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Fireside chat with Adecco Americas CEO Corinne Ripoche

TRANSCRIPT

Jan Jedlinski: Welcome back to another session and leadership conversations at the World Staffing Summit. I hope everybody's enjoying the show. We already heard a couple of good sessions including an opening keynote by Denis Pennel. Which I was super excited about. Now, I have a very special guest here with me, a person that needs no introduction in the staffing industry.

Jan Jedlinski: And we'll have a quick conversation. Thank you so much for joining us here at the World Staffing Summit Corinne Ripoche. 

Corinne Ripoche: Thank you. Thank you. Jan, thank you for your warm welcome. I'm thrilled to be there and to be busy today. 

Jan Jedlinski: Awesome. Thank you so much, Corinne, for joining us. I'm super excited to have a quick conversation with you.

Jan Jedlinski: But before we dive in you know, tell our audience a little bit about yourself and maybe your journey in the staffing industry. I know that, you know, you spent many years already in different roles and probably seen everything. But maybe you can give us a quick glism into that. 

Corinne Ripoche: Yeah, so for sure. All right.

Corinne Ripoche: My pleasure, you know, to share my, my, my journey within the staffing industry. And, you know, I started 28 years ago in the staffing industry and I joined this industry for the purpose of the industry at that time, you know, it was just after the 91 crisis and where, you know, I started in my native France, and it was just after the crisis that we had, as I say that.

Corinne Ripoche: And it was important for me to work on decreasing the unemployment rate that we had at that time. And thanks to the Adecco Group, because I am, I'm working for the Adecco Group for for this 28 years and thanks for the Adecco for the sector of the Adecco group, I've been able to really, you know, transfer my passion of the purpose of the staffing industry everywhere in the world, because I'd been working for in more or less all continents accepted Australia and Africa, it was a way I'm been able to be the voice of the staffing industry everywhere.

Corinne Ripoche: And for me, honestly, you know, we are today, even in the very, very nice area where. Our purpose is really becoming true and even more true than 20 years ago. So 

Jan Jedlinski: That's true. I think we're living now in the most exciting times, actually to work in staffing brought from a staffing company, but also technology provider perspective to the industry. So coming to the question of technology you know, what do you, what are your thoughts on the pandemic impacting the industry, but also technology playing a vital role in the next year for the industry? Where do you see, you know, the balance between the human touch of the recruiter and technology moving forward.

Corinne Ripoche: Yeah, it's a great question. We can see that. Okay. What we do not know today, we do not know it. And we have to acknowledge that. We have to acknowledge that the staffing industry, but as the other industries in the world, are really changing. And I think it requires earth to be a gel at the giant there.

Corinne Ripoche: And to really, you know, And listen to the marketer, listen to our customer, but listen to our people as well and listen to our candidates and associates as well. So, you know, it's a real combination between the different stakeholders that we can have, which is giving us the opportunity to reinvent ourselves.

Corinne Ripoche: When they look at that now more in the tech part you know, last year, when you look at how the HR. As has been, really impacting our industry. I mean, it's quite not mature yet, but when you look at that from an investment point of view, the capital market on HR tech last year was approximately $17 billion.

Corinne Ripoche: Okay. And when you look at that it is probably three times more than what it was in 2019. Post pandemic and if you look at that in a more narrow way in Q3 21, You know, it's 6 billion more than the entire year of 2019. So meaning the technology is really moving fast within our industry and us as a reader, we clearly need to integrate the HR tech within a way of working to be able to transform our legacy business with better experience using technology for all the stakeholders that we have. 

Jan Jedlinski: I totally agree. And I think, you know, there's many areas for form, you know, candidate experience, client experience, internal automations.

Jan Jedlinski: I think there's so much going on right now. And you'll see many more technologies and technology providers coming up in the next couple of years that will basically help to make this entire industry even more efficient and automated. When you look at the markets, not only from a perspective of just technology, but also from other points of view, what would be your biggest projections?

Jan Jedlinski: If you can tell for the next 5 to 10 years, what do you think the market is going to do? If you think, you know, is it going towards more direct sourcing? If it's you know, maybe going into a different direction. What are your thoughts on that? 

Corinne Ripoche: You know, as I say that What we do know, we don't know. And we have seen a lot of things happening in the past two years.

