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The Value of Total Talent Intelligence

Back in early 2012, I began work on what would be perhaps the industry’s first large-scale research study on “total talent management,” an initiative that is also known as “total workforce management.” Back then, while businesses understood the true value proposition of such a program, the vast majority of enterprises could not picture a way to tightly-integrate core human capital and contingent workforce capabilities and systems in such a way to make the program viable. Eight years may have passed since I formulated those initial thoughts on TTM/TWM, however, the underlying principles remain the same: there is clearly a need for total talent management, but its components are akin to organizational and technological puzzle pieces.

Ardent Partners defines total talent management and total workforce management as the standardized and centralized means for engaging, sourcing, and managing all types of enterprise talent under a single banner program. The fundamental principles of total workforce management include integrated procurement and HR competencies and systems, prioritization of visibility into the total talent pool (FTEs, contingent workers, gig workers, freelancers, independent contractors, professional services, etc.), and streamlined and standardized means for engaging and acquiring all types of talent. As the contingent workforce continues to rise (43% of all talent today is considered non-employee or contingent, according to Ardent’s State of Contingent Workforce Management research study), total workforce management initiatives, of course, become more critical.

Thinking about integrations, cross-functional coordination, blending core HR and contingent workforce management competencies, etc. can be maddening, for sure. This is why, especially in today’s strange 2020, businesses should consider taking a much more streamlined path and prioritize total talent intelligence as an initial cornerstone for what could blossom into full-blown total talent management in the months and years to come. In essence, total talent intelligence gleans valuable worker-based insights from both FTEs and non-employees by harnessing collective data from Human Resources Information Systems (HRIS), Vendor Management Systems (VMS), time and attendance solutions, Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS), Freelancer Management System (FMS), and similar platforms to gain the deepest possible view into an organization’s total talent pool. There are several reasons to prioritize total talent intelligence today:

  • In an age when worker health and safety is paramount, businesses need to know where you workers are at all times. Although many portions of the globe are in much different situations now than they were months ago, the initial weeks of the pandemic caused many an executive to panic regarding where their workers were situated, what they were working on, and, most importantly, their relative health and safety. Total talent intelligence allows businesses to pinpoint which workers are currently sitting in hotspots (or geographical locations that might soon become high-risk zones) and act accordingly (shifting work to different regions, placing workers in remote work setups, etc.).
  • Total talent intelligence begets workforce agility. Sometimes lost in the overarching discussion of total talent management is the very underlying purpose of this program: driving towards the ability to make workforce- and talent-related decisions in near-real-time. Having intelligence into the business’ total talent pool allows business leaders and hiring managers to very quickly understand how to approach a new project or initiative given the depth of expertise and skillsets within the greater organization (including, yes, both FTEs and non-employees). This level of intelligence and its associated, enhanced reactions are paramount in the quest for true workforce agility.
  • Businesses can better understand the true complexity of its workforce’s expertise. Pertinent to the above bullet, we are living in a skillset-led world. Ardent’s upcoming Direct Sourcing Toolkit research study finds that 72% of businesses are fixated on new and evolving skills. Executives today understand that the next influential project or initiative may not be completely supported, driven, and/or managed by existing full-time workers or other in-house resources, especially considering the quick-paced advancements occurring in the world of technology and automation. Total talent intelligence enables business leaders to truly understand the depth of its total available resources and expertise, allowing them to begin developing an approach for the evolving skillsets that they may need in the future.
  • Businesses that have experienced (and will continue to experience) massive shifts in remote work will require deeper intelligence for workforce planning and performance measurement. Although the world will soon return to some semblance of traditional office life, today’s workplace environment is still mired in social distancing measures (some pundits peg that metropolis-level offices, such as those in New York City, are average 7%-to-10% capacity today, with those in suburban locales at twice that level). This can be incredibly difficult on managers and executives that are used to in-person interactions to gauge worker performance. As more one-on-ones and reviews shift to a remote setting, these leaders will have to become more reliant on “business outcomes” for performance measurement in lieu of traditional benchmarks. Total talent intelligence can provide excellent perspectives on total worker output and the work performed by both FTEs and non-employees.

