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Blockchain — the technology many of us know simply as the underpinning of cryptocurrency — has the potential to revolutionize the staffing industry in a big way.

Our team is currently in research and development into blockchain technology, as are a number of our clients. From administrative efficiency to unhackable sensitive information and instantly accessible talent pools, it appears that blockchain may contain the answers to problems that have been plaguing the staffing industry for decades.

A Tamper-Proof, Verified Digital ProfileStaffing agencies are charged with handling and verifying extensive sensitive personal and financial information.

Storing information securely has always been a pain point for staffing firms, with the current norm of cloud storage making data vulnerable to tampering and hacking.

Blockchain greatly reduces the likelihood of information being accessed or falsified by unauthorized devices, and in many cases, it is virtually eliminated.

Another challenge that staffing professionals face is the time-consuming task of verifying candidates’ credentials. Theoretically, blockchain could eliminate this task.

With blockchain, it is possible to create verified digital profiles, allowing staffing firms to instantly access individuals’ identities, work history, background checks, references, student transcripts, salary history, certifications and licensures.

When information is added to the blockchain, it must be verified at the source, or in this case by the educational institution, previous employer or responsible entity, making it nearly impossible to falsify information.

A blockchain-based system of digital profiles would save potential employers and recruiters the step of verifying the accuracy of candidates’ resumes and applications, increasing the efficiency of staffing teams exponentially, and save candidates the step of filling in basic information on each individual application.

Measuring Candidates’ Behavioral Characteristics And Skill SetsBlockchain has the ability to incorporate additional measures into digital profiles, such as cognitive ability, personality traits, behaviors, habits and even skill competency extracted from individuals’ online assessments.

Our use of smart devices is providing endless amounts of anonymized user data that can be used to build a digital extension of ourselves in a way that some believe may replace the need for repetitive pre-employment behavioral and skills assessments.
If gathering data from individuals’ smart devices to assess personality, cognitive ability and skill ability seems far-fetched, then you may be shocked to learn this practice is already happening in many workplaces. With technology advancing at an exponential rate, it is now possible for employers to track and record what their employees do, where they go and who they meet.

Here are a few of the ways they do it:

1. Installing real-time employee tracking systems in ID badges to monitor hours worked, frequency of breaks and other behavioral insights.

2. Tapping into your email and calendar metadata, to/from data, subject lines and timestamps to obtain behavioral insights, employee engagement and effectiveness.

3. Monitoring your workstation by tracking your online browsing history, detecting idle workstations, taking screenshots and remotely monitoring computer screens to evaluate productivity and hours worked.

Companies gathering this information would be able to automatically populate a database that allows them to instantly measure employee engagement, productivity, effectiveness and efficiency, as well as habits and personality traits.

And some candidates may enjoy having their individual certifications and assessments available in their own blockchain to present to future employers.

Certainly, adding measures of cognitive ability, emotional intelligence and habits obtained by employers or our smart devices to digital profiles raises an important question: How much data will the public be willing to add to their digital profile?

Implications For The Gig EconomyWith the rise of the global gig economy, staffing firms are hiring freelancers and contract workers at an increasing rate.

Blockchain has the potential to ease challenges that are associated with this shift in the workforce landscape with real-time information sharing, cross-border payment transactions and smart contracts.

Blockchain could potentially eliminate the need for back-office functions by streamlining routine tasks from tracking payroll to issuing paychecks. Remote employees would benefit from real-time payroll processing and cross-border payments that are not susceptible to costly third-party intermediaries.

Contracts, the lifeblood of staffing firms and gig workers alike, would be made more efficient with blockchain. Smart contracts could eliminate the majority of the tasks associated with managing this paperwork. A blockchain smart contract is a protocol designed to digitally facilitate, enforce or verify negotiation or performance of a contract.

Participants can ensure their employees are transacting ethically, within rules that are agreed to through smart contracts. From Current To Future StateEarly adopters of blockchain are present in every industry from education to supply chain, healthcare and government. 

