re-thinking talent acquisition’s role
We need to talk
Do you know the true impact of talent acquisition (TA) in an organization? If you think it is solely to fill existing gaps in the workforce with external talent, then we should probably talk. Because really, nothing could be further from the truth. It is more critical than ever for an organization to have the right talent to advance its purpose and achieve goals. TA plays a key role in this and it can no longer be viewed as a reactive function only focused on filling existing workforce gaps. With its scope and the level of investment it guides and consults on, I believe the time has come to re-think TA’s role in an organization.
Mind the gap
Consider this: a few years ago, CEO of the World Economic Forum Klaus Schwab said, “Talentism is the new capitalism.” In the past, an organization’s competitive advantage was largely based on financial capital. Today, human capital – specifically creativity and the ability to innovate – determines the success of an organization. I believe organizations that embrace this idea will have a competitive advantage. Whether an organization adds headcount for growth and/or replaces departing employees due to attrition, it acquires new human capital each year. Since human capital creates a competitive advantage, TA has an optimal opportunity to identify and attract this talent.
Show me the money!
Need more convincing? Let’s consider an organization’s talent investment. The talent investment is not how much the organization spends on recruiters, employment brand, agencies, or advertising; it is the annual investment in new human capital. Any new hire is a strategic investment in the organization’s future. When you aggregate these strategic investments, you come up with the talent investment (annual number of hires x average annual salary). I can guarantee your talent investment is a staggering number relative to your organization’s size. For example, when I worked at a Fortune 500 company, the talent investment exceeded $1.5B annually. Can you imagine? We weren’t an exception – there are organizations with even higher talent investments. Given this investment level, isn’t it time for organizations have to start capitalizing on TA’s potential?
Have you seen my keys?
In light of the overall impact, let’s talk about how we can re-think TA’s role to leverage this. To start, I came up with three key ways TA should evolve based upon my experiences. I am sure you have others (and I would love to hear them in the comments section!). But, let me explain these and then we’ll debate and discuss:
Innovative – Would you draw up blueprints of a house without talking to an architect? Similarly, would you build a strategic plan without evaluating the availability of talent to execute these plans? I hope not! TA should be a key contributor to the strategic planning process to advance organizational purpose. It (partnered with talent management and HR) should inform the organization on how practical it is to achieve proposed strategies. TA cannot only use existing talent pools when working through these strategies. It must think through innovative solutions to identify, assess, and pipeline future talent and work with the organization to be open to new sources of talent. This could mean anything from looking at different locations, outsourcing, developing graduates, or tapping into high-quality or hard-to-find talent that has left the workforce. TA can then execute on these strategic plans with leadership.
Industry expert – Did you know that your recruiters spend a good chunk of their day studying your competitors? And they are probably really great at getting information about competitor pay rates, high-risk talent, organizational structures, what’s happening in specific departments, and even the culture of your competitors. Recruiters are usually the first to know what is happening in the industry and why people are anxious to leave or stay at organizations. Think about it: when it comes time to look for a job, people call every recruiter they know to find out the latest trends in the industry and who is hiring. TA should be the organization’s expert on industry talent trends and create actionable intelligence around these trends. For example, it should have a pulse on the hard-to-find talent in the industry and create plans to proactively identify and build relationships with this talent through pipelines and talent communities. TA should also use its industry insight to help organizations identify strategic opportunities to acquire talent and to help mitigate the risk of losing current top talent to competitors.
Execution-focused – At the end of the day, it is all about execution. If your competitors are moving faster than you in acquiring top human capital, your organization’s goals are at risk. If TA and the organization cannot attract and bring on high-quality talent, the organization will stagnate. TA has to continually analyze its performance, and have a laser-like focus on improving its process. This means it needs to develop meaningful metrics that provide insight into how talent acquisition is performing from many perspectives. In addition to the standard metrics (time-to-fill, aging requisitions, etc.), TA needs to find metrics that have organizational or business value. For example at a professional services firm that has an organizational goal of increasing revenue by 10%, TA should have revenue growth as a metric to demonstrate that it is contributing to top-line growth. While this metric is not solely in their control, it also cannot be achieved without talent acquisition finding the right human capital.