Total talent management and total workforce management are still incredibly valuable concepts that will one day become widely-adopted. In fact, Ardent’s research finds that upwards of 75% of businesses today expect to implement such a program within the next five years. Businesses must look at total talent intelligence as a critical area from which to start and an arena from which to drive short- and long-term value independent of bigger total talent management initiatives.

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Total Workforce Management’s Place in the New World of Work

Editor’s Note: If you’re interested in learning more about the progressive workforce model discussed in today’s article, download our latest report, The Modern Guide to Total Workforce Management, by clicking here, here, or here.

Any executive that takes a short peek outside of their business will notice something astounding: founded on innovative talent engagement methods, the world of work has evolved in just a short period of time. New demand for talent, along with the fading of archaic recruitment strategies and rise of real-time talent engagement, have revolutionized nearly every facet of work within the modern business:

  • Jobseeker behavior, now more than ever, is changing to reflect the desire for a more flexible lifestyle that promotes entrepreneurship.
  • Online talent platforms, labor automation systems, and digital staffing outlets (as well as social networks) have transformed how talent is found and engaged.
  • Everything, from data and intelligence to process delivery, is expected on-demand within the average business…and talent engagement is following suit.
  • Mobility and mobile applications are taking their cue from the consumer world and expanding into the business realm.
  • Skillsets and expertise (and their alignment with enterprise projects), not costs or budgets, have become the top requirements for new talent.
  • Management of an increasingly strategic element of business (the contingent workforce) has had to evolve such that the “great divide” between organizational functions like procurement and human resources/human capital management is starting to fade. More and more businesses understand that all talent, regardless of its source, must be managed under a standardized and centralized program that promotes visibility, skillset alignment, adherence to budget, real-time engagement, and an open network that can be tapped for talent in an on-demand manner.

The above attributes of the new world of work are magnified by a simple fact: the non-employee workforce shows no signs of slowing down in the coming years. Ardent Partners has, for the last four years, predicted that, by 2020, between 45%-to-50% of the world’s total workforce will be classified as non-employee, which includes freelancers, independent contractors, professional services (and consultants), temporary workers sourced via staffing agencies/suppliers, “gig” workers, and robotics. The time is now to bridge the gap between traditional and non-traditional talent management and truly define the means by which all workers can be managed under the same standardized and centralized program.

Total Workforce Management: The Time is…Now

Many of today’s business functions are either built on a foundation of holistic and seamless processes, or the desire to reach a similar state knowing the core benefits of such a model. It would only make sense, then, for the world of talent to follow suit. The very simple argument for building or developing a total workforce management (TWM) program (defined by Ardent as the standardized and centralized program for engaging, acquiring, sourcing, and managing all types of talent via linked procurement and human capital processes, integrated contingent workforce management and human capital management systems, and utilization of total talent intelligence) that can be stripped down to a primary advantage: the contemporary talent supply chain is diverse, multifaceted, and spread across numerous sources (both legacy and fresh). Thus, the businesses that can effectively find, engage, source, and ultimately manage this talent under a centralized program will be rewarded with the visibility to execute far superior business decisions in a real-time manner. Relative to the adoption and implementation of TWM programs, it is no wonder that while only 16% of organizations have this type of program in place today, a majority (58%) expect to make total workforce management a reality within the next two years.

The crux of any total workforce management is deep and complex. The underlying structure of such an initiative is usually wrought with functional, technological (i.e. integration), cultural, and strategic shifts, all of which contribute to a development plan that is near impossible to implement within a short time span. Unlike larger, better “known” initiatives related to talent acquisition or even contingent workforce management (CWM), TWM is a new area, and industry-wide standard practices have not yet been fully-developed. Thus, many organizations are unsure of where to start and which functions to engage. Sixteen percent (16%) of businesses today have some form of a total workforce management program in place (9% in place for several years, 7% only just within the past 12 months), but the real value in this set of findings is not found in looking at the “haves” within today’s marketplace…it is knowing that many of the “have nots” do have something that proves that TWM’s place in workforce, labor, and talent management history is now: a desire to implement this forward-thinking concept sooner rather than later.

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