As organizations and companies grapple with outdated legacy systems, the challenge on how to better address new staffing expectations of the 21st century have put many Chief Human Capital Officers (CHCOs) in the position where they are implementing a two-tiered plan of attack to address concerns. In the long term, they understand the importance of establishing a framework built around ensuring their organizations are equipped to handle the company mission and human capital priorities, policies, procedures and business requirements. At the same time, some initiatives can’t – or shouldn’t -- wait for two, five or 10 years to be implemented.
The good news is that today, many critical initiatives don’t need to wait.
Targeted Human Capital Initiatives
Real improvements that make an impact can be made in the short term, and thoughtful CHCOs are making moves now to implement important changes. They are looking to increase the number of high-performing employees in order to improve their ability to meet their organization’s missions.
Various functional areas comprise the big picture of how CHCOs are looking to improve human capital management in order to drive increased strategic value.
While not universal, it is generally perceived that organizational hiring is a mess. Many see the challenge as archaic and incredibly slow. To make matter worse, the problems don’t end with hiring, as employee engagement has also remained a sore spot, which leads to problems of retention.
Fixing Talent Acquisition
It’s a vicious cycle, but it all starts with talent acquisition and the problems are voluminous:
- Time to hire takes too long
- There are too many manual, error prone processes
- Workflow processes for requisitions and job approval are inefficient
- Assessing candidates is too time consuming
- There is a disconnect between HR and hiring managers
- Interview management, including scheduling and coordination, is inefficient
- Tracking job and vacancy statuses is cumbersome
- Onboarding new employees takes too long
- Inefficient use of existing talent pools
- High-level information for senior management and executives is generally unavailable.
The challenges don’t end with hiring top talent, but getting the best possible people in the door is a logical place to start. If candidates are too frustrated with a cumbersome hiring process, they are bound to move on to other job opportunities, and any chance to engage and develop a new employee is wasted.
Hiring and Analytics
HR departments can greatly benefit when implementing real change in months, not years by using data. From implementing a merit system for performance, to hiring and being flexible with employees on a case by case basis, understanding the workforce and tracking the approach can reflect better management for future employment opportunities. Underpinning the process is data and analytics, which shines a spotlight on problem areas, opportunities for improvement and actual, real-world successes.
A key component of understanding your business requirements is highlighting the relationship of C-level executives and HR leaders of organizations/companies to maximize their functionality by identifying key human capital priorities. Once this has been taken into agreement, the efforts to increase profitability and job satisfaction go hand in hand all while offering a more successful blueprint to implement moving forward.
Organizations should leverage business intelligence and analytics to become more data-driven in their culture and decision making. An important element of this philosophy is an understanding of the complexities of the myriad of different systems that typically comprise a full HRIT and the data sharing that must occur seamlessly between them. This starts with talent acquisition. The importance of data and analytics to organizations human capital initiatives, including talent acquisition, shows no sign of abating.
Getting Strategic
Company Chief Human Capital Officers and their teams recognize the need for a more strategic view and plan to address human capital management requirements and drive increased strategic value. As they collaborate on the best ideas to achieve this, there are also more tactical initiatives that can be undertaken in the near-term that will ultimately drive strategic plans and missions. While several HR pillars comprise the overall strategy, improving talent acquisition is one area to have proven rewards as organizations embark on their integrated talent management journey.
Joe Abusamra is Vice President, Product Marketing at Acendre.com, a provider of talent acquisition and management solutions to optimize workforce performance. To read more posts by Joe Abusamra, please click here.
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