on previous behaviours and external factors, and help model resourcing levels against anticipated workload demands. Not only this, but we have started to see the development in earnest of AI-powered capabilities such as ChatGPT and equivalents that can help individuals across organisations – in HR and indeed in any function – get jobs done faster. These can be particularly effective in tasks such as gathering research information, creating templates and writing first drafts of documents. They are not, as yet, the finished article – texts for example are likely to need editing and shaping, especially to put them into the right tone of voice – but they can make an excellent head start and significantly reduce the hours needed on specific tasks. With Microsoft due to introduce its Co-pilot application into future editions of the Office suite, these kinds of capabilities could soon step nearer to mass adoption and use. Overcoming the barriers All of this being the case, where do the barriers still lie? In our research, the most prevalent blocker to large-scale automation of tasks and processes cited by digital leaders remains cultural resistance. There is still fear and suspicion amongst employees of automation and AI, worrying that it will create a displacement effect and also potentially drive down wages. There may be a degree of trepidation amongst HR teams too, perhaps fuelled by ongoing concerns that various human biases may be baked into the code and prejudice the results. There have also been various high profile instances of AI bots picking up and replicating inappropriate language and sentiments from exposure on social media. However, one of the absolutely key messages, for HR teams and employees more widely, is not to be afraid of automation/AI – and don’t ignore it either. There is almost certainly going to be an element of ‘natural selection’: the organisations that embrace and leverage it within their business could be the leaders of the future; those that don’t will struggle to compete. For employees, done well it should remove the most repetitive and humdrum aspects of job roles (‘taking the robot out of the human’) and move people up the value chain to spend more time on more satisfying areas that involve human skills such as creativity, problem-solving and innovation. There are other significant barriers too. In our research, close behind cultural resistance were a lack of expertise and the fact that automation is actually more complicated than expected. This just underlines the fact that organisations need the right support to make automation a reality. What may at first seem like a simple process to automate can quite quickly turn out to be a spaghetti of logic branches. The degree of technical complexity can be high. Implementing an automation strategy How then should organisations, supported by the HR function, best proceed in order to devise and implement an effective automation strategy? The first crucial step, as we intimated earlier, is to make the realisation that what is really in scope here is processes rather than jobs. This then leads to the concept of Business Process Re-engineering (BPR). Either independently or in conjunction with an advisory consultant, BPR is about reviewing all the processes at play within an area of the business with the process owners and asking whether they can be reconfigured to become leaner and more efficient – accelerating outputs and reducing costs. These processes should be catalogued into a central repository, reviewed and then assessed against a number of key questions, including: Can this process be redesigned to make it more efficient? Is this the right process to be re-engineered or is there another process behind it that should be the focus? If this process needs to be re-engineered, does that involve automation? As this last point indicates, not all re-engineering necessarily results in automation. Other possibilities should be considered first, such as integrating them into an adjacent process or area. When processes for re-engineering and/or automation have been identified, this is where HR should come in. Resource planning is critical. In conjunction with the business process owner, consideration will need to be given to what impact changing or automating a process will have on the individuals who currently perform the task. Will the change undermine or substantially affect their job description? What consultation around this will be needed? Consultation is certainly a keyword here. Any successful automation initiative depends on involving and consulting with the individuals who will be impacted. They’re the ones closest to the actual process – so get their input on how it could best be reconfigured. Involving them in the automation design will make them much more engaged and invested in the outcome. It will help them see that the automation is not so much a threat as a mechanism that can free up their time and help them branch into more fulfilling areas. Finding the right partner Once the decision has been taken to automate, it is obviously critical to find both the right RPA/automation tool and the right partner to help implement it. There are a multitude of tools available in the market, so sound advice, careful cost analysis and thorough planning are essential. Choose a partner you can trust and who doesn’t approach the project as a simple product implementation, but rather what it actually is – a change programme with huge potential for organisational and individual benefits that needs to bring everyone along with it.

