the total talent acquisition playbook.
Integrated talent strategies help you prepare for the unexpected with full workforce visibility and agility
More than ever, your business requires certainty in an uncertain world. Existing business models have evolved suddenly. Customer expectations have shifted. The way you operate seems to change every day. But even though the economy is unpredictable, your business needs assurances.
As a human capital leader, you can help mitigate risk and enhance business continuity with a talent strategy that is both agile and sustainable. Even before the global pandemic, the world of work was transforming quickly. Today, the rate of change has accelerated, requiring business leaders to reset and pivot continuously. To accommodate this trend, your organization must adapt.
But how can you create predictability during such a disruptive time? How do you gather the resources and organizational buy-in you’ll need when so many other priorities are demanding your attention? And do your C-level leaders have the appetite for transformation at a time when attrition is on their minds? They will if you can demonstrate a business imperative.
Even under these trying conditions, employers have compelling reasons to transform their human capital strategies. As global markets ebb and flow, assuring your business leaders that talent is available and scalable gives them confidence to move forward so they don’t miss out on opportunities. Can you guarantee talent readiness to your C-suite and hiring managers?
A total — or integrated — talent management solution is the most effective approach for acquiring and managing your human capital strategy when agility is your goal. This holistic model — which is powered by transparency, data, market insights and collaboration — ensures you have the right talent for your business when you need it. As a result, you’ll have a clear competitive advantage.
Whether you are managing temporary staffing, statement of work (SOW) engagements, permanent employees or gig workers, a total talent management strategy gives you unprecedented access to resources and a 360-degree view of your workforce.
And, when you deploy only the right talent needed to achieve company goals, you ensure the most efficient use of labor spend and significant cost savings over time. At the same time, you’ll have the visibility you need to mitigate complexities that could pose risks and compliance challenges. Most importantly, this holistic approach puts your organization on the right track for recovery ahead, while helping you navigate new challenges with great agility. Isn’t that one of the most imperative goals facing your business today?
5 questions.
Can your organization benefit from total talent transformation?
- Is our workforce ready to deploy the specialty skills and agile talent needed to respond to the market challenges ahead?
- Are we efficiently using all work arrangements, such as contingent and permanent employees, to get work done when it needs to be done?
- Do we have clear visibility of our talent utilization and spend?
- Are we certain we are engaging talent in a compliant and efficient way?
- Is our HR technology stack able to continuously deliver value and help us manage our people effectively?
chapter one.
unprecedented times call for an unprecedented response.
Take everything you knew about your company’s talent needs and recalibrate. Much of what was true before the global coronavirus pandemic is no longer fact. Now your job as an organizational leader is to rapidly adapt to changing business conditions by providing your business with the right resources. So are you up for the challenge?
If not, not only is the survival of your organization possibly on the line, but your professional brand may be at risk. Ensuring your workforce is able to meet the needs of your C-suite has always been your priority, but that mandate now takes on a much greater urgency. Beyond recovery, you must identify opportunities for growth and market share expansion through talent.
Total talent management will give you the agility and organizational alignment that many businesses today lack. By merging the management of flexible talent with your permanent employees, this holistic approach will expedite your company’s ability to respond to shifting market conditions with the right expertise and skills. This model will also create the foundation for future growth.
In most companies, HR typically has oversight of permanent hires, and procurement is charged with contingent workforce management. Rarely do the two sides collaborate on delivering the right talent to hiring managers. More likely, each is focused on just filling the role requisitioned instead of providing input on the type of talent best suited for the business goal. (According to one survey of HR leaders cited by Forbes, fewer than 30% believe they are effectively managing freelancers.)
Some leading companies, however, are evolving their talent strategies to bring the two sides together – a journey that will take some time but is described by most as well worth the effort. Leading this shift are HR and procurement visionaries who see the impact that integrated talent strategies can have on their business today and in the future. These companies understand that a holistic approach to talent will produce the best experience for their internal stakeholders as well as for talent of all types.
As one workforce strategy leader at Philips explained, the total talent model at his company is providing the best experience and resourcing advice for hiring managers.
This is only possible by integrating all components of talent strategy. In a holistic approach, organizations consider all possible types of work arrangements, including permanent, contingent and even automation. This enables the business to deploy the most suitable option to achieve its business goals. This was the case before the pandemic, and it continues to be true since.
While total talent can be complex to implement, companies don’t have to go it alone (or all at once) in their efforts to transform. Service providers, such as Randstad Sourceright, are delivering total talent management solutions that provide next-level value for talent acquisition. By helping to manage all of a client’s permanent and contingent talent needs, these solutions empower HR and procurement leaders to best execute business goals.
How it works
Total talent management is a comprehensive approach to delivering the right talent at the right time. The talent model encompasses all worker types and sources, including permanent hires, temp-to-hire, staffing, freelancers and contractors, statement of work (SOW) engagements, part-timers, payrollees and seasonal workers. The goal of the approach is to break down barriers to engaging and managing these talent types, and look more broadly, especially as job seekers are more willing than ever to consider alternatives to traditional full-time employment.
Because the model facilitates selection of the right talent – whether the resource is a temporary, flexible work arrangement or an employee – companies are able to achieve a more efficient human capital spend, while enhancing access to talent and compliance. At the same time, employers are able to nurture a more people-centric approach to talent acquisition and management, which leads to higher engagement and productivity.
A total talent solution is often managed by an external provider that administers some or all types of work arrangements through supply models such as recruitment process outsourcing (RPO), managed services programs (MSP) and payrolled solutions. These programs, however, do not operate in silos.