According to Deloitte’s 2019 “Global Blockchain Survey,” 77% of companies across multiple industries believe they will lose a competitive advantage if they don’t adopt blockchain technology, and 40% are willing to invest $5 million or more in developing blockchain technologies over the next 12 months.

Despite the emergence of blockchain innovators across industries in the past few years, blockchain’s heyday may still be a ways off. In July 2019, a survey on blockchain adoption found that over half of the respondents indicated that blockchain projects were more challenging to utilize than expected.

Most blockchain applications for staffing firms are still in the theoretical stage; however, their potential cannot be ignored. As blockchain moves from a capable yet underdeveloped technology into a mainstream solution, the applications for staffing firms will prove to be numerous.

For staffing firms, it will be important to stay abreast of the changes.Forbes Human Resources Council is an invitation-only organization for HR executives across all industries. Do I qualify?




Eric FriedmanEric Friedman is the Founder and CEO of eSkill, a global leader in skills testing and behavioral assessment solutions for employers.

The supply chain has existed since the industrial revolution, and little has been done to streamline its processes, particularly in the last 50 years. It has also become more than simply moving products from A to B. In today’s industry, supply chains are now more fragmented, complicated and in some cases geographically dispersed.

The 21st century has enabled more dynamic networks than ever before, with seasonal products facing a higher demand than ever, which are transported further than before. Because of this, the traditional supply chain has become outdated and can be difficult to manage.

This is a problem for businesses of any size as their success will often correlate with the success of its supply chain. So, how can blockchain change this?Blockchain is everywhere. It was the buzzword of 2018, and so far, that doesn’t look set to change as we continue through 2019.

However, there is still plenty of uncertainty over the technology and the benefits it can bring to different sectors and businesses, including the supply chain – a vital element for numerous organisations.

Originally developed to power bitcoin over 10 years ago, blockchain is a surprisingly straightforward concept.

In a nutshell, it’s a system that records change and movement of transactions. It’s maintained across several systems that are linked to a peer-to-peer network. When it comes to the supply chain, blockchain acts as an immutable ledger within a decentralised location.

Meaning that any changes in ownership or possession of goods, along with their movements from each end of the supply chain, can be recorded instantly for the greatest possible accuracy, which is essential for businesses.

This increased transparency across the chain can allow for a clear understanding of the value of goods, as well as a more succinct idea of a fair and reasonable cost of each individual product. It also allows for more detailed traceability in goods from across the globe, which gives an insight into the environmental impact of products, as purchasers can follow the entire journey of their orders.

SEE ALSO:

• Blockchain and the supply chain
• Osborne Clarke: Will blockchain drive the evolution of cognitive supply chains?
• Indian Coffee Board launches blockchain marketplace to improve supply chain
• Read the latest issue of Supply Chain Digital here!

How can it reduce costs?Many retail businesses are dependent on global supply chains for transporting their goods via the logistics industry. This market is controlled by freight brokers who can charge a huge mark-up for assisting in the transactions of loads through shippers.

Blockchain can be effective in resolving this issue through the use of smart contracts, which are automatically triggered when a specific action takes place, removing the use of intermediaries, therefore saving money across the chain.

As well as cutting out unnecessary and often expensive admin, the features of blockchain can help improve inventory management, reduce costly data errors and delays, and shorten resolution time when disputes occur.

It also allows producers the ability to accurately track capacity and costs, estimate delivery times for multiple routes, and make smarter decisions. How can it promote traceability?

Blockchain ensures that the data it records is permanent and easy to share, giving supply chain players more comprehensive track-and-trace capabilities than ever before. The public ledger means it is possible to trace each product to the very origin of the raw material used.

Companies can use this information to provide proof of legitimacy and authenticity. It even allows people to see if their purchase has been ethically sourced and if it has been stored in the correct conditions.

