Importance of Technology in Talent Acquisition
You can dream, create, design and build the most wonderful place in the world…but it requires people to make the dream a reality.
- Walt Disney
Technology in talent management is helping organizations to be prepared for the constantly changing business environment. Advanced technological areas such as data science, AI and analytics, are being deployed by organizations to plan, execute, monitor, measure, analyze and even predict factors to manage talent and business challenges more effectively. The deployment level, of course, depends on the organization’s readiness and maturity.
Why is technology important to effective talent acquisition?
Among others, adoption of technology focuses on below key areas in an integrated talent acquisition ecosystem:
Digitize HR processes across talent management areas
Align talent with business strategic needs
Precise decision making in real-time
Improved talent pipeline management
Wider and targeted global talents reach
Reduce hiring cycles and recruitment costs
Effective talent mobilization and deployment
Improve networking and collaboration among talents, employee engagement
Align compensation and rewards with employee performance and business objectives
Predict future situations and realign strategies by taking evidence based actions
Measure impact of the HR value chain
Adoption of the right technology and analytical tools will enable an organization to measure the efficiency, effectiveness, and impact of the HR processes and activities, outcome of the HR processes, and the business results respectively.
Deployment of the right metrics and analyses will help in measuring and hence, aligning the talent strategy with the business strategy.
Adoption of the right technology will benefit organizations to plan, design, and implement the talent strategy to achieve the desired business results.
Trends in Talent Acquisition Technologies
Information technology is “generally” available to everyone. Its commodification has enabled even the smallest organizations to procure the most advanced talent management tools and software at an affordable price.
There is a variety of modes via which the talent management software and services are made available to the organizations — cloud, on premise, and hybrid. Organizations have multiple options to adopt the technology platform based on their readiness and needs.
Global best practices, social and analytical capabilities, collaborative features, third-party tools integration capabilities are already built-in most of the talent management applications. All these advancements have enabled CHROs (Chief Human Resources Officer) to act proactively within their organization.
The talent management market space is extremely competitive. Talent management system providers such as Oracle Cloud, SAP Success Factors, Cornerstone, Workday, and others are continuously pushed to bring in the most advanced technological capabilities into their products, especially those which will attract the CHROs such as enhanced user experience, analytical capabilities, mobility and many more.
Below are certain trends which are seen in adoption of technology in talent management space:
1)Self-service automation and Enablement
Organizations continuously seek compliance to national and international policies, adapt to best practices, implement transparency, enable employees and managers with the right tools, increase collaboration and engagement.
An advanced talent management application suite should deliver the right set of automated processes covering the business needs.
2) Mobile Platform Capabilities
Advancement in mobile technologies has certainly supported the ever-increasing mobility of employees, managers, and customers. Talent management systems are mobile-enabled and hence, accessible to the talents on the go. Mobile technologies in talent management have a definite potential for increasing collaboration and engagement.
3) Adoption of Predictive Analytics
Thanks to the big data and artificial intelligence capabilities — with the huge amount of data now being accessible to CHROs and managers, can measure as well as predict the outcomes of the talent management processes and programs. They have realized the importance of analytics and in its application in key talent management functions such as acquisition, engagement and retention, demand planning, talent pipeline management, and so on.
4) Availability and deployment over cloud
For SMEs (Small and medium-sized enterprises) and large organizations, cloud-based talent management applications and services have proven to be more convenient, affordable, scalable, and easily accessible than the traditional high-cost on-premise models. With both data and processes being available on the cloud with little to no operational costs, CHROs and managers can now focus their attention on solving business problems and not on administrative areas. Organizations have the flexibility to adopt a model based on their needs which delivers the right talent management and analytical functions and capabilities.
5) Integration across the HR processes and framework
Both, Talent management system vendors and organizations have realized that HR and talent management functions and its components cannot be disparate and need to talk to each other to deliver the right outcomes and business results. Unless all the systems and processes are integrated, it is impossible for managers to make the right decisions. Vendors of talent management systems continuously invest in connecting all the talent and HR functions together to deliver the right value to the customers.
6) Address information and data security
The leakage of confidential information increases business risks and can prove very costly. With a large volume of data generated every day, organizations have realized the importance of securing the employee data by leveraging talent management systems that are not only robust, but also compliant with the local and international laws and regulations such as GDPR (General data protection regulation). Application vendors have to continuously upgrade the security framework to ensure full protection of data especially when hosted on the cloud.
7) Use social media and digital marketing
Social media platforms such as LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter, etc. are the most important digital platforms for organizations to effectively strategize their talent management programs. Such platforms are ideal for organizations to publish the talent needs and brand themselves in an attractive manner. At the same time organizations can also integrate their talent management systems with these social platforms to keep the employee profiles up to date and easily accessible. Application vendors provide secured features to integrate organizational processes and data with social media platforms.
8) Adoption of AI and machine learning
AI and Machine learning tools have gained immense traction within the talent acquisition area in recent years. A good percentage of organizations are adopting such tools to identify, recruit, and select job applicants with greater speed and efficiency. Service providers are injecting more and more AI capabilities within the talent management applications.
“We can raise the talent bar, but you have to do something different. You can’t do what you are currently doing today.”
- Lou Adler, CEO, Adler Group
Stay tuned to read more articles on Talent Acquisition!! A follow-up article on the said topic coming right up!!
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