QUESTION:

Now that the economic outlook has brightened, staff turnover has become an issue within the business. How can technology help HR to manage staff turnover and maximise workforce value?

ANSWER:

Your workforce is one of your greatest assets. Without talented employees your organisation will struggle to develop new initiatives and remain competitive. Your Human Capital Solution (HCS) is the ideal tool to manage your workforce assets. It will also allow you to leverage your human capital and ensure you are maximising their value. By utilising your online Talent Management/HR Solution you are able to streamline processes and be in a much better position to identify flight risks and develop succession plans.

My top 10 tips for leveraging your Human Capital Solution for Talent Management are:

Move recruitment online: If you are not already using an online tool to manage recruitment, talk to your vendor today. Online tools will capture vital candidate information, such as skills and competencies, and eliminate unsuitable candidates before they reach the hiring manager's inbox. These tools highlight those applicants who are the best fit, enabling you to focus on the cultural fit of shortlisted applicants. Correspondence with candidates and on-boarding are also automated, which reduces the time to hire and ensure applicants remain engaged throughout the process.

Automate on-boarding: Using workflow to automate the on-boarding process will ensure your organisation's best practice on-boarding procedures are strictly adhered to with each new hire.

Identify key roles: An intimate understanding of the roles that drive business performance will allow the enterprise to manage the risk of them becoming vacant. By categorising key positions within your HCS, you can easily identify the important roles that require detailed succession planning and groom talent accordingly.

Automate where possible: Removing the tactical burden from HR will accelerate the potential to deliver workforce initiatives. Introducing efficiency into HR practices such as leave and performance management will not only improve the process but also open up many Talent Management opportunities within the enterprise.

Manage skills gaps: Maintaining an understanding of available workforce skills and business demand is crucial in order for HR to impact bottom-line performance. Once HR has an understanding of the anticipated business demand for talent, it can leverage online data to determine if the current talent supply will meet the need or if additional resources are required.

Manage performance: Regular performance reviews are an opportune time to align employee goals with enterprise strategy and to update development plans. Utilising online Performance Management tools will deliver efficiencies to this process and ensure nothing is overlooked. A key strategy for HR is to develop a culture within the organisation where Performance Reviews are considered a key business tool.

Keep your skills framework current: Regular performance reviews give management a thorough understanding of workforce assets and where they are placed. The review meeting is an ideal time to update skills profiles that should feed into the corporate skills framework.

Promote ongoing learning: Experts agree that providing employees with opportunities for ongoing learning will keep them engaged.

Encourage internal mobility: Manage the looming skills shortage by encouraging employees to move roles within the organisation. This strategy means employees remain engaged and do not take valuable IP to your competitors. Executing this strategy will be almost effortless if you are keeping talent management initiatives online. Online skills frameworks will identify possible candidates within your talent pool for vacancies and your online internal job boards will display open vacancies.

Invest in reporting tools: Provide management with the workforce data that underpins informed decision making. Invest in reporting tools that allow HR to analyse workforce metrics and better utilise data.

Most organisations recognise their Human Capital as a competitive differentiator. HR can remove the tactical burden which will free up resources by leveraging its Human Capital Solution to help manage talent management processes. It is an exciting time for HR practitioners - they now have the tools available to drive workforce alignment within the enterprise and a desire from management for this to occur.