Automated Analytics Podcast

Automated Analytics Podcast: Revolutionising Recruitment with Richard Young

• Automated Analytics • Season 1 • Episode 8

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Step into the world of recruitment innovation with Richard Young, Head of Recruitment at Active Care Group - and one of Automated Analytics’ most forward-thinking clients. In this episode, Mark Taylor (Founder & CEO of Automated Analytics) uncovers how Richard has revolutionised the way his team recruits, using data-led decision-making to solve industry-wide challenges.

But that’s just half the story.

Discover the unexpected creative side of Richard’s journey, from the rhythms of being a recording artist to the structure of transforming healthcare recruitment. Learn how leveraging data insights didn’t just fill vacancies - it redefined how Active Care approaches talent acquisition, reduced costs, and elevated their entire hiring process.

We explore:

  • The unique challenges of healthcare recruitment
  • How Richard integrated Automated Analytics into his strategy
  • The blend of creativity and precision in leadership
  • Why his background as a recording artist shapes the way he builds teams

This episode is for anyone interested in where data meets human potential - and how even the most people-centric industries can be transformed by tech.

Speaker 1:

Hi and welcome to this episode of the Automated Analytics podcast. Today we're going to meet Richard Young, one of our clients. We'll learn about how he's revolutionized recruitment, but also a little bit about him being a recording artist. If you like what you see, don't forget to like and subscribe, richard. Obviously a lot of our listeners and viewers would like to know a little bit more about you as a person beforehand, so tell us a little bit about your background, your career what you've done so far.

Speaker 2:

I've had the opportunity to work across a lot of different sectors as well in HR and very senior HR roles in retail, worked with Amazon looking after their senior hiring, so I've flitted in between hr and recruitment over my career. So I worked at karlsberg rip fix soft drinks, had stints in banking and financial services, set up my business as well, and I found myself in the last 10 years working in the healthcare space yep and latterly the last three years working in the healthcare space Yep, and latterly the last three years with Active Care Group. So who are Active Care? Tell us a bit more about them. So Active Care Group is the leading provider of complex care in the UK Four and a half thousand employees. Our vision is a world where people with the most complex problems are surrounded by collaborative, holistic care so that they can live their best lives. Basically and we have three pillars to our success we believe if you can create an organization with great environments and if you can give people the right tools great tools and also, more importantly, you can hire and employ the best people, that will stand you in good stead in terms of developing your business and, and particularly for the care that we provide for very vulnerable um many societies. Yeah, indeed, and we, we, we live by a set of values as well which I think permeate through everything we do. Yes, which I'll? I want to talk about that because you know we, we're very focused on being kind and honest, very focused on listening, learning and acting, which is very relevant around all things AI, and we like to consider ourselves fair and inclusive, and that's with all colleagues, as well as our service users and your role with Active Care.

Speaker 2:

What does a day look like for you, richard? So I joined three and a half years ago to help with the transformation of the position of the organisation in the employment market. Been around it a good while Certainly known for care in the home for a long time. We have a series of residential services and we've got a really good pathway for patients, as it were, right the way through. So if you've got a traumatic road traffic accident, a road traffic accident where it's resulted in a traumatic injury, physical injury, we can provide neuro rehabilitation. We can provide spinal and respiratory support in a variety of environments, whether they be residential, hospital environment settings or even in the home, and we're uniquely positioned, I think, in the market in health care, because we're able to span that entire, if you like, pathway. Yes, and so I guess what I would call it's more domiciliary complex care absolutely is what active care supplied.

