In the past decade, the role of the HR professional has evolved into providing the solutions for the entire lifecycle of talent management. Beyond the hiring or firing of corporate landscape, the HR role approaches a company’s talent holistically. Integrating systems that recruit talent, nurture leadership, monitor performance and manage succession planning, a successful HR department has it all covered.
However, while many HR professionals are working hard to implement individual programs that represent these key areas of the talent lifecycle, they fail at optimizing the entire talent system within the corporate vision. Why? Because traditional tactics have been modular, like separate silos.
Integrating is so last year.
Optimizing will be the emerging trend that leading HR professionals will be required to master. This is according to the leading industry report by Bersin on trends to watch in 2014. Bersin defines the four main areas that encapsulate the HR function.
These include Attracting and Acquiring Talent, Managing and Developing Talent, Extending Talent and Understanding and Planning Talent and as you can clearly see from this illustration, the programs that support each area are global, intersecting across all of the HR functions.
This approach is not like previous best practices, where the corporate talent systems were defined by modular rectangles and managed within silos. The emerging trend illustrates the key HR functions as part of a global infrastructure and the programs must be designed to engage the entire corporate talent system
The new HR approach will not be a one-size-fits-all.
It appears that companies have outgrown the “one-size-fits-all” plug and go systems, so better pay attention. Put on your consulting cap. This emerging industry trend will impact your company’s bottom line thus reflecting on your own career tenure.
Developing a set of integrated programs that work seamlessly and are customized to each the company’s global needs will force HR professionals to take a consultative approach. Bersin’s infographic does an excellent job laying out the variety of tactics HR needs to weave throughout the entire talent system.
When selecting new technologies, it is critical that HR professionals seek vendors who understand a tailor approach to optimizing the talent system.
Today’s talent growth hacker goes beyond the silos.
A growth hacker is a term that is being widely used in marketing to describe how successful startups use cost-effective tools like social media apps as alternatives to traditional methods of marketing like purchasing advertising in radio, newspaper and TV.
There are amazing technology tools now available to manage and grow talent networks. Any HR professional can be a talent growth hacker by implementing the features of some of the social media apps. Bersin’s infographic suggests LinkedIn, Glassdoor and Talent Networks as examples.
TalentCircles offers one single portal that brings together social media, email campaigns, online events, video interviews, chats and online content.
In the next post in this series, I will share specifically how HR professionals can benefit from some of the features that TalentCircles offers that help manage the entire life cycle of the talent system across the key areas noted in Bersin’s report.
Picture Source: Bersin by Deloitte, 2013
Jessica Miller-Merrell, SPHR is a workplace and technology strategist specializing in social media. She’s an author who writes at Blogging4Jobs. You can follow her on Twitter @jmillermerrell.
Photo Credit.
