Powering Transparent Work Cultures and Inclusive Opportunities
Recruit Holdings is transforming the world of work through wage transparency and providing life-changing opportunities for immigrants and refugees.
Contributors
Recruit Holdings’ mission is to “create opportunities for life,” which it pursues by creating products and services that connect individuals and businesses around the world in a faster, simpler, and more human way. The company, a global conglomerate headquartered in Japan, operates through three primary business segments: HR Technology, Media & Solutions, and Staffing.
Recruit Holdings has a strong presence in both developed and emerging markets, with operations in over 60 countries. This global presence gives the firm a unique opportunity to tap the growing demand for recruiting services around the world. Recruit Holdings is a leader in the use of technology to improve the recruiting process, and the company’s flagship product, Indeed, is the world’s largest job board, with over 300 million unique visitors every month.[1]
Glassdoor, another key platform under Recruit Holdings, has revolutionized the promotion of wage transparency and redefined fair compensation practices. Glassdoor boasts 58 million monthly unique visitors and has over 100 million reviews, salaries, and insights as of September 30, 2022.1 By providing employees with a platform to anonymously share salary information, Glassdoor is having a significant impact on corporate compensation strategies.
Championing Wage Transparency and Equity
Historically, compared with employees and job seekers, employers had more access to information, which gave them the upper hand in setting and negotiating salaries. Glassdoor allows employees to anonymously share salary information, which has helped to level the playing field and empower employees and job seekers to negotiate for fair pay. Glassdoor has also forced employers to rethink their compensation strategies. To attract and retain top talent, companies are now more likely to offer competitive salaries and benefits.
In addition to its work on wage transparency, Glassdoor acquired a new platform called Fishbowl, a social network for employees that allows them to share information about their workplace. By giving employees a platform to share their experiences, Fishbowl can help to break down the barriers that prevent people from speaking up about issues such as pay inequity and discrimination.
Breaking Barriers, Building Opportunities
As part of Recruit Holdings’ impact goals, the company strives to help 30 million people, who are facing barriers resulting from biases related to age, disability, race and ethnicity, among other things, get hired by 2030.
Recruit Holdings actively addresses key employment barriers through its “Essentials to Work” program. This program focuses on overcoming technology access, transportation, and criminal records obstacles that job seekers face. Partnerships have been established to bridge the technology gap by providing devices and internet connectivity to individuals in need. In addition, free ride-share services have been introduced to enhance mobility for job seekers. The program also collaborates with legal service providers to facilitate the clearance of criminal records, improving the chances of employment for individuals with prior convictions.
The company also seeks to help eliminate poverty and economic vulnerability by reducing the time it takes job seekers to get hired. To achieve this goal, the company aspires to make the job-matching process significantly faster. In 2021, it took an average of 15 weeks for an individual to get hired once a user started an active job search on the Indeed job platform. Recruit Holdings has set a goal of halving the time it takes to get hired by 2030. Recruit Holdings also changed the candidate screening process on Indeed. By emphasizing relevant skills instead of education level, this process change resulted in a 37 percent decline in the number of jobs requiring a college degree.[2]
Commitment to Immigrants and Refugees
According to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, Germany accepts the most refugees in Europe, with 1.24 million refugees recognized in the country in 2021.[3] Despite this significant influx, refugees face numerous challenges when seeking employment opportunities in Germany. Meanwhile, the country has been grappling with labor shortages in recent years, making it crucial to address this issue effectively.
RGF Staffing Germany, a part of Recruit Holdings, stands out for its commitment to supporting employment opportunities for immigrants and refugees. Unique, a service brand of RGF Staffing Germany, has gained valuable experience in immigration support since 2014 and is leveraging this expertise to assist refugees in finding employment. Unique’s specialized measures include automated chat translations and the recruitment of Arabic-speaking staff to cater to refugees from the Middle East and North Africa. Unique also actively encourages corporate clients to embrace flexible work styles that accommodate refugees’ personal circumstances.
Unique’s efforts during the Ukrainian humanitarian crisis in early 2022 showcase the organization’s commitment to aiding refugees. Unique provided immediate aid to support Ukrainian refugees, which included financial donations, medical assistance, and volunteer pharmacists. Unique also implemented long-term strategies to aid Ukrainian refugees in Germany, such as recruiting Ukrainian team members and creating Ukrainian-language materials to facilitate integration and employment opportunities.
Sustainable Development Goals
The Sands Capital six investment criteria tend to lead us to businesses that are innovators or vital facilitators of change in industries undergoing significant transformation. Recruit Holdings is one of many portfolio businesses that create impact by addressing at least one major social or environmental challenge identified by the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Recruit Holdings’ initiatives support multiple U.N. SDGs, such as SDG 1 (No Poverty); SDG 5 (Gender Equality); SDG 8 (Decent Work and Economic Growth); SDG 9 (Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure); SDG 10 (Reduced Inequalities); and SDG 13 (Climate Action).
[1] Recruit Group Profile 2022: https://recruit-holdings.com/files/sustainability/data/Recruit_insideout2022_en.pdf – page 15
[2] Q4 FY2022 Prosper Together | Recruit Holdings: https://players.brightcove.net/6291496958001/default_default/index.html?videoId=6327291131112 (6:15)
[3] Recruit Group Profile 2022: https://recruit-holdings.com/files/sustainability/data/Recruit_insideout2022_en.pdf – page 21
Disclosures:
The business profiled was selected based on its reported alignment with one or more U.N. Sustainable Development Goals.
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