Artificial intelligence has the potential to transform the many ways businesses find, engage, source, and manage talent, as well as how they structure business operations in a candidate-centric world. Today on the Future of Work Exchange, we present another exclusive infographic, “Five Ways AI Can Transform Talent Management,” that reflects how AI is primed to not only disrupt talent acquisition, but also influence, impact, and revolutionize the Future of Work movement.
Beyond deeper and more meaningful candidate relationships, direct sourcing allows a business to leverage (and manage) its culture and brand to attract recruits that are easily engaged for future projects and initiatives. Hearing long-employed (and loyal) HR and business professionals discuss the traits and culture of their organization is a more significant and credible way to learn about a potential employer than through the words of a recruiter with a commission on the line. The informal testimonials of the internal hiring teams can effectively build engagement and ultimately, worker loyalty.
While the talent curation part of direct sourcing typically takes time to develop, most organizations possess an innate ability to identify strong cultural fits and highly-desirable skillsets. Additionally, the ability of internal recruiters, HR, and hiring managers to collaborate and tailor job searches to a unique team, manager, project, or location is unmatched when dealing with outside recruiters.
The level of nuance can be akin to the difference between a surgeon and a butcher. The ability to increase recruiting precision can be particularly valuable when businesses are managing specific diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives.
Given the current challenges to find and retain top talent, leading HR organizations are investing in ways to improve the “candidate experience” (similar to the “customer experience”), where every aspect is designed to be positive, engaging, and beneficial to the recruit.
In a market where the candidate holds more power than ever before, compensation and benefits, employment perks, AND the employer’s credentials (i.e., brand, culture, vision, values, etc.) can play a major role in attracting a qualified candidates. This will continue to be true as an increasing number of candidates are incorporating their personal views on an organization’s culture and brand into their decision-making.
While the candidate experience is critical, the hiring manager experience should also be considered. Hiring managers are often on the front lines of the war for talent and must account for:
Traditional recruitment is not typically seen as scalable due to the manual work often associated with it, while direct sourcing relies heavily on hiring teams to drive activity, scalability, and value. Just as HR leaders are realizing that candidates should be treated like customers, hiring managers also need an experience that is seamless and boundaryless.
Business and HR leaders must also arm their hiring managers with the necessary resources, technologies, and capabilities to effectively tap into different talent pools without the worry of internal barriers or archaic inertia. To achieve this, digitization of key direct sourcing processes is vital.
The very concept of “digital transformation” is limited in its scope: move to a digital infrastructure that creates value and optimizes enterprise processes. While a digital transformation effort is much better than leveraging age-old manual strategies, there is a fundamental flaw in how today’s businesses are approaching this increasing digitization and parlaying its benefits into the ultimate success of the greater enterprise.
Digital transformation depends on the evolving talent ecosystem, and businesses must embrace this symbiotic link to truly optimize how work is done.
For the past decade, I’ve defined the Future of Work in both simplistic and more intricate manners; the simple definition is “how enterprises optimize how work gets done through the advancements in talent acquisition, the advent of new technology and innovation, and the transformation of business leadership/business thinking.” The more complex version follows a cascading revolution of reimagining the very elements of work, including talent, diversity, workplace structure, technology and innovation, collaboration, etc.
It’s much more complicated than simply automating facets of the business. And it’s so much more than shooting for the “digital enterprise” goal. We’re at an inflection point when it comes to work, talent, and technology: embrace the linkage between these elements, or, lose the agility and flexibility afforded by the power of this convergence.
Businesses learned a harsh lesson in 2020: those that could not adapt to the major shifts in work optimization were the ones that could not survive months of extreme disruption. While we are now nine months into 2021 (wow…time flies, doesn’t it?), another new year is on the horizon, and businesses must prepare for perhaps the most critical year of their history given the direction of the economy and the labor market. The shift towards “flexibility as the Future of Work” means that enterprises must execute in a more dynamic manner. The companies that thrived and continue to thrive are the organizations that understand and embrace 1) how they want to get work done, 2) the talent and technology needed to get that work done across both the short- and long-term, and 3) the proper balance between human and automation. In addition:
And, finally, a fundamental shift in the role of digitization: technology should not be the total linchpin to organizational success, but rather a realm of interconnected functionality, data, and intelligence that reinforces true business agility and workforce flexibility. Problem-solving has long been the gateway for businesses to invest in, adopt, and leverage next-generation technology; the Future of Work dictates that businesses execute more forward-thinking strategies in the vein of innovation. The symbiotic link between digitization, talent, and the Future of Work is what will allow business to be more proactive as they build a dynamic infrastructure that is built on elements of new technology platforms, real-time data and intelligence, and an overarching desire to develop a truly agile workplace culture.