Businesses and their leaders face some pressing questions about their future talent pipelines and human capital strategy. Global megatrends are changing the talent landscape at the same time that the global economy regains its confidence and looks towards growth.
Recently, at People Matters Talent Acquisition Shiv Shivakumar, Group Executive President- Corporate Strategy & Business Development, Aditya Birla Group addressed CEO's expectations from tomorrow's TA Teams and how should TA leaders reimagine the talent acquisition for 2030 to step up and step into the future?
According to various research, it is found that CEOs perennially rank talent management as a strategic priority but organizations have been consistently been unable to produce talent they need.
During the session, Sivakumar shares three foundation-building actions that help in developing and acquiring the right talent. He called this three-step journey as a shift from Talent Acquisition to Talent Attractiveness Journey:
Awareness to Acceptance
The equation between the employer and employee has changed over the last 10 years. Neither of them is committed to each other long term. Shivakumar shares, “ I tell people very honestly even in the company where I was CEO- be loyal to the company as long as the company is loyal to you. The day you feel the company is not loyal to you, you have your own avenues.”
He identified it as a free market of talent today and feels TA managers more than anyone else should recognize that. Nobody is looking for a job with a mindset of staying in it for 15 years and if you think that is the case then you don’t understand talent.
He also said, that CEOs, CHROs and TA Managers of organizations that not all talent drives result. The employees can be categorized as Active and Passive. Active talent includes people who are always learning and seeking new opportunities. On the other hand, passive talent is the one who says-“Nothing can change.” So when you are CEO or a TA manager/CHRO you need to recognize that there is two bunch of talent- Not everyone is a talent champion in your company. Very few are.
Absorbing candidate by onboarding
As presented by Shivkumar, a typical hiring ad echoes the following sentiments to the candidates:
- In this job, you will impact millions of people
- You will have an end to end ownership
- We want a gets thing done attitude
- We are a meritocratic organization
- We have a phenomenal work environment, everyone is on first name basis
But what they mean instead is:
- Influencing here is a challenge
- Many others own parts of this end to end
- Means can’t afford spoon feeding
- Merit basis our definition
- We call each other names behind the back
He said TA managers need to offer a transparent culture about the organizations when they invite a candidate for an interview. He also stressed on the need of candidate experience and highlighted certain challenges that degrade the experience:
- Too slow, too many layers
- Interview rarely starts on time
- TA team doesn’t communicate after the interview
- Ill-prepared interviewees
- Ambassador from employees
One of the effective ways of building strong talent is having good metrics that leads to a good Employer Value Proposition (EVP).
A bad metrics that hurt EVP includes:
- Resignations of high performers
- High waiting time for promotions
- Headcount more than plan
- Low span of control
- Recruitment cost is high
Instead a good metrics for an EVP should entail:
- High internal promotions
- Many lateral moves
- Higher average performance ratings
- Closer to market compensation ratio