Unlocking untapped potential: A Five-Stage Framework for Employing Hidden Talent
Millions of capable people remain excluded from meaningful work in the UK, even as employers struggle to fill more than 700,000 vacancies with the right talent. Levels of economic inactivity are high, yet millions of people currently out of work want to work but are consistently facing barriers to accessing and securing jobs.
These ‘hidden talent’ groups include people with convictions, care leavers, people with mental health conditions, and many others. Many businesses recognise that employing hidden talent is not just about ‘doing good’. It also makes business sense, helping to boost employee attraction, retention, and performance, in turn helping to drive long-term economic growth.
While much guidance already exists on support hidden talent into work, it tends to focus too narrowly on the recruitment process, prioritising short-term approaches (such as adapting job descriptions or removing names from CVs), over a holistic review of wider employment practices.
In consultation with over 20 organisations and businesses including Iceland, Greene King, Amazon, Severn Trent and Toyota GB, ReGenerate has developed a practical Five-Stage Framework for Employing Hidden Talent. This framework exists as a practical tool for businesses to create lasting change across the whole employment cycle. It moves beyond short-term, one-off or siloed initiatives, proposing practical step-by-step actions that lay the foundations to embed truly inclusive employment at the heart of businesses.
We call on businesses to adopt ReGenerate’s Five-Stage Framework for Employing Hidden Talent by:
Securing buy-in at all levels of the organisation
Mapping opportunities by adapting roles and reviewing policies
Engaging with new pools of talent through specialist partnerships and expertise
Optimising recruitment processes to remove unintended barriers
Empowering and retaining talent through line manager support and an inclusive culture
Lead Author: Claire-Emily Martin
Sign up to our newsletter to stay up to date with our work.
Licencing: This work is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0).
Attribution: You must give appropriate credit, provide a link to the licence, and indicate if changes were made. You may do so in any reasonable manner, but not in any way that suggests the licensor endorses you or your use.