By having a clear and concise understanding of exactly where a product has come from, businesses and their customers are able to have a better understanding of the routes taken and transport options used to deliver their goods.

In a society that is becoming more environmentally aware, those who can show improvement or have a clear and transparent policy to their own emission production, may be looked on more favourably. 

The future?

Blockchain has the potential to transform the supply chain and disrupt the way we produce, market, purchase and consume goods. The added transparency, traceability and security to the supply chain can go a long way toward making our economies safer and much more reliable, by promoting trust and honesty and preventing the implementation of questionable practices.

Businesses, especially those in retail or those who rely on supply chains, should consider the benefits of blockchain and not be afraid to step into a different world, which on the surface may appear complicated, but in reality, can offer measurable benefits. By Richard Shakespeare, Retail Propositions & Performance Director, Opus Energy

Several multinationals are experimenting with blockchain-based platforms to ensure traceability and sustainability in their supply chains and to reduce costs. But challenges remain in the implementation of such solutions.

Consumers are more and more preoccupied with how products are made. After decades during which price and quality were the two primary attributes they looked for in products, nowadays the demand for sustainably produced goods is on the rise.

Contributing to this increased awareness are both a greater concern for the environment and also frequent scandals involving labor rights violations in the supply chains of some of the best-known brands, like Apple, H&M, or Nike.
RELATED: WHY A BLOCKCHAIN-POWERED WORLD IS STILL A LONG WAY AWAY: 11 BLOCKCHAIN EXPERTS ON THE CHALLENGES AHEAD

But telling sustainable products apart from their less sustainable counterparts in hard. After all, sustainably sourced or produced goods often don't look any different.

Many green labels and certifications seek to address this issue, but they are generally used for products that come in packaging (How would you stick a label on, say, a potato? If you had to sell it in packaging in order to show it's sustainable, wouldn't that defeat the purpose of the label in the first place?).

 And, despite the complicated audit process required to get such labels, they are often as fallible and corruptible as the contexts in which they are awarded.But what about goods like cut flowers, timber, diamonds, or fish? How can we tell if these products are sustainable?

That their production complied with the law — for instance, that our furniture is not made out of illegally logged timber? And that the workers who labored to bring them to the shelves of our local supermarket or shop were fairly treated?

Ensuring transparency and traceability across supply chains in our globalized economy is no easy feat. Luckily, an entire suite of technological solutions is emerging to help solve this problem.  

Blockchain to the rescue

Over the past five years or so, several global companies — and some startups — have developed blockchain-based applications to help track goods across supply chains. A pioneer in this area is IBM, which has established various such initiatives on its own and in collaboration with other companies.

For instance, the IBM Food Trust is a blockchain-based platform that aims to ensure traceability and sustainability in the supply chains of foods and beverages.

In addition, in August 2018 IBM launched TradeLens in collaboration with Maersk, the largest shipping company in the world. The aim of this blockchain-based platform is "to promote more efficient and secure global trade", IBM said in a press release.

Aside from IBM, recognizable names like diamond company De Beers and retailer Walmart have joined the blockchain bandwagon.

The way in which such solutions operate is that they work to transpose physical supply chains — that is, the networks of producers, intermediaries, processors, auditors, certifiers, sellers, and customers — onto an online, blockchain-based platform in order to create a virtual registry of the provenance and trajectory of products.

TradeLens, IBM Food Trust, and Tracr (the diamond-tracing platform) all fashion themselves as industry-specific ecosystems or networks. The importance of this detail cannot be overestimated, for, in order for the solution to work in the first place, supply chain actors need to opt in and join the network. And the well functioning of the platform depends on it becoming the most used solution in a given sector.

Blockchain — the distributed ledger (or registry) technology that was first developed to support the BitCoin —lends itself particularly well to the management of complex networks like supply chains because of its decentralized nature.

The two key issues with tracing products (particularly commodities) across supply chains are the need to establish trust among parties that often don't even speak the same language and the need to manage a large amount of data.  