Corinne Ripoche: And those are seeing, seeing all these, those are things that we can, we have seen as well, can be one way. Can be something which will happen can be something that will not really grow more than what it is today. Why is it just because it's really, it will really depend and how this industry will react about the needs of our client.

Corinne Ripoche: The biggest thing that we have to solve altogether for the, you know, in the next 5 years is about the skill gap. The skill gap is something that we have to really solve all together. And by doing that, it's also changing. The way of how us as a staff leader, we are really considering our industry.

Corinne Ripoche: And clearly we have to move from just being an intimidator, really being, becoming an incubator of talent. If all together we are able to do that. We'll see a lot of changes in the way of how we'll deliver our solution and services to our client in the near future. So this is clearly what I want to say about that after that, when you look at the market, we know, I mean, we knew and they say, we know what we do not know.

Corinne Ripoche: So meaning that we have some study today saying that by 2030, more or less, you know, 66% of the US market, if I speak about the USA will be in the Healthcare Industry. And, you know, so it's another thing on 24, we've been taken by the meanings that how we will really take these trends and adapt our way of working and the way of delivering our services to the growth of this market.

Corinne Ripoche: Meaning that we will have to upskill people. 

Jan Jedlinski: Yeah. 

Corinne Ripoche: Clearly, you know, and I will give you one nice example because, not yesterday, but last week, sorry, I visited some some clients with one of our, subsidies or one of our company in the US General Assembly, you know, with getting people reskilling and upskilling people.

Corinne Ripoche: And we visited one of their partners and these companies said, you know, from, I set up my business at the beginning of 2019, and I'm already do 20 million in revenue from selling people being up-skilled and re-skill by the General Assembly. So here you can see yeah. Working with the community as well.

Corinne Ripoche: You know what I didn't say for everywhere when I introduced myself, the patient that I have four people and the patient that how industry should that four people and changing the life of people within the communities. And by doing that, what we do, we are clearly moving our industry by changing the life of people.

Corinne Ripoche: Upskilling them, giving them a better way of living, but also answering the client's needs. So

Jan Jedlinski: What are when you had this conversation with this kind of, what are the most common skill sets now that are being you know, worked on with General Assembly and the other specific segments are skills that are very high in demand in terms of re-skilling or where do you see the sort of segmentation.

Corinne Ripoche: Yeah, At General Assembly. We are, we have in the Fiverr type of skills. So meaning that what we can see here, it's really marketing. Marketing is 1 segment where we see the improve the increase of the demander tech is another one where we can see the increase in the of the human and cross industries. It's a project management. 

Corinne Ripoche: Every, you know, I used to say to my team that everything going subject today should be organized and managed on the lead as a Project Management. 

Jan Jedlinski: Yeah. 

Corinne Ripoche: Why I'm saying that as well, because I do believe a lot about what I could have breaded Organization. Breaded organization Is how we can use the best of every single partner that we can have within this industry or outside of the industry, again, with one single thinking in mind, which is delivering the best solution, delivering the best services, including all the ecosystem that we can have. 

Jan Jedlinski: Yeah, I agree. That's super interesting. Thank you so much for those insights.

Jan Jedlinski: Maybe we'll shift gears a little bit and talk about you know, advice to staffing, to other staffing leaders or maybe people that want to start in the industry. For you having seen almost everything, what would be your advice when, you know, you would speak to somebody that's maybe starting a new HR tech or staffing business or wants to get into the industry, what would you tell them? 

Corinne Ripoche: Yeah, so it's a good question. And the staffing industry it's, I mean, the HR tech staffing industry or whatever. I think it's an industry where you come here with passion and you stay here because you have the passion for the people.

Corinne Ripoche: My advice will be, you know, it's something that most of the readers can say, but the first one is please dream big. Please dream big because you have the opportunity to change the lives of millions of people. And this is extremely important. So, I'm going to think that because you have the importance, you have the opportunity to work with people and to change the lives of people. Be authentic, work on your authenticity, work on the leader, authenticity that you can have and put your purpose at work every single day.

Corinne Ripoche: Not only saying that with empathy, but also with clearly with the compassion that we can have, because compassion is even further than propose or then than the, eh, than just the the opportunity to give to the people the authenticity is a compassion is even more important than the right stuff.

Corinne Ripoche: Okay. When you have your true purpose in place, the third one is that when you have a range of people with you and your company will be successful, if you have the diversity. Internally, externally. So meaning that be a diverse champion. Be a diverse and inclusion champion. Okay. So this is what I can say for the people who want to join this industry or for the people who are already in that industry, clearly be authentic, lead with passion and put your purpose every day at work.

