6 Topics Talent Managers Should Have on Their Radar

Strong talent is in high demand and short supply - businesses must vie for attention in the applicant pool. However, the real challenge is in attracting, engaging and hiring the best-fit talent for any specific organization. In doing this, employees align with the values, vision and behaviors of the business. This drives up engagement, productivity and performance. 

Values-fit requires an organization to understand and articulate what uniquely leads to success – and then assess for this during hiring. It provides potential employees with a clear insight into the business and what is expected. This will form the core of a great candidate experience. However, there are other fundamentals we see regularly of an engaging hiring process. 

• Showcasing organization's role and culture.
• A set of assessments which are relevant to the role, engaging and simple to complete.
• Strong, clear and personalized communication.
• Respect for the applicants’ time.
• Transparency in how decisions are made.
• Providing and asking for feedback.

Online assessments have changed – and continue to change – as candidate experience becomes more critical and a stronger differentiator in the hiring market. Gamified assessment; paperless assessment centers; realistic job previews; all have their role to play.

Case example: aligning employer brand with candidate experience at RSM

RSM is Norway’s leading audit and advisory firm for SMEs. The company was strong in attracting clients, but less strong in attracting applicants. Articulating – and then communicating – what makes RSM different attracts more and better-fit applicants. A values and behavior-led hiring process now includes assessments of behavioral characteristics, motivation, values and abilities, together with personalized communication and feedback.

Outcomes

• An employer of choice - graduates now choose RSM over competitors.
• Growth in applicant numbers - applications have increased in number and quality.
• The message that grades are important – but so is passion and motivation - a new dimension is emphasized.
• A focus on openness and respect – applicants comment on the self-insight they gain.
• Feedback is offered to all – a key design element of the hiring process and an investment that pays off.
• Great applicant feedback and an increase in numbers – applications increased sevenfold.
• Employee engagement soared – the company leapt from 101 to 24 in a Great Place to Work survey.

“Applications have increased, as has the number of high-caliber applicants. RSM is attracting great talent.”Øyvind Sæther, Director of People and Organization, RSM 

Diversity and inclusion remain solidly on talent decision makers' radars. Creating a more diverse and welcoming workforce ensures a blend of perspectives and experience. It makes business sense, although the reason for such an approach goes beyond the business case. 

Valuing fairness and equality during hiring and promotion is the right thing to do. Pursuing fairness should be at the core of every hiring process decision. There are four key actions organizations need to be taking:

• Attract applicants from a broader talent pool.
• Ensure equality and fairness during the selection process.
• Encourage and embrace difference and diversity across the organization.
• Offer equal opportunities during employment.

At the center of this is a fair assessment. Fair assessment focuses on the job's requirements and applicant's attributes. No more and no less. These are tested objectively using tools shown to be free from bias and also using research established to monitor this. 

The surge of talent data analytics has played a fundamental role in checking out the predictive capability of assessments used in talent decisions. This will continue.

Talent teams now have access to a number of datasets from retention rates and performance achievement, to hiring statistics and psychometric test results. However, few have been truly able to convert their big data into smart data. There are three key steps to make this happen.

1. Review the gathered data and how it is captured, stored and analyzed - also recognize that other data may need to be gathered. 
2. Ask the right questions of the data. We have seen a growth in requests for support in this area. Talent teams may know that they need to hire better candidates, but they are not yet clear about what makes a ‘good’ candidate. 
3. Analyze the data correctly. Look beyond the patterns that emerge and ‘sense-check’ whether the deductions made are an accurate result or are misleading. 

We have worked on data projects with clients to help them identify and recruit high-performing staff, whilst reinforcing their employer brand. HR and talent teams are looking to utilize and make sense of their data by combining the pre-hire assessment scores of successful candidates with their post-hire performance in the role. 

Regardless of what an organization does, smart data provides insights that benefit the business. The secret is to recognize the potential that data provides and ensure that the right questions are asked and correct conclusions drawn. 

Case example: predicting sales success at Elkjøp

Major electronics retailer, Elkjøp, re-designed its selection process for its 100,000-plus applicants. It aimed to predict who would be the best salespeople, as well as trim the resources needed and speed up the hiring process. 

• Business impact study correlating Aon assessment scores and real-world sales KPIs enabled a cut-off score to be defined. 
• Algorithm proved that scoring above the cut-off score predicted higher sales figures. 
• Achieving a score of 4 on the assessments meant sales 26% higher than average. Those scoring 5 contributed 50% more sales revenue than average. 
• Being able to predict sales performance will lead to an increase of 18% of sales revenue across all stores (€9.775m) with a sales margin of 23%.  

“We will not hire anyone without using the Aon recruitment tool in the future.”Managing Director of four Elkjøp franchises