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Mindmill - Changing The Talent Game Across The World
EyeonRecruitment
Mindmill –
Changing The Talent Game Across The World
EyeonRecruitment
As bold visions go, Mindmill’s is one of the boldest. This is a Northern Ireland-based company which has set out to revolutionise the way organisations approach HR throughout the career journey.
It does that through the innovative use of technology, and the software platform it offers, but it also does it by turning the time-honoured practices and disciplines of HR on their heads.
Local entrepreneur and recruitment specialist Laing Mewhort is Mindmill’s founder and CEO. “I’d been running my own recruitment company when I partnered with Professor Sidney Irvine and his assessment company Inpsych eleven years ago or so.
“In a nutshell, it was the world’s first digital psychometric system for screening and assessment, heavily validated in international defence forces,” he says. “What I loved about it right from the start was the amount of data it could generate. Our aim was to be more metric-driven around careers and specifically recruitment.”
Laing Mewhort and his Head of Operations Ryno Kleynhans talk a lot about data and the role that accurate and on demand data can play in the wider talent space for their clients.
Mindmill has its roots in international markets. A lot of its early development was in the key Middle East region. The Belfast-based company works alongside Silatech, a leading job creation and economic development organisation in Qatar and founded by the wife of the former Emir, Sheikha Mozah Bint Nasser.
“We worked with Silatech to establish the Tamheed platform which is delivering the concept of online career guidance and more to the wider Middle East and North African recruitment market,” says Laing Mewhort. “Over the past nine years, we’ve helped some 1.5 million plus young Arabs to find education, jobs and progress their careers.”
But it also has an established pedigree here in Northern Ireland. It was a key partner in the old RAP Programme (a conversion programme preparing nonIT graduates for a career in the tech sector), and continues to work on a range of graduate and apprenticeship programmes such as the Assured Skills Programme alongside local colleges.
“We thought that it was about time we talked about what we do to the business community here in Northern Ireland. We’re confident that we can help local organisations transform how they recruit, screen, select and develop employees going forward.”
Mindmill’s technology, delivered via the Microsoft Azure cloud platform, looks at these four key aspects of careers – talent attraction, job screening, selection and professional development. “Each one of those,” says Ryno Kleynhans, “is crucial. It’s not a case of getting one or two of those right, and that’s where a lot of companies have gone wrong over the years.”
Both Ryno Kleynhans and Laing Mewhort believe that their technology and services can have a sharper edge in the post-Covid environment as economies cope with increased number of displaced workers as well as other workers looking for a change of environment.
“The science, the methodology and the technology are all in place and ready to go,” adds Ryno Kleynhans. “Our system generates a lot of microdata and it’s possible to make that level of data really work for your organisation. It can make an enormous difference.
“But it’s vital that companies and organisations embrace the full use of data. Too many organisations, historically, have been terrified of it. Our message is that it isn’t something to be scared of. It’s something to harness and use to inform people strategies.”
Laing Mewhort sees a ready market in the post-Covid era, but he also sees another market opportunity here in Northern Ireland. “A technology and data-based approach to recruitment and career mapping can take any potential bias right out of the picture at the outset,” he points out.
What Mindmill’s approach also does is take the HR function well past selection and recruitment. “That’s just the start of it,” says Laing Mewhort. “It’s all about the career path, getting the right people in the right jobs, keeping them there and making sure they can progress.”
A technology-based approach can help avoid the well-worn scenario of having the wrong people in the wrong jobs, wrong students on the wrong courses resulting in the wrong career.
“A clearly defined psychometric approach can make all the difference right at the outset,” he says. “Psychometrics have proven, for example, that music graduates can be ideal for roles in data analytics. And there are plenty of other examples where that came from.”
What it can also do, of course, is save organisations money. The net cost of making the wrong appointment has been well documented and it’s an amount that rises dramatically in the case of more senior positions.
“Getting it wrong is an expensive business,” adds Ryno Kleynhans. “So setting the right metrics at the outset can be a real money saver for lots of organisations.”
Mindmill’s executives point out that psychometrics can also help with the live issue of workplace planning postpandemic. “Some people are suited to home working, others aren’t. That’s a fact of life,” says Laing Mewhort. “But organisations should think and plan before they jump to conclusions on the future of workplaces.”
In a lot of ways, the Mindmill CEO says, not much has changed over the year. “We managed to change the word Personnel to two words – Human Resources – but that’s about it in some cases,” he says. It might be all about picking the best horse for the course, but in reality, it’s a lot more complex than that and both technology and science have huge roles to play.
“As we move further into the postCovid era, organisations need to think very carefully about their people.
“Organisations are growing again, and those who bounce back quickest need to plan it well and execute it even better. If they’re going to change how they work, the same applies. Even if nothing is going to change, it’s vital to look at your people in a new light.
“We’re here to help and to work with anyone in the talent space. Talk to us and let’s see what we can do for you.”