For example, the provider may directly source talent for both permanent and temporary positions from the same talent pool, ensuring the hiring manager has rapid access to the best candidates. The pool is nurtured through an extensive talent marketing program to help attract and engage candidates. The total talent solution should include a comprehensive talent analytics platform to provide a thorough view of the client’s workforce. Every program is customized to the client’s needs, culture and structure.
Although more complex and challenging to implement than a stand-alone MSP or RPO, a total talent solution provides the greatest value to the buying organization. It centralizes hiring policies and practices, gives companies a real-time view of who is entering and leaving their organization, and provides the basis for business agility.
It also incorporates market and business intelligence, best practices around talent engagement and acquisition, and efficient spend management. Ultimately, this leads to the deployment of the best talent at a lower cost, because integrated talent strategies consider all worker types based on need.
The importance of integration now
There simply is no room for error in today’s extremely difficult and competitive marketplace, and companies that fail to have the right skills and capacity to react to a highly dynamic global market are in real danger.
While the pandemic has impacted workforces unevenly around the world, one thing is clear: talent needs will grow increasingly complex. It’s likely that companies will increase their use of contingent talent as they convert more roles to reduce costs. According to Gartner, companies are introducing alternative job models, such as talent sharing and 80% pay for 80% work. In fact, the analyst firm found, 32% of surveyed organizations are replacing full-time employees with contingent talent.
Companies are turning to more contingent resources not only for the cost savings. With expanded talent choices comes greater agility, and as business models change due to lockdowns, reopenings and more lockdowns, the need to be flexible has never been greater.
In our 2020 Talent Trends research, conducted just before the global pandemic, 74% of human capital and C-suite leaders said they were likely to adopt a holistic approach this year.
In the same study, the top cited reasons for pursuing total talent include:
- workforce agility and flexibility
- operational efficiencies and cost savings
- mitigation of risk in an evolving labor market
- access to critical skills
Each of these drivers will increasingly put pressure on your business to adapt in the months and years ahead. As the global economy struggles to recover following the pandemic outbreak, your business must be able to respond appropriately to the forces above or risk losing out to competitors who can.
Workforce agility and flexibility
Following the dramatic economic impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, companies scrambled to predict how the recovery would take shape. The World Economic Forum warned that many factors could significantly alter any forecasts and that it may take years for markets everywhere to reach the level of business activity posted before the outbreak.
At the same time, the crisis has severely reshaped business around the world, creating demand for new goods and services while significantly suppressing activity in many other sectors. As a result, the fundamentals of the global economy — such as trade, the supply chain, monetary policy and others — have been forever altered.
In this new environment, can your business keep up with the uncertainty? With greater workforce agility and flexibility, you’ll be able to deploy resources as demand rises and pull back when it wanes. Success is most likely when you have a holistic view and management of all work arrangements available to and deployed by your organization.
Operational efficiencies and cost savings
Is your organization deploying and re-deploying the right talent every time? Without a holistic approach that eliminates talent silos, it’s nearly impossible for you to consider all the options available when resourcing. Nearly one-third (29%) of executives surveyed by Randstad Sourceright said they would implement a total talent program to achieve greater cost savings, and 36% said they want to create greater efficiencies in the hiring process.
According to Staffing Industry Analysts, a 2019 survey conducted among human capital leaders indicated that 69% of those planning to adopt total talent are doing so as a way to better control labor costs, while 55% wanted to fill roles more quickly. The results echo the sentiments of many companies seeking to elevate the performance of their talent acquisition and management function.
Greater cost efficiencies are possible because activities such as sourcing, screening, assessment and onboarding can be standardized. Separate resources dedicated to permanent and contingent hiring can also be merged to create enhanced economies of scale.
Risk mitigation in an evolving labor market
With more companies using contingent talent as a way to gain agility, complexity is a natural byproduct. For companies leveraging the growing gig economy and other flexible talent, this can pose significant risk if the proper vetting and acquisition processes are not in place.
Greater workforce visibility, provided by integrated talent strategies, provides a way to ensure greater compliance. Are hiring managers adhering to local and national regulations? Are pay rates in line with benchmarked standards? Are diverse hiring practices observed? The same processes used to ensure compliance for permanent hires can be adapted and applied to other types of talent.
Access to critical skills
As the global pandemic sent millions around the world into unemployment, it appears the availability of labor has quickly shifted from scarce to bountiful. While the number of laid-off workers may have risen, some sectors are performing surprisingly well. For instance, according to the BBC, the IT sector has been hiring throughout the pandemic, and it appears technology businesses will continue to do so during the recovery.
Forbes reports that specialists such as cybersecurity professionals are in demand as companies cope with the growth of online businesses and accompanying cybercrime. Other roles such as drivers, home health aides and digital marketing specialists are also helping markets everywhere adapt to a rapidly evolving economy.
Beyond what is needed today, companies that look to acquire the skills of tomorrow must develop a talent strategy to win high-quality candidates who can advance their long-range business goals. Integrated talent strategies enable companies to access the best talent types – or work arrangements – that fit their business needs and future goals.
5 questions.
How can total talent management make an impact?
- Is our business in need of greater agility to respond to business opportunities?
- Have we increased our use of contingent talent?
- Are we struggling to gain visibility of all talent types working in our organization?
- Are our hiring managers able to acquire resources in a compliant and timely manner?
- Can we readily acquire contingent and permanent workers with the skills we need for long-term growth?
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