Speaker 2:

And in turn, you asked me about my day and so I I joined to try and help reposition the brand um and to really sort of well, um, bring bring lots of very talented people into the business, and I've been very fortunate that I think the organization we have today is very different from what I joined, principally because we've managed to recruit a lot of great talent who've been doing lots of great things in all sorts of different directions, whether they're in digital and otherwise, which, I guess, for a service business, it is absolutely on the people that you employ. It's not about necessarily the product, it's your colleagues, because you're a service-based business and that's why the behaviors are so important to us having an obsession with our, if you like, our customers, our service users, having people that are focused on a bias for action, people that are willing to listen and act and, you know, kind of absorb things around them and make a difference in people's lives. And that's the kind of people that we look to bring in at every level. So we all need to live and breathe that in the DNA. That's brilliant.

Speaker 2:

Okay, so that's Richard at work. What does Richard get up to at home? Okay, so I'm a musician. I play bass guitar. Really, I play in a in a covers band. A few years ago I was in. I had an originals band. I used to write songs, had some of those published, really had some of those fantastic go on Spotify. If you want to hear some of my original music, it's Shake Hands Eric on Spotify. Shake Hands Eric on Spotify. You heard it in the first. There you go, available for weddings and bar extra stuff. Richard, that's fascinating. I actually didn't know that you're a musician. That's amazing. Yeah, I mean, that's such a creative hobby.

Speaker 1:

I mean, I really wish that I could write music, play music. You know, my mum paid for me to kind of play the piano for years and I think I got past. I think I do chopsticks and chimes? I don't know where it is.

Speaker 2:

I was talking deaf. That's really clever. To have been a musician, well, it's always been part of my life, and actually many years. I was very embarrassed about it because I didn't like to talk about it. But I've realized that I've learned as much from being in bands and around bands, because it's about teamwork, it's about people. You've got to be in tune, you've got to be in harmony to call in a phrase, but you know, you've got to be able to work with other people under pressure. When the red light goes on, you've got to be able to remember and you've got to be able to engage with your audience as well.

Speaker 2:

So there's lots of skills behind being in advanced that actually cross over into being a business owner Fantastic. So you've been using our solution Time Track, for I think it's just over a year now.

Speaker 1:

So why do you come to us? I mean, I'm sure, this is right to you.

Speaker 2:

What was the problem that you were looking to solve? Well, what sparked me up really is that we get a volume of people interested in coming to work for our organization. Now, um, it wasn't the case, uh, not, you know, sort of three or four years ago, but we really do have a high volume of people coming at us and one of the biggest problems is we get huge numbers of cvs which come through and and you know, we were up until probably 18 months ago we were manually sifting, or a year ago we were manually sifting. Well, a year ago really, we were manually sifting through those. So you get a pile of applications over the weekend and there'd be a team of people that would be reviewing those CDs. It was probably on Tuesday before they'd get a decent CV. So we were getting high volumes.

Speaker 2:

We were also spending quite a lot on sponsorship to try and draw and attract people through the various job platforms, so we were investing heavily. So the problem, I think, really was to try and take some of that time away, and ai lends itself, I think, to doing sort of some repetitive stuff. Yes, setting up, um, the opportunity to, to interrogate a cv, if you like in workation and give us quality hires, and it's been. You know, it's been a raging success, if I'm honest, over the last year. Yeah, uh, in terms of working with talent track, particularly where we've been able to really take a lot of the time out from guys who and they're now engaged in a lot more interesting work. Yeah, because when we first met, I was astounded that probably about, I think, 70 of cvs you.

Speaker 1:

You were throwing them away because they weren't relevant but you hadn't spent the time to do that and now that whole whole process is automated yeah, yeah, absolutely we were.

Speaker 2:

We were getting so many applications. Um, we didn't also very often know the source through our applicant tracking system. So, um, it's been enormously helpful having that integrated um, so that we can track the source. Um, you know, and we've been able to to find different ways to address that problem of managing volumes. So, if you're going to ask me about that, I'd love to tell you how I think we've been doing that through Talent Track. Okay, so tell me then, richard, what a great link. Well, we've optimized the one-click apply from Indeed. We've been able to use really good screener questions. Yeah, vacancy as well. Yes, it's been enormously helpful.

