introducing BrightFit: your route to next-level skilling

In a world where work and business are changing faster than ever, one essential priority for both employers and employees is having the right skills.

Companies need key capabilities in their workforce to keep up with fast-moving industry trends and shifting customer expectations. Meanwhile, workers can increase long-term employability and career prospects by expanding their skill sets and identifying roles that will provide opportunities for future growth and progress.

A combination of factors has made bridging the skills gap and talent development particularly important right now. According to the World Economic Forum, the 'robot revolution' is expected to displace 85 million jobs by 2025. On the plus side, some 97 million new roles will be available to people who have the right skills and experience. The 2021 Randstad RiseSmart Skilling Today report shows that:

• Almost 70% of HR professionals say they require employees to upskill or reskill to meet changing business needs.
• 80% of companies with 10,000 workers or more say adapting to meet new challenges is a 'must-have' in today's evolving business landscape.
• Nearly half (44%) of all organizations offer skilling programs due to employee demand.
• Almost all respondents (98%) said employees were able to use newly acquired skills to benefit their employer.

Randstad's CEO, Sander van 't Noordende, commented on the importance of the ‘reskilling revolution’ in a recent press release in connection with a report co-published by the Organization for Economic Co-Operation and Development and Randstad. He highlighted the impact of digital transformation on businesses and the workforce.

In this unique environment, employers and individuals have much to gain from HR technology that provides predictive insights into labor market trends, emerging skills requirements of employers and career development opportunities through reskilling and upskilling.

These are among the benefits you can gain from Randstad RiseSmart BrightFit™, a new ‘GPS for careers’ and skilling tool developed by Randstad and Randstad Risesmart.

what is BrightFit?

BrightFit is a first-of-its-kind predictive career exploration technology that helps employees seeking to future-proof their careers and individuals affected by workforce restructuring make data-based decisions about their careers and strategically plan their career trajectories. 

It is the result of a collaboration between Randstad and career mobility firm Randstad RiseSmart, which provides solutions to help organizations manage changes and transitions in their workforce through career development, redeployment and outplacement support. BrightFit technology powers RiseSmart Skilling, which focuses on supporting reskilling and upskilling to prepare organizations and their workers for the future.

Users can find roles that have a bright market outlook, based on employer demand, projected growth and risk of automation, and develop a plan of action to advance their skills and increase their marketability.  

BrightFit is currently available in the US and will be launched in more countries in the near future.

features and benefits of BrightFit

Businesses that use BrightFit find themselves in a stronger position to engage their people, unlock new opportunities and drive productivity across the workforce. From a worker’s view, BrightFit empowers employees to proactively take charge of their careers and make knowledgeable decisions about their future. 

how BrightFit works

BrightFit uses algorithms to analyze labor market data in real time, collecting information from more than 40,000 sources across over 17,000 different skills to create a data-rich picture of the most in-demand roles and the most promising career paths.

BrightFit’s key features include the following:

• market outlook score: A rating of the market outlook for a current, desired or similar role based on employer demand, projected growth and risk of automation.
• skills fit score: A measure of an individual's key strengths and weaknesses relative to a target role based on a self-assessment of the in-demand skills for that role.
• recommendation engine: A tool that uses artificial intelligence (AI) to recommend particular roles, including those the user may not have even considered. The program then suggests skills and courses to deliver an actionable roadmap for the present and future. Roles and skills can be filtered and prioritized by multiple criteria.

Users receive personalized course recommendations based on their individual skills gaps and proficiency levels. Those who are ready to take the next steps in their careers can work with coaches and learning advisors who provide additional guidance, helping users decide their optimal path and create learning plans. 

how BrightFit can help you and your employees

Among the most significant benefits your business stands to gain from using BrightFit are higher levels of employee engagement and satisfaction and the ability to develop a sustainable workforce that has the right skills and opportunities at the right time.

Additionally, people will feel more committed to their roles and the organization if they know they are making progress toward a more meaningful career. By increasing employee satisfaction, you are also improving the company culture, which will reflect positively on your organization and contribute to your employer brand.

As people pursue their personalized learning paths and begin to witness the benefits of skilling and coaching, you can expect to see growth in productivity and efficiency. 

Furthermore, your talent acquisition costs will decrease over the long term as you develop crucial knowledge and capabilities within your existing workforce. Finally, a strong career development program that promotes role advancement and skilling opportunities can elevate you as an employer of choice among job candidates.

For employees, the advantages of BrightFit are just as compelling. Individuals can lay the groundwork for future growth, progress in their working lives by identifying roles that have the brightest futures and make intelligent, data-driven career decisions. 

Employees who have the opportunity to use this technology will future-proof their careers and make themselves more attractive and valuable to prospective employers. 

evolving HR technology

BrightFit is one of a number of HR technology solutions we provide to help you make optimal use of your available resources and plan the right strategies for your organization and your people.

relevate

Another solution that helps you enhance your HR experience is our HR technology suite called Randstad Relevate. The tools you’ll find in Relevate can help simplify your entire talent management process, from finding qualified talent to checking references and managing timesheets and invoices. 

relevate match

Scanning applications manually takes time and energy better put to other uses. So instead, start your job search with our AI-powered talent-matching tool. Using AI during the recruitment process can save you hours of time, winnowing out the poor matches. In addition, AI can help remove human bias, which may slip in unawares, so you can continue improving your talent pool's diversity.  

Randstad’s proprietary software looks at an applicant’s skills, previous work experience and academic qualifications and flags the best candidates, giving you a short list of possible winners. Then, it’s time for you to add the human factor. 

relevate reference

Regardless of how great a potential employee looks on paper and during interviews, it's critical to perform reference checks. Unfortunately, thorough reference screening takes time and may lose you a superb candidate. Relevate Reference starts to work during the hiring process, capturing the necessary data and keeping everything related to the applicant in one easy-to-find location.

Reference checks are entirely automated, leaving you free to focus on other aspects of the job interview. In addition, the ease of digitally transferring testimonies helps improve prompt replies from previous employers or reference sources.

relevate workforce schedule

Randstad Relevate doesn’t stop once you’ve completed the hiring process. Our online scheduling and planning tool makes flexible staffing simple, even across multiple departments. 

According to a 2021 survey by Gartner, 60% of ‘non-knowledge workers want increased flexibility. What’s unusual about this statistic is that these employees traditionally don’t have the type of work environment that is compatible with adaptability of working hours.

In order for employers to accommodate rising trends of remote work and flexible staffing hours, we need to think out of the box regarding scheduling.

By assigning a pool of candidates to each job, Relevate makes it easy to find available workers for shifts. In addition, everything is digitized within the app, including automated notifications to workers and manager communications and performance feedback.

As the business landscape, HR technology and the world of work continue to evolve in the years to come, make sure you're taking the right steps now to prepare your business and your employees for the future.

This is an updated version of an article originally published on 04 July 2021.