A few years ago, I began noticing a trend in the greater workforce industry: more and more businesses were eager to integrate “alternative” talent channels into their recruitment mix. By “alternative,” By this, I don’t mean adding new staffing suppliers or a “touch” of talent marketplaces here-and-there…this was the beginning of a full-on progression of talent engagement that is actively culminating in a reimagining of talent acquisition and workforce management approaches.
As said many times here on the Future of Work Exchange, the top two priorities for businesses entering 2020 were, respectively, direct sourcing and talent pools. These two inherently-linked attributes, at that time, represented a way for businesses to blend new channels of talent into their existing expertise network by developing “BYOT” (Bring Your Own Talent) pools, freelancer benches, and more formally integrating talent marketplaces into recruitment stream (i.e., new requisitions having the ability to pull talent from marketplaces and direct sourcing channels connected to the VMS or HRIS platform).
The COVID-19 pandemic presented a two-fold opportunity for businesses in regards to this “reimagining” of talent management: curate top-shelf talent and expertise for when the need arose to utilize these highly-qualified skillsets, and, nurture and foster curated candidates in such a way that they felt connected and engaged to the employer culture and brand, so that when they were required for a critical project or initiative, they would be more likely to accept an assignment. The main business workforce strategy was direct and simply, yet incredibly difficult to execute: create true workforce scalability.
Ardent Partners and Future of Work Exchange research has found, over the past two years, that the top benefit of leveraging contingent or extended talent is the ability to be scalable and flexible in how the typical enterprise structures its workforce architecture. This level of workforce scalability (and flexibility) allowed businesses to navigate uncertain times, especially when the rollercoaster early months of the pandemic created boom-or-bust demand for specific industries and sectors.
Direct sourcing no longer represents one of many alternative channels of talent, but rather a repeatable, scalable, and digitized way of developing a deeper pipeline of top-tier skillsets and expertise. Here’s why it should lead workforce planning for 2022:
- Direct sourcing is a set of processes and solutions that actively drive workforce agility and flexibility. Today’s professionals are more focused on work-life balance, while also desiring greater independence. Among many things, the “Great Resignation” of 2021 indicates a seismic shift in power towards the worker and away from the employer. This may or may not be permanent (the “power shift” to the worker seems likely to be a critical aspect moving forward), but businesses, nonetheless, face constant pressure to deepen human capital and future-proof skillsets within their total workforce. Now, more than ever, enterprises require a steady flow of new workers to keep pace with their competitors. Now, more than ever, enterprises need superior engagement capabilities. Now, more than ever, enterprises need a new approach…all factors that tie back to direct sourcing.
- DE&I and direct sourcing are now inherently linked. Layering DE&I into direct sourcing is about changing behaviors and removing hiring barriers and unconscious bias from talent engagement and talent acquisition. Utilizing technology to help guide and enforce a new mindset can be extremely valuable and create awareness that the deepest talent pools are diverse talent pools.
- The concepts behind “Direct Sourcing 2.0” are what will take direct sourcing programs to the next level. The new Ardent Partners/Future of Work Exchange research study, Direct Sourcing 2.0, unveils the nuances of DS 2.0 and what they mean, including: supercharging talent pipelines, leveraging AI and machine learning to enhance candidate assessments and screening, identifying the best modes (time, style, etc.) of candidate outreach, digital recruitment marketing, automated referral management, enhancing the hiring manager experience, etc. The very ideas behind Direct Sourcing 2.0 are transformational approaches (both strategic and technology-led) that push direct sourcing programs into a new Future of Work stratosphere by enabling enterprises with more powerful and agile tools for new candidate engagement, collaboration, nurture, and hiring.
- Direct sourcing is the gateway to thriving in 2022 via a powerful, self-sustaining agile workforce. Direct sourcing is very effective in its current state, but the stakes keep rising. The increasing need for talent and the ongoing challenges competing for it mean that enterprises must continue to challenge the status quo and operate on the bleeding edge in order to stay on top. By blending traditional direct sourcing approaches (curation, segmentation, etc.) with “2.0” attributes (digital recruitment marketing, AI-led assessments, more focus on the candidate experience, etc.), businesses will ensure that, in yet another year of uncertainty, they will be positioned to optimize how work is done.
