Merito: The Future of HR

This is far from the first time that digital transformation has impacted recruitment. 83% of executives now rank talent acquisition for their organization as a major concern, and with that pressure from the c-suite, HR departments are now searching for any advantage that they can get in seeking out new staff.

Social networks like LinkedIn are actively used by recruiters, while crowdsourcing websites like Glassdoor provide candidates with useful information that they would previously have been denied prior to hiring. More cutting-edge technology like Sutherland’s very own recruitment chatbot TASHA are used to guide candidates through the application process with sequenced questions, working towards the ultimate goal of single-interview hiring.

There has been another significant culture shift in recruitment, as employers increasingly favor provable skills over more nebulous qualifications, particularly in technology focused fields. This has led many of the existing tech platforms for recruitment to become obsolescent, as they were entirely focused on the older markers for candidate success.

The reason that Merito stood out from the crowd of tech solutions to the recruitment problem, is that it has the potential to generate a cultural shift within recruitment, particularly in low-skilled, or hyper-specialized jobs where temporary workers are the norm. A system like Merito could completely change how people interact with work. Rather than having an ongoing relationship with an employer, workers could opt in and out of employment on a temporary basis, both to suit their needs and those of the employing organizations.

When you consider the cross-applicability of many customer service skills, or how workers with extremely complex skill sets are moving into freelancing roles so that they can be best utilized by multiple organizations, this almost seems like the logical extension. Migratory employees going from position to position as best suits their needs and the needs of the businesses they work for.

Every organization needs a core team to ensure that learnings are not lost when staff move on, and between the completely migratory mercenaries coming in for their shifts before vanishing and the core team, there will almost inevitably be several strata of workers with different employment requirements. With the introduction of completely automated recruitment practices, a world of possibilities opens up, where part-time and full-time jobs are no longer the only categories.

Merito isn’t at that stage yet, the app is only being rolled out in France at the moment and is focusing on being an assistant to existing HR departments rather than their replacement, but we think it’s only a matter of time before human bias can be completely eliminated from recruitment, and potential employees can be judged purely on their merits.