CEOs tap into talent transformation to gain strategic advantage

Data and intel­li­gence have long been pow­er­ful sources of strate­gic advan­tage for busi­ness­es. Pri­mar­i­ly, efforts in these areas have focused on attain­ing gran­u­lar infor­ma­tion on cus­tomers, analysed in depth to improve sales, ser­vices and respon­sive­ness. Most com­pa­nies, how­ev­er, don’t have this same lev­el of data infra­struc­ture, insights and intel­li­gence on hand to cre­ate an agile and strate­gic tal­ent func­tion. 

In fact, busi­ness lead­ers often know very lit­tle about their most impor­tant asset: their peo­ple. Whether cur­rent employ­ees or future hires, lit­tle is known about their skills, back­grounds and poten­tial.  

“A company’s tal­ent func­tion is often the least well informed by data, and it is stuck in an old-fash­ioned staffing mod­el instead of look­ing at how to man­age, devel­op and max­imise people’s grow­ing skills,” says Abakar Saidov, chief exec­u­tive at tal­ent plat­form Beam­ery. “The most com­mon ques­tion we hear from chief human resource exec­u­tives is ‘What skills do my peo­ple have?’. It’s amaz­ing they don’t know the answer.” 

Even though approx­i­mate­ly 60 per cent of For­tune 500 com­pa­ny bud­gets are allo­cat­ed to human resources costs, “com­pa­nies have sig­nif­i­cant gaps when it comes to tru­ly under­stand­ing their peo­ple”, he adds. “Com­pare this to the 10 per cent spent on mar­ket­ing, which is con­stant­ly assessed for results.”

To safe­guard their future and ensure they con­sis­tent­ly deliv­er against high-pri­or­i­ty tar­gets, whether around exist­ing busi­ness growth, diver­si­ty or expan­sion into new mar­kets and prod­uct lines, the mod­ern enter­prise needs a new “oper­at­ing sys­tem” for its tal­ent. Such a sys­tem gives them the intel­li­gence they need to make the right deci­sions about their peo­ple, hit com­pa­ny goals around diver­si­ty recruit­ment, engage poten­tial high per­form­ers and build the work­force of the future. 

Tech­nol­o­gy gaps cre­ate bar­ri­ers to trans­for­ma­tion

More than six in ten chief exec­u­tives recog­nise tech­nol­o­gy gaps are the main bar­ri­ers to a suc­cess­ful tal­ent strat­e­gy, accord­ing to a Beam­ery sur­vey of over 400 senior deci­sion-mak­ers glob­al­ly. Improv­ing resource util­i­sa­tion and effi­cien­cy has become the top busi­ness pri­or­i­ty, with many plan­ning to increase the role of data in deci­sion-mak­ing.

Crit­i­cal infor­ma­tion gaps are cur­rent­ly one of the prin­ci­pal imped­i­ments; at the moment, many firms fail to record up-to-date, infor­ma­tive data that enables judg­ments on avail­able skills and poten­tial. Most acces­si­ble infor­ma­tion on tal­ent is “sur­face lev­el and out­dat­ed”, Saidov notes, tak­en from CVs and online job appli­ca­tion forms or HR sys­tems that sim­ply hold admin­is­tra­tive data instead of track­ing chang­ing capa­bil­i­ties. “Peo­ple are treat­ed as employ­ment objects rather than seen for their skills tra­jec­to­ry and what they will con­tribute,” he says.

Iden­ti­fy­ing in-house skills and capa­bil­i­ties, and under­stand­ing any gaps, can enable com­pa­nies to bet­ter meet their strate­gic aims and adapt more quick­ly to change and dis­rupt mar­kets. Saidov says: “It also allows organ­i­sa­tions to ensure can­di­dates have a rel­e­vant, pos­i­tive expe­ri­ence with their brand, sim­i­lar to what they may offer as part of their cus­tomer expe­ri­ence. Lack­ing this aware­ness, by con­trast, can mean organ­i­sa­tions stag­nate and suf­fer neg­a­tive con­se­quences to their brand image.” 

Build­ing an agile work­force with tech­nol­o­gy

Many organ­i­sa­tions, includ­ing three of For­tune magazine’s top ten most valu­able brands, already rely on Beamery’s Tal­ent Oper­at­ing Sys­tem to help future-proof their work­force, con­sis­tent­ly bring the right skills and capa­bil­i­ties into their com­pa­ny, and grow the careers of their employ­ees in a way that aligns with busi­ness strat­e­gy. 

The sys­tem helps organ­i­sa­tions trans­form how they hire and retain a glob­al, diverse work­force, using arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence and deep learn­ing to give strate­gic insights and iden­ti­fy poten­tial skills gaps that might put future busi­ness efforts at risk. Equal­ly, it dri­ves more effec­tive and less biased recruit­ing prac­tices, and helps organ­i­sa­tions pow­er their next phase of growth. 

“At a time when busi­ness agili­ty has nev­er been more impor­tant, the Tal­ent Oper­at­ing Sys­tem has the cru­cial capa­bil­i­ty of analysing com­pa­nies’ tal­ent gaps and areas of under­in­vest­ment, from bil­lions of dat­a­points, tak­ing into account real­is­tic skills pro­gres­sion rates, mar­ket short­ages and like­ly future require­ments,” says Saidov. “In many indus­tries, these skills needs are chang­ing faster than ever. Com­pa­nies must under­stand what will be required and how to get there through hir­ing, reskilling and upskilling.”

Glob­al 2000 lead­ers make a strate­gic impact

A num­ber of lead­ers of the world’s largest busi­ness­es are mak­ing sig­nif­i­cant advances in this regard, har­ness­ing sophis­ti­cat­ed tal­ent man­age­ment to deliv­er on busi­ness strate­gies. Among them is the world’s largest ecom­merce com­pa­ny, whose tal­ent func­tion com­pris­es thou­sands of staff and is posi­tioned as a key com­pet­i­tive advan­tage. It uses Beam­ery to focus on resource allo­ca­tion and pri­ori­ti­sa­tion, the engage­ment of can­di­dates and man­ag­ing skills in line with strate­gic plans.

Mean­while, phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal giant AstraZeneca uses Beam­ery to devel­op its skills base, engag­ing more effec­tive­ly with the more than 300,000 job appli­cants it con­nects with each year, improv­ing both effi­cien­cy and hir­ing suc­cess rates. Sim­i­lar­ly, one of the world’s largest con­struc­tion com­pa­nies uses Beam­ery to cen­tralise data on thou­sands of third-par­ty con­trac­tors, effec­tive­ly resourc­ing projects with fast-chang­ing pri­or­i­ties and time­lines. 

It analy­ses cur­rent tal­ent and skills tra­jec­to­ries to auto­mate iden­ti­fi­ca­tion, attrac­tion and engage­ment for all can­di­dates. Even the Nation­al Bas­ket­ball Asso­ci­a­tion in North Amer­i­ca now runs its tal­ent oper­a­tion on Beam­ery, using it to scout its next bas­ket­ball stars.

“Across sec­tors, the C‑suite has high expec­ta­tions from tal­ent man­age­ment and it’s becom­ing a core oper­a­tion. When empow­ered by advanced tech­nol­o­gy, busi­ness­es can secure and keep the skills need­ed to meet their strate­gic objec­tives,” Saidov con­cludes.

In today’s state of con­stant change, lead­ers need a bet­ter way to respond and adapt their work­forces to remain com­pet­i­tive, and to be ready for more change at a moment’s notice. Those armed with the right data and insights will thrive, be best pre­pared to build the agile work­force of the future and achieve the suc­cess need­ed to dis­rupt their indus­try. 

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