Nash Squared CEO Bev White discusses how you keep your business culture when you're growing. This article first appeared on ComputerWeekly.com. Three guiding principles will help businesses stay true to their roots as they grow and change It’s a challenge that all growing businesses face: as we scale and evolve, how can we stay true to our culture and the things that make us what we are? The question is especially relevant to tech start-ups and scale-ups because, by their very nature, these organisations are set to undergo the most dramatic growth. For a more mature organisation, there isn’t a huge difference in growing from 5,000 people to 6,000. But moving from 50 to 500 – a smaller numerical increase – is in fact a massive multiplication of the business size. It’s something I’ve experienced at first hand at Nash Squared, albeit in the context of an already-established business rather than a start-up. When I joined the business three years ago, there were 2,500 staff across the group; today, that stands at over 3,300 people. We have grown both organically and through acquisitions, We also launched and implemented a major rebrand of the Group, evolving from Harvey Nash Group to Nash Squared. It has all added up to the biggest investment in people and technology in the company’s history. While the scale of the change differs depending on what stage of the growth curve you are at, the underlying principles and best practices remain the same. Be guided by your purpose The first point is that you have to stay true to your core purpose. You can’t successfully scale and grow unless you do. It’s about establishing your ‘North Star’ that will guide you on your journey: why are you in business and what is your underlying purpose? Why will people want to work for you? Why will clients and customers want to buy from you? This purpose doesn’t change. If you lose sight of it as you grow, then there will be a disconnect and, sooner or later, a falling of your fortunes as a business. Culture and values may evolve The purpose and vision of the business play an intrinsic part in forming the organisational culture. However, the culture may evolve and subtly change as your business gets larger. You may have a culture of innovation and risk-taking in your early days – but the risk-taking element will almost certainly moderate somewhat as your proposition matures, your responsibility (to staff, customers, suppliers) increases, and the business becomes more established in the market. That isn’t betraying your culture – rather, it is evolving it to reflect the stage you’ve reached. Values are hugely important. A successful business stays true to its values. But, like the culture as a whole, these aren’t static and may need reviewing over time. At Nash Squared, for example, we realised that the time had come to sharpen up our values to make sure they were still truly relevant to our evolving organisation. So we undertook a thorough collaborative exercise that involved extensive input from staff and really listening to their views. We updated our values accordingly and I then made sure that the leaders across our businesses were really taking ownership to embed them in how we work and operate. The new values weren’t radically different from the old ones – at their heart, they’re about respecting each other, listening, collaborating and being guided by the needs of our customers – but they were refreshed and more relevant to where we were. Going through the consultation created great engagement with our people and gave them a renewed stake in how we work. Accept change as part of growth – including in your people A theme you can probably already see emerging here is that maintaining a thriving culture as you scale is NOT about stubbornly holding on to everything that characterised your business on day one. Rather, it’s about keeping faith with your core qualities while adapting to the changes that come as you grow and become more complex. In some ways, it’s like a person. You will always be you – but you’re different as an adult to how you were as a child. With this comes another crucial realisation for any start-up: people will leave. You won’t hold onto everyone forever and indeed you probably won’t want to. You need to get comfortable with that. Some people love the excitement and the fire-fighting of a new start-up, the improvisation as you find your way, the problem-solving, the freedom to make decisions in the moment – but then as the business gets bigger and more process and governance inevitably starts to be introduced, it becomes a less attractive environment to them. Others just like working in a small organisation where they know every other member of staff and can figuratively ‘touch all the walls’ of the business; they feel uncomfortable as it gathers in scale. What’s vital is to be open, honest and transparent with people about where the business is and where it’s heading. If some people feel their time is done – that’s completely normal and OK. They will have played an invaluable role in the development of the business. Thank them and part on good terms. There will be other people who want to come in and bring new skills and talents with them. Keep a culture lens on everything Your culture should be a key perspective onto every aspect of the business. For example, recruitment is a vital area. Make sure that your leaders, managers and HR team have a clear framework of hard and soft skills to look for (and why) so that new joiners will make a good fit. You also need to underpin your culture and values through learning and development resources that everyone can access. At Nash Squared, we created a learning portal as well as a wellbeing portal. These play a big role in keeping us all connected and part of one team. When it comes to inorganic growth, culture should also be a major factor in any acquisition decision. Will the target business gel well with your culture and vision? If it is out of kilter, the deal may actually destroy a lot more value than it creates. Business history is littered with deals that foundered on the rocks of a cultural mismatch. Another part of the scaling journey is investor backing and/or listing. If you attract investment such as from a private equity house, or if one PE backer sells its stake to another, this may create a new dynamic – such as a greater focus on profitability over top line revenue, for example. Becoming a listed business may have a similar effect. These can all have an impact inside the business – and mean once again that honest communication with staff is key. Three guiding principles Maintaining a strong culture as you grow is a complex area, since you are likely to be determined to keep some aspects unchanged while others need to evolve. My three overarching pieces of advice are: Keep focused on your North Star – don’t lose sight of the vision that inspired you to start the business in the first place. Be honest and transparent – you need to bring people with you on the journey. Communicate and engage. Be candid if anything needs to change and explain why. Make sure people, processes and governance are fit for purpose – these will change as the business expands. Your technology, systems and processes need to be appropriate and adequate for whatever stage you’re at. Invest in them so that people have the tools they need and they’re supporting productivity and growth.