CWS 3.0: March 26, 2014

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Talent: A One-Lens Approach

We constantly hear about the war for talent and talent shortages, and that’s becoming a global discussion point. But sometimes, we make the process more difficult on ourselves by keeping talent pools separate based on where we get them. What if we were to take a more collective approach? We talk quite a bit about the challenges of managing recruitment regardless of how the worker is engaged. Is keeping talent pools separate a U.S.-centric problem? Has a collective approach been more successful in other countries?

In the U.S., we track contingent worker database pools separately from those workers that are collected through the direct hire process. The former are tracked though a vendor management system, while the latter are housed in an applicant tracking system (ATS) accessed through a company portal

In the U.K. I hear the terms RPO (recruitment process outsourcing) and MSP (managed services provider) used interchangeably. Many of the companies that provide temporary workers also provide direct hire recruitment services. The real question is how do they do it, when their VMS and ATS programs don’t talk to each other? Some may claim they are managing both processes separately but report on the statistics by pulling data from both systems and combining them under one umbrella. If this is the case, how do you really manage the talent to get the skills where you need them regardless of how they enter your company?

Total talent management is another popular recurring theme. I support the concept as our aging workforce retires and we continue to fight for talent. Imagine our younger generations, who have not been brought up with a temporary or permanent worker mindset. They want to like the work they do but don't really care about how they are engaged as long as the wages are in line with their expectations. At the end of the day, we need to look at talent through one lens and sort out how we manage and report on it as a separate issue.