How well do the realities of talent management line up with expectations? As the year comes to a close, let’s examine how some expert predictions for 2016 came to pass in the last 12 months.
Josh Bersin predicted accelerated replacement of dated HR technology, increased focus on analytics, and a reinvention of talent management and the tools that go with it to deliver a better employee experience.
Updating dated HR technology: Many of the organizations we encounter are looking to put less reliance on the ERP/HRIS system as the central focus point of how they run HR and talent, shifting their focus to talent management platforms. They’re also hoping to consolidate vendors to improve efficiency and integration between systems. Organizations are recognizing the value of having talent, learning & development, performance management and workforce all integrated so they can have more insight into the entire employee experience, not just insight into the financials.
Digging into Big Data: The consolidated data and predictive analytics tools modern talent management systems deliver are becoming must-haves for many HR departments—but according to Brandon Hall Group, while 63% of organizations realize predictive talent analytics are critical, just 4% are ready to use them.
The trend seems to be to update systems, then build the capabilities to leverage new functionality once new technology is in place. This second step is crucial, as simply implementing new technology won’t deliver real value to the business—talent professionals must take advantage of the insight and efficiencies the tech offers to realize actual gains.
Improving the employee experience: Firms are working to provide intuitive, seamless, experiences from talent acquisition and onboarding through performance management, retention, learning and career development within the organization. CHROs are challenging themselves and their teams to create an end-to-end employee experience—this delivers a competitive advantage in terms of improved ability to attract and retain top talent.
Transparency—simply giving workers and candidates visibility into what’s happening—can significantly enhance the employee experience. Candidates want to know where they are in the process, what they can expect. New hires want to get to know the company and understand what they need to do to succeed in their roles; staff at all levels want to know how they’re performing and what they can do to advance their careers—they want to see what opportunities are available within the organization. Managers want insight into their team members and how best to support them in their development.
Many organizations are working to deliver an employee experience that mirrors the consumer interactions people enjoy daily with their favorite brands. To change the experience, the technology must change as well—these two pieces are inextricably linked.
Reinventing talent management tools: One of the strengths of SumTotal’s products is our focus on delivering a great employee experience. We deliver the visibility your people need, when and where they need it. All your employees need to love our products—not just HR.
Delivering that seamless experience is one of our major considerations as we develop our new recruiting platform: we’re giving applicants more transparency, making the application process easier and more mobile, then offering them better tools for seeing what’s next once they’re activated as a candidate. We want to make it easier for them to communicate with the recruiting team, as well as make it easier for the employees involved in the interview process to manage their tasks and deliver required feedback.
Built on our existing technology stack, our talent acquisition platform will bring forward a lot of the tools, data, systems and interoperability inherent in our existing products. For example, within our talent platform’s performance management and team management tools, customers build up data about teams—they can bring that data into the recruiting process to show candidates how they compare to people in that role or on the team, in the same way they currently use that intel to help identify relevant learning or advancement opportunities within the organization.
Did your organization keep pace with the predictions? Or do you still have some work to do in terms of your talent management systems and processes?
Make sure you’re focused on the right initiatives: Learn more about talent imperatives many organizations overlook.
The post Looking Back: 4 Realities of Talent Management in 2016 appeared first on SumTotal Blog.