The story goes that blockchain can help solve such issues. That is because, through its very design, a platform running on blockchain is secure. Through blockchain, users are only able to access the records that they are entitled to see.

And, before their information gets added to the blockchain, several other users (dubbed miners) get to vet it, thus ensuring that more than one entity has control of the accuracy of the stored data.  

After being checked, each block of information is then stored onto the blockchain and can no longer be altered by anyone. In this manner, the registry grows in size with the addition of new blocks of dependable information.

For instance, a fisherman in India may suggest adding a block with information about his latest capture of shrimp, containing details such as weight, provenance, date of capture, and others, to the blockchain-based platform that IBM is prototyping for Walmart.

This information would be checked by several miners (like the collection point where s/he dropped off the shrimp), who can testify whether it is accurate or not.  

If deemed accurate, the information would be added as a block onto the blockchain. With each passing through a new port or processing facility, the shrimp would get tracked using a QR code placed on the container in which it travels.

Once it reaches Walmart's shelves, the consumer would be able to access the entire history of this product using a simple scanner or an app on their smartphones.

By ensuring the accuracy of the information and all but eliminating human error, such a platform promises to reduce insurance, audit, and legal compliance costs for retailers. 

But there are several issues with this model. The first is the need for users to opt into platforms. In industries that are heavily centralized, like the diamond industry, it is easy for a near monopolist like De Beers to convince suppliers to partake in a platform that it launched.

But in so doing, it perpetuates asymmetric economic relationships and calls into question the issue of trust. Blockchain has been touted as a form of ensuring trust in online transactions among real-world strangers.

But what if the institution that controls the blockchain-based platform and dictates the rules of the game has vested interests, like De Beers does? It is conceivable that the blockchain could be corrupted in such cases, despite the monopolist's pretenses of non-involvement.

That is to say nothing of the varying levels of connectivity around the world. While Internet penetration rates are rising everywhere, there are still parts of the world where connection is poor.

If blockchain is the only way small producers can supply to global companies, then those of them who are the least connected — and likely the most economically disenfranchised — will be left out. Blockchain would thus exclude those in need of opportunities from having access to them.

As for industries that are more fragmented, such as pulp and paper, several conflicting platforms used to track at the same commodity could emerge. This would force producers and suppliers to specialize based on who their client is or to learn how to use multiple platforms. The risk of confusion and mistakes would evidently be high.

Focusing on functionality instead of the technology

In an interview with Knowledge@Wharton, Stefan Gstettner of Boston Consulting Group (BCG), warns against overhyping the functionality blockchain affords in the management of supply chains.

"In the early days of blockchain, there was the notion that blockchain can help connect parties in the supply chain," he says. "That is in general true. However, if we only want to connect parties that anyway know each other, there are many competing technologies like EDI [electronic data interchange], or what many call a supply chain control tower.

The question then is: Why should blockchain be considered a promising competing technology here?", he adds.

Instead, he recommends focusing on the unique functionality the technology brings, which is its ability to establish trust in interactions among strangers.

Companies must figure out how to channel this advantage while avoiding the abovementioned drawbacks of such platforms before being able to use blockchain in supply chain management on a wide scale.

For the time being, experts agree that it's still early days for blockchain; that most companies don't quite know how to use it to add value to their businesses and that the learning curve ahead of us is steep.

Will blockchain disrupt your industry? Maybe, but it’s not likely to happen anytime soon. At least that’s the opinion of many MIT experts who watch the blockchain space.

“In 2019, the actual live use cases of blockchain are predominantly for speculative investing,” said MIT Sloan professor Gary Gensler, a senior advisor to the MIT Digital Currency Initiative and former chairman of the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission.

Work smart with our Thinking Forward newsletterInsights from MIT experts, delivered every Tuesday morning.

* Email Address  Michael Casey, senior advisor to the Digital Currency Initiative, agreed. “Across the board, actual productive use of blockchain for day-to-day business operations is still extremely thin. There’s no doubt about that,” said Casey, co-author of “The Truth Machine: The Blockchain and the Future of Everything.