Speaker 2:

Um, we've had, uh, there's an element of soft right to work as well, to be honest, because we were getting especially post brexit certainly, yeah, we did pre-brexit have a lot of people that you know that we were sponsoring and we're working here from overseas. Uh, we don't have access to that population so easily now, so we need to be able to kind of remove them from the application process, as it were, and I think as well, being able to track where candidates are coming from and being able to play around, if you like, with the sponsorship through Talent Track will be able to really have a high impact in terms of the quality, and initially the numbers went down and then they come back with a rage in terms of the number of quality and it's driven the cost out as well. Yes, significant cost. So it's interesting when you talk about the, as you say that right to work, because I think since Brexit it's been a real problem for employers.

Speaker 1:

As you say, it's lots of applications, but how can they get those sifted down automatically? So you remember the throw yeah, because it's an industry in itself. Throw away 700 CVs on a Monday when you've got a thousand applications, yeah.

Speaker 2:

Whereas AI can actually do it for you, absolutely, absolutely, and I think the tech's been really helpful. Um, because what it's principally done is it's taken a lot of the legwork out of some of that sifting. As I said earlier, you know, my team are now not spending, uh, the first two days of the week sifting through piles of cvs. They're getting to the quality, which is really good because it means that we can contact them, we can increase the number of interviews, we can hire more people, and that's been obviously has an impact in terms of the business, in terms of our retention as well, because we've been able to bring people in quickly, and one of the issues that I think has always been a challenge in the healthcare sector is that in staffing levels often massively impact the quality of care, yes, and so therefore, addressing that as a root issue quickly has been one of the things that's helped us.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, because you're a service business and, again, you're only going to be as strong as the people that actually deliver that service. You're right, getting them in. Again, you're only going to be as strong as the people that should deliver that service. You're right, get them in quickly, the right quality, quickly. I can see how that could have a massive impact on your business. So, in terms of of your more cost per application because primarily when, when we sell talent track, it's all about reducing cost per application- but then driving more quality hires.

Speaker 2:

What's talent track done for? Only in the matter of a year we've gone from £4.90, I think something like £4.90 per application down to 94 pence for a quality application. So we've reduced the cost per application by about 355%.

Speaker 2:

That works out Well, a significant slug away, and you know there's 429 actually, not 490, 429 down to 94 pence. It's increased the quality of applications that we're seeing as well. So I think last month we had about 8,000 coming through out of 13. Yeah, that were quality applications that we could work with, which, I'm guessing, when you look at it, it's around about 150% model.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I was going to say, when we think about when we first started, I think we're generating probably a couple of thousand applications.

Speaker 2:

Now, if you get 8,000 quadrants, that's quite a step change, yeah. And then a different problem. And then a good way of managing in terms of managing that population A good problem, yeah.

Speaker 1:

And actually what you've ended up doing is actually spending less on sponsored jobs.

Speaker 2:

So I think at one point spending around 15. I think you're now down a lot lower than that, much lower than that. Um, and and that's you know. It goes well for us and not so well for some of the platforms that um you know are encouraging lots of high volume uh applications through and I think as well it's the, it's the, it's the being able to select uh where spend our, where we apply our spend, and we've had a lot of help with that through Talent Track as well. In terms of investing in the right place. Yeah, now, when we first met and I mentioned to you that- we used AI.

Speaker 1:

You really did embrace it and you were very keen to be seen as a thought leader in your industry why?

Speaker 2:

why do you want to be a thought leader? Um, well, look, you know, this is the leadership challenge of our age ai, uh, and there's a lot of noise and chatter about what I can do, um, but you know, I I think it's inevitable that ai is here. It's, it's, um, it's going to change the way we operate. Um may not lead to lots of people um, leaving. It will be more like I'm an HR man by trade.