Jan Jedlinski: Great advice. Thank you so much for that. And before we jump into some Q/A from the audience for a minute and I know this is now a very open-ended question, but is there anything that keeps you up at night these days as a staffing leader? Anything that you think about all the time right now?

Jan Jedlinski: That's, you know, it's a, you know, pressuring you so to say, or, you know, I know this is very broad, so, you know, this can happen many times. 

Corinne Ripoche: Well, but, you know, I mean, I will have, we summarized that in, in in two things. What is really, you know, in my mind, every single day or every single night the first thing is how to move and how to prepare.

Corinne Ripoche: It's not even to move, how to prepare the substantive or future for everyone within our industry. Okay. And I need here for communities, for clients, for our teams. So how this out we have to reinvent our industry. So it's really the reinvention of the industry. A few years ago, when I was at pontoon, I said how we can, how we have to rebirth the new MSP business.

Corinne Ripoche: So here is how we can reinvent the staffing industry? This is my first things. My second thing is a lot of people are speaking about the great resignation. The grant resignation is something it's now, you know, 40% of the people are thinking of moving from one company to another one or to change their job or to do something different.

Corinne Ripoche: But here is how to move from the great resignation to the great revolution. Because we spoke about the upskilling and the risk of the people, but how do we reevaluate the needs that our companies need into the future and how we make the future of everyone much better than what it is today. So this probably, you know, it's a bit of a vision point of view.

Corinne Ripoche: Not really, it's not really an operation, but as a leader, I think that we have to, eh, to have the vision and after that work on our strategy. And after that work on, how do we operationalize our strategy or our operation, our personnel, our strategy. And, but first. What is a vision that we should have and where, and back to my dream big, because if we dream big today, we'll be able to reinvent our industry.

Jan Jedlinski: Fantastic. Yeah. Thank you so much for post grades insights. And if you don't mind, I'll just open the table for questions. So maybe the audience has some questions and can jump into the chat and maybe we will answer one or two questions and let's see if people have had some questions here now.

Jan Jedlinski: There was one. Actually here, I can put the question on stage from a mark outside of COVID who, what external factors and or outside influences will affect client growth? Mark asks. 

Corinne Ripoche: It's a great question market. COVID has been an accelerator. Could be, it has been an accelerator of the transformation and change for our industry, and we spoke about technology.

Corinne Ripoche: So now we just have to understand. Past COVID I read an article yesterday saying that after Omicron, the COVID will be gone. So meaning we will come back to an all my life, but not to know my life, that it was in 2019, but we'll create our no mine life for the next two decades or maybe more so, technology transformation.

Corinne Ripoche: It's probably what we have to take in consideration for the future and what will impact our industry. And this will be invited by what first, because if we have more technology at work, we'll, we have to understand what would be the value harder for people. And I do believe strongly. I do believe that it's a combination between Human and Tech.

Corinne Ripoche: It's never either human or either tech. Clearly the combination is augmented. I will call that the augmenting human experience that we'll be able to give to humans cause we'd be difficult to give experience to robots. So we'll give augmented experience to humans by using the best of the humans and the best of the technology to really change and transform our industry, to serve the transformation of our clients.

Jan Jedlinski: I totally agree. And I think we have a few more sessions on that today, even where we have the discussion between balancing technology and still the human factor. You know, obviously the last few years there was a lot of conversation around, you know, the recruiter-less world will, you know, staffing agencies will be replaced with technology, but I don't see it at all like that.

Jan Jedlinski: I think, you know, technology will help the industry to be more effective. But the human touch will remain and I'm super excited. About that. Thank you so much Corinne for your time today. You know, I really appreciate the conversation. Thanks so much for coming to the World Staffing Summit.

Jan Jedlinski: I hope everybody was able to enjoy the conversation it's recorded so you can rewatch it afterwards. And maybe Corinne and her team will be around for a couple more questions on the chats and you can reach out to the Adecco team over there. So, thanks Corinne. I really appreciate the conversation.

Corinne Ripoche: Thank you and enjoy the Summit. And thank you for thank you so much for having me and for organizing this Summit. Thank you again. Thank you. Bye-bye.

Speakers

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Speakers

Corinne Ripoche

Jan Jedlinski

Duration

20

min

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