Small Business Awards 2020

Oct20609 Best Talent Management Organisation - Basque Country Bizkaia Talent was established in 2005 with the support of the Department for Economic Development of the Provincial Council of Bizkaia alongside universities, research and technology centres, and industrial companies in the Basque Country. Upon being established as a non-profit organisation, the firm’s mission became clear to foster and facilitate the implementation of the necessary conditions for attracting, connecting, and retaining highly qualified people in the areas of knowledge and innovation. However, this work is carried out predominantly for the Historic Territory of Bizkaia with it’s capital Bilbao as flagship , and the Basque Country in general. Characterized by openness, collaboration, and innovation, Bizkaia Talent may be global company with a global mentality, but it works for local interests and keeps the local economy stacked with perfectly managed talent. When working on a new project or with a new client, Bizkaia Talent generally will use an agile system of working. Agility is incredibly useful, as it allows Bizkaia Talent to prepare a minimum viable product to start, and then adjust and change what is needed as the process goes along. The internal innovation service is a key point of interest for the firm, and it always tries to ask as many times as possible questions around what can be improved, and where can things be made better, different, or more innovative. Using data, big data, and surveys with the firm’s users and various focus groups is also incredibly important, as this allows Bizkaia Talent to improve its every service for clients. Talent attraction is a deeply competitive industry, and there are different levels of places that talent can congregate to. In the case of Bizkaia Talent, the firm is located in tier-two area, and is therefore unable to compete with places like London or Paris. Big cities and major hubs of employment across Europe are always more likely to attract the best kind of talent for the various industries in which Bizkaia Talent works. However, Bizkaia Talent goes to those places to try to reattract talent or even attract talent that is looking for something different than a big city can offer, the combination of a great quality of life and o good professional project and dynamic environment. Rather than focus on trying to accomplish the impossible, it has focused its efforts elsewhere. Working primarily with SMEs, Bizkaia Talent has worked hard to generate the integrative concept of “Be Basque”. Having come up with the notion of being able to “Basqueize” any professional living and working anywhere no matter where they are from, Bizkaia Talent is able to attract more talent to the region than ever before. It started with a combination of digital tools along with a series of presented events around the world, called Be Basque Talent Meetings and Conferences, where the firm goes to where the talent is with Basque companies in tow. Currently, the firm has around more than fifteen thousand highly qualified professionals in more than one hundred countries, located on a Basque Talent Map. The mix of digital tools and personal contact is a key factor for success. Hard to do and very demanding though it may be, the result is more than worth it. Collaboration is also a key factor for the success that Bizkaia Talent has generated for itself and its clients. When the firm talks about collaboration, it is often talking about collaboration with its companies, and the database that the firm uses current has approximately five hundred companies on record. Also, there is collaboration with other companies working in the same field of talent management, but from other countries around the continent and the wider world. In fact, Bizkaia Talent is a co-founder of the European Talent Mobility Forum alongside Berlin Partner, Brainport Eindhoven, Copenhagen Capacity, Move to Gothenburg, Talent Scotland, Turku Business Region, and Work in Estonia. Each of these is a frontline company that works in the field of talent attraction for the respective territory. As previously mentioned, the core values of Bizkaia Talent include openness, collaboration, and innovation, and these are entirely necessary for success to thrive. Openness comes in the form of the culture that the firm has worked hard to establish; languages, different international cultures, points of view, and willingness to try new challenges all fall under the umbrella term of being open. Collaboration has already been touched upon, but the innovation can never be talked about enough. The firm spends a lot of its time designing new products and services, improving current ones, and sharing information about the different projects that it is already working on. One particular activity is called “innolak”, and this is a session where someone from either inside or outside of the company teaches the rest of the company about something that might be of interest to everyone else. It could be a new application, a digital tool, or perhaps just something as simple as an interesting book on the topic of innovation. Looking ahead to the future, the firm is now in the process of designing a new strategic plan for beyond 2020, and there are a great many options on the table. The collaboration with other public institutions and the way in which the business deals with the lack of talent coming to the Basque Country will be a focal point for the next few years, but these will be challenges that Bizkaia Talent will seek to address head on. It is likely that there will not be much in the way of internal growth and recruitment, but how the firm will face the new normal in the face of COVID-19, including what services to reinforce and what new projects will be taken on will be a huge discussion yet to come. Ultimately, Bizkaia Talent is a hugely successful firm, including this latest award achievement from CV Magazine. This year alone, the firm has also been awarded the Marketing Place Award, and 2019 saw the firm mentioned in the presentation of the Global Talent Competitiveness Acquiring and managing talent is vital to fostering that talent and enabling it to grow in the right environment. The future of employment relies on talent coming through and being prepared to step up when needed. That is where Bizkaia Talent enters, and delivers excellence. To find out more about exactly what the firm does, we profiled it in a bid to highlight its successes. Upon being established as a non-profit organisation, the firm’s mission became clear to foster and facilitate the implementation of the necessary conditions for attracting, connecting, and retaining highly qualified people in the areas of knowledge and innovation.