The future of an interconnected talent ecosystem with Market Networks

The world of work is rapidly evolving. Traditional barriers to talent pools are eroding, workplace flexibility is becoming the norm, and employees are demanding a better employee experience and a sense of purpose where they work. For employers, these changes have translated into newer challenges to find, hire, engage, and retain the right people. Where once straightforward talent management practices and workplace solutions helped HR leaders hire and manage talent, companies now face a complex business ecosystem, meaning HR leaders now require more robust talent solutions. Addressing these challenges requires better tech innovations that support and accelerate HR teams across the board. Enter the market network as a powerful new solution. 

A market network provides its participants with instant and reliable services. They help connect different participants of the talent landscape across a secure network which facilitates collaborations and agility. Participants like employers, candidates, and service providers can use market networks to connect and leverage the broad ambit of services the network provides. 

A Market network like Repute combines the key features of a marketplace and professional network to provide a robust talent management solution. Leveraging blockchain technology and principles of web 3.0, Repute provides a secure, authenticated, and reliable way for the different participants in the talent landscape to transact & interact with each other, helping provide impactful solutions to some of the most pressing talent challenges today. 

Market networks as a one-stop solution

With business disruptions becoming increasingly complex, talent challenges require robust solutions. Today few tasks in talent management can be conducted in isolation by a single individual or service/tool. Hiring, for example, today is a multi-stage process that requires recruiters to undertake multiple critical tasks like job postings, multiple interview rounds, test rounds, shortlisting candidates and then finally, hiring; there are a host of post-hiring processes that need to be completed after the hiring as well like BGV, employee Profile creation etc. 

Repute's Market Network, for example, provides companies with a robust solution leveraging the ecosystem's knowledge and services. In the same example of hiring, the market network can allow HR managers and recruiters to avail services from various organisations or expert individuals for resume sourcing, interviewing and shortlisting and then finally onboard the shortlisted candidates using a single platform. In addition, the Market Network allows HRs to choose from multiple options for a single service. All these services work seamlessly to create the ultimate customised workflow for HR, enhancing productivity and reducing the time required to complete a hire.

With a market network, organisations don't need to hop into multiple places to find and use the relevant services they want. The market network provides a range of talent services, all instantly accessible in the network. Integrated finance, Renting apps, HR Productivity apps, Insurance apps, Hiring apps, Rewards & Recognition services etc., all kinds of relevant services from multiple service providers are available in a single place to pick and use. Additionally, these services are integrated with the Network, which means the SLA is faster, service is reliable, and deployment is quick. 

Advantages of Market Networks

Delving further into how market networks help address critical issues within the talent landscape, we take a look at the critical services which enable it to be a future-ready solution:

Embedded Finance 

Market networks like Repute allow HR teams to integrate financial services like personal loans, insurance and neo banking for employees, which are tied directly to their payroll. Be it quick access to personal loans or insurance services, employees can access these services from their payroll portals for instant approvals and payouts. Market networks ensure an overall better user experience and lower or even eliminate the risk of fraud or deception in most cases resulting in lower interest rates and customised offers for customers. 

"The scope for collaboration with one another, to bring about agility and accuracy in the overall talent management is made possible by Repute's market network. Our partnership will help us reach millions of professionals  in a quick time, leveraging the combined strength of blockchain technology and modular tech stack," said Monish Anand, Founder & CEO, MyShubhLife, on the relevance of market networks. This is achieved using the shared ledger technology that drives the Repute Market network; it ensures that malpractices like synthetic identity fraud or transaction fraud are virtually impossible to carry out.

Earned Wage Access:  Repute network enables Earned Wage Access that helps employees access interest-free funds from their salary. A robust financial product that creates better loyalty and improves employee experience. The Repute Market Network has partnered with services (like KarmaLife, MyShubhLife and Jupiter ) that can provide the early wage access needed by most of the Indian workforce. For employees, financial assistance like earned wage access helps provide timely access to funds. So notes  Rathi, CoFounder and CEO, KarmaLife, adding that "access to financial freedom is one of the most important values an organisation can add to the lives of their employees. The challenge however is to make sure that financial services are available to those who need them the most."

Deduction at source (DaS): DaS is another financial product facilitated by Repute's talent network. Allowing deductions at the time of payouts provides an easy and impactful mechanism that enables employees to access funds and loans. For HR teams, having DaS means quick and paper-free approvals of personal loans and no need to manage multiple payouts for multiple services. For the employees, DaS is beneficial because they can now quickly access financial services and improve their overall financial wellness. With Deduction At Source (DaS), payouts for financial services used by employees can be made directly from the payroll.

Elaborating the role of a Market Network like Repute in improving employee satisfaction Rohit explained that, "the way that Repute has built trust and pioneered applications like Deduction at Source for very low turnaround times for financial transactions is promising and will surely help not only employees but HR teams as well when it comes to enhancing the financial wellness and experience of employees."

Employment, Income and Identity Verification

Income and credential verification is one of the most basic and essential verifications employers and service providers conduct before offering a job or financial services. However, these verifications take a long time to complete, and data can easily be tampered with, creating mistrust in the process.

With the Repute gateway and market network that cover 30,000+ organisations and 7.4 million employees, the verification process for employment and income data is instant and secure. Since the information is verified directly at the source, there are no chances of data tampering regarding the verification reports. HR Managers and Service providers using the Network for these verifications have the advantage of the fastest turnaround times with the added authenticity. Furthermore, the data sharing is wholly based on the data owner's consent; the employees can leverage their data to get better offers from these service providers.

"Having a trustable market network like Repute is helping our clientele perform quick background checks leveraging the power of blockchain and web 3.0 technologies. We have integrated them as a partner in Pocket HRMS Marketplace. Repute's robust talent infrastructure and trust-free ecosystem have reduced the background verification time from at least a few days to a few minutes," remarked Kumar Siddhartha, CEO of PocketHRMS, referring to the practical approach of market networks in making verifications smooth and instant.

Digital Reputation at Scale 

The reputation of an entity comprises identity, credentials and past behaviour. Shared ledger technology on blockchain enables all the network participants to view the reputation of all other participants before transacting or sharing data with them. The Network can capture the reputation of individual professionals, organisations and service providers. Participants can leverage their reputation on the network to get the best of customers and the best of offers.

Reliable referrals

A market network makes referrals simple and reliable. With most hiring still coming from referrals, companies can leverage such networks to get suitable recommendations from the Ecosystem and assess a referral's reliability before beginning their hiring process. 

Salary Benchmarking and Offer Management

Deciding the proper compensation for a job is one of the challenges that Repute's Market Network can quickly solve by using as it provides the rightful compensation for a job based on actual offers that are being sent on the Network, so the data used to decide the compensation is the latest, authentic and aligns with the industry trends for that particular position.

The Offer Manager built in the network allows HR managers to send, track and manage offers to candidates. In addition, the Repute protocol ensures that candidates can only have one offer in the accepted state on the platform, preventing candidates from ghosting the HR teams pursuing them. HR managers can accurately predict whether or not a candidate accepting an offer will be joining.

The market network will reshape the talent landscape in the coming years by leveraging blockchain and quick, decentralised, secure data sharing principles of Web 3.0. A Market Network addresses the concerns of intra-operability and interoperability between systems inside and outside organisations. The enhanced connectivity empowers individuals, organisations and service providers to share data and transact to drive productivity; the ability to lay out one's digital reputation at scale helps the network participants trust each other and leverage their reputation for their benefit. Market Networks are an innovative addition to the HR industry that is posied to bring positive disruptive changes to the talent ecosystem.