Vodafone on how Eightfold AI drove candidate satisfaction into positive figures

Earlier in June, UNLEASH attended Eightfold Cultivate Europe in London.

The leaders in the room were treated to expert insights into the world of AI, skills and HR from not just Eightfold executives, but also senior HR leaders from the HR tech giant’s customers, including Vodafone, Ubisoft, Coca-Cola Europacific Partners, MM and Forvia.

A big top of discussion at Eightfold Cultivate Europe was how it is becoming even harder to fill skills gaps with external candidates.

Instead organizations need to look inwardly, and lean into reskilling, upskilling and internal mobility. AI can be a huge help here.

This was noted by Andrew Saidy, Global Head of Talent at Ubisoft, during a panel session, as well as by Vodafone’s Director of Talent, Learning, Leadership, Skills, People Performance & Talent Acquisition Carl Clarke both on stage and in a follow-up exclusive UNLEASH interview.

Saidy shared that when the gaming giant decided to implement AI, they started with the why (not the buzz).

Ubisoft listened to its employees’ feedback in surveys, and they told us they wanted a customized career path, and internal mobility. That’s where Eightfold came in, and they’ve been working in partnership for 18 months.

Speaking exclusively to UNLEASH, Clarke adds that the £47 billion-revenue telecoms giant started its journey with Eightfold three years ago.

Back in 2021, “the external environment was very much pushing us towards how we reskill, how we upskill, when the talent is not [always] available externally”, and “AI was beginning to emerge as a key lever for us”.

Vodafone has 500,000 applications for its jobs, and AI helps to “give us a bit more insight into who was applying, from where, [and] how do we think differently about that candidate experience”.

For Vodafone, a core focus is treating candidates like customers, and Clarke is really proud of the progress that has been made in candidate satisfaction over the past three years. It’s increased from minus numbers to +86 with help of Eightfold.

The simplification of the candidate experience and journey is a real plus for us” – Clarke tells UNLEASH.

Other benefits from Eightfold have been reducing cost and tie to hire recruiters; Clarke estimates that Vodafone recruiters have saved 16 hours per week in sourcing because of Eightfold’s AI tools.

But the true “step change” from Eightfold for Clarke is around skills, and the fact that Eightfold can push personalized learning opportunities and jobs to employees.

To date, 24,000 of Vodafone’s 93,000 employee population have completed an online skill assessment – “that’s beginning to give 24,000 people access to personalized jobs and learning, which is a big step forward”.

Learning hours at Vodafone have also doubled over the past two and half years – from an average of 15 hours per person to over 30.

This theme of personalization was picked by two of the other customers on stage at Eightfold Cultivate Europe.

Carl Clarke (Vodafone) and Magda Malé Alòs (Coca-Cola Europacific Partners) speaking on a panel at Eightfold Cultivate Europe.

Eva Edelmueller, Head of Group Talent Attraction & Talent Management at MM, noted that trying to personalize internal mobility without the right tech partner is difficult.

Last year, UNLEASH interviewed Edelmueller to dig in more around packaging company MM’s partnership with Eightfold on skills and talent – you can read the full piece here.

During a panel discussion, Magda Malé Alòs, Director of Talent Management at bottling company Coca-Cola Europacific Partners, echoed the need to use AI and tech to personalize experiences as internal mobility should not be one-size-fits-all.

AI is ultimately helping with the “democratization of opportunities”, she adds.

And clearly something is working for Coca-Cola Europacific Partners – like Clarke and Vodafone, Malé Alòs shared some impressive stats at the event.

The bottling giant has 90% adoption of Eightfold among the 20,000 employees on the system and their employee engagement rate has increased six points in just one year.

The need to focus on leaders and managers with AI

All of this work on AI, skills and internal mobility has had a huge impact on HR’s position in businesses.

For automotive tech giant Forvia’s Gael Barjot this focus on AI and tech has contributed to a complete change in HR’s status.

HR used to be low profile, but now HR people shine, and they should be proud, noted Bariot.

MM’s Edelmueller shared this view; as a HR leader, “I want to create value. I want to be a sparring partner to the business and to the candidates”, and AI enables that.

But to truly change the mindset around internal mobility in organizations, it is not enough for HR and employees to be on board, managers need to be engaged too.

Therefore, it’s not surprise that there was a lot of discussion at Eightfold Cultivate Europe about how to bring managers along for the ride.

For Ubisoft’s Saidy, HR needs to bring managers on the journey (with training) and show them that there are real benefits from being able to hire internally.

It can help build the best team they can, plus leveraging Eightfold’s talent intelligence platform for gigs and project-based work can help managers to test drive the talent in the business and see if they are good fit before offering them a permanent job in their team.

Gemma Konrad, Career & Performance Development Director at Mars, shared that the food manufacturer is seeing great traction from managers around gigs, and HR is sharing those case studies to get other managers on board.

Konrad added that “for every manager who says ‘I don’t want to share’, you also get managers that say, ‘this is important’” as it’s what their team are telling them.

Ultimately, if there are employees who want to move roles, and their managers don’t support them, then “LinkedIn is just around the corner”, Konrad stated.

Saidy added: “It’s always better to keep someone within your company, than them being on LinkedIn and going somewhere else”, and this is why Ubisoft does look at which managers are hoarders of talent (with high attrition rates), and which are developers of talent (even if that means they lose great people in their own teams).

Eva Edelmueller (MM), Gemma Konrad (Mars) and Andrew Saidy (Ubisoft) on stage at Eightfold Cultivate Europe.

In his exclusive UNLEASH interview, Clarke dug in more to why leaders and managers are key part of Vodafone’s current (and future) approach to AI and skills.

This is because leaders “drive culture change [and] they enable their team to lean in and embrace some of this technology”.

Therefore, Vodafone is keen to build on existing initiatives like the ‘Leaders Lab’ where the top 300 leaders in the organization talk about the challenges their teams are facing.

Plus, the telecoms giant has offered 500 leaders coaching through Ezra to help them lead through change and to build resilience.

The telecoms giant really sees that coaching of top leaders does tickle down, and it begins to build that resilience muscle across the wider company. They often see as much as a 15% increase in their team’s engagement.

Looking forward, Clarke really wants to see leaders lean in more around generative AI, so they can enable and empower their teams to do the same.

To help here, Vodafone is experimenting with AI upskilling for leaders and employees through a new ‘Empower You’ campaign – it’s a three-hour learning journey that focuses on what AI is, why and how Vodafone are focusing on it, and how to use AI ethically at work.

Also, the telecoms giant is encouraging the use of Microsoft Copilot by employees in their day-to-day lives. The key is not just learning the theory of AI, but actually putting it into action.