”Neha Narula, director of the initiative, may have summed it up best as she moderated a panel at MIT’s 2019 Business of Blockchain conference. Referring to MIT’s first blockchain conference three years earlier, Narula said, “Maybe in 2016 we underestimated the amount of learning that needed to happen at all layers.

”Blockchain is a distributed ledger technology that creates an unchangeable record of transactions, facilitating interaction between participants without the need for intermediaries such as banks.

The technology is complex and not conclusively defined — some so-called blockchain applications are simply traditional distributed ledgers, lacking blockchain’s hallmark features of anonymity and immutability, experts have pointed out.

What’s more, figuring out how and when to apply blockchain is challenging, and companies are struggling with the business model.

FURTHER READING: BLOCKCHAIN, EXPLAINED

“We are on a giant, giant learning curve right now,” said Simon Whitehouse, senior managing director for financial services, growth, and strategy at Accenture, who also spoke at the conference.

Most companies don’t yet understand “how blockchain can work, how it can add value, and why they have to cooperate and compete with partners at the same time.

”Different consortia have formed in different industries to try to collaborate on blockchain, but progress has been limited. “The reason it’s taking such a long time is not necessarily a technical problem,” said Casey.

“It is a cultural and structural challenge getting different non-trusting parties to work together. Blockchain is a ‘we’ technology, not a ‘me’ technology.” Its biggest benefits are for the group, not a single company.

First up: supply chains

Although the initial enthusiasm was about finance, supply chains are more likely to be the first real, practical use case for the technology, said Irving Wladawsky-Berger, a visiting lecturer at the MIT Sloan School of Management.

“Financial systems are among the most ungodly complicated systems you can imagine,” he said, making the application of a complex technology like blockchain extra difficult.

Supply chain applications can be simpler, and the potential value more straightforward.Wladawsky-Berger said he can explain a supply chain application in the time it takes to deliver an elevator pitch, albeit a longish one (30 floors, he said). “If you are going to develop something complicated, being able to describe it simply is very important,” he said. “I think that’s a major part of why supply chain is the killer app of blockchain.”

Supply chain is the killer app of blockchain.

Irving Wladawsky-Berger
MIT Sloan Professor
As a shared digital ledger that creates an immutable record of transactions, blockchain is ideal for tracking the provenance of goods. It enables trustworthy shared information among suppliers that may not trust each other. “One of the best ways to think about blockchain is in the context of a supply chain,” said Casey.

It enables a group of independent entities, which have their own interests and information to protect, to share a common platform that holds information of common interest.

It helps to have a dominant company driving the use of blockchain, as is the case in two supply chain applications that may be close to going into production.

Walmart has been running a pilot project with IBM’s Food Trust Solution, a blockchain-enabled distributed ledger of food system data, to track lettuce from its suppliers to Walmart shelves.

And Dutch shipping company A.P. Moller-Maersk A/S is using IBM technology in a blockchain pilot that will track ocean cargo containers. Five of the world’s largest carriers, controlling a majority of container cargo capacity, have signed on, according to the Wall Street Journal.

Finance and cryptocurrencies

There are plenty of potential uses in finance — using blockchain to control and service loans or underpin smart contracts, for example. But for now at least, the lion’s share of attention is going to cryptocurrencies and stablecoins, said Gensler, who with Narula co-teaches an online course on cryptocurrency.

Cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and Ethereum are a form of private digital currency that use cryptography and blockchain to secure and verify transactions.

Stable value coins like Tether, USD Coin, and proposed offerings from Facebook, JPMorgan Chase, and Deutsche Bank are pegged to currency or another asset so that they are less volatile than a cryptocurrency.Further, several central banks are creating their own tokens.

The tiny Republic of the Marshall Islands (population: 53,000) has launched the Marshallese sovereign (SOV), while the People’s Bank of China is reportedly planning to issue its own digital currency.