Speaker 2:

So I would say that the leadership challenge is that we need to scaffold it, yes, uh. And the introduction, uh, with, with the whole raft of human centric skills. Yeah, by that I mean things like moral decision making. Yes, you know we need empathy. Those are hard things for robots to rep. Yes, yes, know, we need empathy. Those are hard things for robots to rep. Yes, yes. So we need to bring common sense as yes, if you like, yeah to the whole process, and I think that's a leadership challenge. So, um, I wanted to get involved because I find, uh, you know, we obviously had a particular issue to resolve which has helped us with um. So, in my mind, I increasingly now think about ai to help me solve all sorts of different problems got you and so in terms of of solving that ai problem.

Speaker 2:

It's funny because I often liken it to to email. You know, email didn't kill the postman. That's a line that you can use in one of your records. I'm sure there's something you could write, but it didn't.

Speaker 1:

But it changed people's attitudes and the way they worked. Do you think AI is going to have the same kind of impact where it's not going to cost anybody their job but it's going to?

Speaker 2:

change fundamentally how we work and how we communicate. Yeah, smarter people than me have said that. You know you won't be replaced by AI, but you'll be replaced by somebody working with AI. Yeah, high likelihood than ai. Yeah, um, high likelihood, and, and it's, it's a new technology. So, you know, and it feels like a wheel. Yeah, you know. So, um, it does feel pretty revolutionary in that sense to point upon. Sorry about that, but no, but it does.

Speaker 2:

In all seriousness, I think it's uh, as I say, increasingly there are lots of tools coming through. It's quite bewildering being a leader in this space. Uh, you know, we like to get things right first time. All of us don't. Yes, yeah, I think there's a degree of chaos and trial and error. Yeah, with ai trying things, um, but there are plenty of people out there that are developing expert solutions for particular problems, and we were very lucky, I think, when, when we met yes, so I had a particular problem you had. You had something you could offer from Talent Track that could help us. Well, it's been a pleasure having you as a client, richard we really enjoy working with Active Care.

Speaker 1:

You've got a great team and I think that always comes across through you as a leader. You're the head of that team and they've been fantastic to work with, so what do you think the future is going to be in terms of AI for your business?

Speaker 2:

Well, we've invested. I mentioned about great tools, great environments and great people. We've invested significantly in our digital platforms. So we're looking at our rotor system, we're looking at our care planning and documentation systems, our new HRIS system. I suspect we'll get that tech stack in place and then we'll really be interested to look at the ways in which we can use AI, robotics, automation for some of those repetitive, high duplication type of residents. So I think we're well-placed as an organization to be focused on this stuff, stuff, and we're willing to learn, to listen, learn and act, and I think I genuinely feel that about the organization. There's a lot of people around who are thinking about this, thinking about ways in which we could use it. It's not going to replace the therapeutic relationship of patients face to face. There's a lot of back office processes where it could really facilitate. That's fantastic, over time, excellent.

Speaker 1:

So one final question for you what's the one song, being an ex-musician or?

Speaker 2:

a musician, what's the one song you wish you'd written? Oh, cripes, okay, any Beatles song, really for sure, 100%, yeah, 100%. I think my favourite song is hey Jude. I think it has everything about it. It's got emotion. That piano that it's played on in Trident Studios has featured on countless other songs as well. We're a great artist and can recognise that piano a mile away. But it's also the refrain, it's the Beatles' creative process, which was fast, yeah, um, and you know, even now I've loved them, for, I don't know, maybe all my adult life had been part of my, yeah, adult life. And and, uh, I just think there's so much richness about them too. We keep going back, yeah, yeah. So I sing eight days a week with my cover band. I sing that play bass, which is tell all the customers to surround yourself with a fantastic team, whether you work or in a band, you do that, and I think it's so much easier, so much more fun. Yeah, absolutely, that's what it lasts me at work.

Speaker 1:

Excellent, good, richard, thank you very much for being on our podcast. I hope you enjoyed this week's episode of the Autopace Analytics podcast.

Speaker 2:

Next episode coming up next week. See you soon, bears.