FURTHER READING: THE RISKS AND UNINTENDED CONSEQUENCES OF BLOCKCHAIN

It’s not clear that any such alternative payments would be better than the current digital distributed ledger technology and digital payment structure that banks already use to move money, Gensler said.

The United States, for example, uses the Automated Clearing House, among others, and it works well. “Shared distributed ledgers have been around for decades. Blockchain technology is not new in that regard,” Gensler said.

Although there are more potential use cases than real ones for blockchain in business, that could change fast. “We're still in early years with this whole thing,” Gensler cautioned. “Where we'll be in 2025 or 2030 is yet to be known.”

Building up to blockchain

As business leaders watch developments in (and hear the hype about) blockchain technology, they can stay grounded by asking practical questions about what blockchain can and cannot do for their organizations, the experts advised.

Start by asking strategic questions, said Gensler. “These big strategic questions aren’t hard to ask,” said Gensler, but they can be hard to answer, which is where their value lies. Among them:

• What’s the value proposition? What problem will this solve, and how will blockchain be better than other solutions?
• More specifically, blockchain is by design immutable — meaning once it’s been added, data in the blockchain cannot be altered. Does your application need that?

Gensler also suggests these tactical questions:

• What data will be written to the ledger?
• Who (within a company) will be allowed to write to the ledger?
• Who (within a company) will be allowed to see the ledger?
• How will the parties preserve confidentiality of data and comply with privacy laws?

The biggest challenge for blockchain applications is the extent to which companies will truly collaborate, according to Casey. In a consortium of equals, when there is no dominant player “to bash all the heads together and make them do it,” what is the motivation for companies to participate, he asked.

Projects that deliver valued outcomes to all parties are more likely to succeed.If you decide to explore blockchain, start small, then grow incrementally as you learn about the technology and convince other companies to work with you, said Wladawsky-Berger. “Don’t swing for the fences,” he said. “Just get on base.”

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Tracy Mayor
Senior News Editor & Writer
(617) 253-0065 
[email protected]

Today, the IEEE announced the launch of its initiative to use technologies including blockchain for clinical trials. The global organization aims to increase efficiency and enable remote research, reducing site costs and providing better patient experiences.

The IEEE and its Standards Association (IEEE SA) named the project ‘Technology and Data Harmonization for Enabling Remote Clinical Trials’. The first stage will be testing out technologies such as Internet of Things (IoT), virtual reality, and artificial intelligence along with blockchain.

The chair of the project, Tory Cenaj, said: “The estimated $44.2 billion global clinical trials market is facing a number of challenges related to patient recruitment and retention, rising costs to meet regulatory policies, data governance, and more.

”To address these points, the IEEE outlined four main goals: efficient and inclusive patient engagement, data integrity, a single immutable patient log, and reduced time and costs. While the organization has to yet to publish details of how it plans to use blockchain, it is well suited to the data aspects.

The technology would allow for an immutable and trustworthy ledger of patient information, with the potential for patients to give their consent to data usage through smart contracts. This transparent ledger could also address the IEEE’s data integrity point, as blockchain stored data is easily auditable.

“This important project establishes a framework for vastly improving how remote patient clinical trials are conducted by leveraging new technologies to significantly reduce the time and cost of bringing life-saving medicines to market,” summarized Cenaj.

Once solutions have been developed, the IEEE will use its work in a simulated clinical trial.Healthcare is emerging as a crucial use case for blockchain, especially trials. Last year, we spoke to Daniel Hwang at the IEEE about representing health data on a blockchain.

Pharma giants Pfizer and Biogen completed a proof of concept for the clinical trial supply chain this summer.

Meanwhile, fellow clinical firm Boehringer Ingelheim is working with IBM in the same area.

Similar projects in medical research are underway by Embleema with Gustave Roussy, Nebula Genomics, and by R3 and HSBlox.