THE ADMINISTRATIVE HR MANAGER – A RELIC OF THE 20th CENTURY

We’re seeing the extinction of a species in the HR world. The Personnel Manager. The administrators who’d show up at their desks, dabble in recruitment processes, maintain basic records of staff, manage payroll and at the most, handle basic queries about leaves and attendance. Then they’d wrap up for the day and start all over the next day.

Enter the Talent Manager- a professional who knows the pulse of the talent market like the back of his hand. He knows talent is scarce, he knows the competition, and he spends a good deal of time trying to beat the competition.

The “war for talent” is fierce, and is about to get a lot more so with each passing day. Talent pools in today’s digitally connected world are not a bunch of applicant CVs stuffed into a file. The universe of social media platforms, tech communities and global knowledge hubs are their hunting grounds. And they hunt, with sophistication and precision never before seen in the traditional recruitment models. They, in turn, are hunted by modern, progressive enterprises- the ones who realize that true competitive edge stems from superior talent alone.

Talent Managers are strategic partners of business owners and department leaders in ways that traditional HR has never been. They understand the macros of vision, growth, competition and success and work on the micros of strategic talent acquisition, engagement, performance management and employee retention. The average career trajectory of talent managers with globally recognized certifications of their competencies are many times higher than the traditional HR manager, and this trend is only set to grow.

The Deloitte 2016 report on talent management maturity throws up surprising statistics. 9% of HR leaders mark their teams as underperformers, under prepared to face the challenges of the new technology driven corporate world and 53% among them agree that their HR teams are either meeting the minimum performance expectations or are simply getting by. Compare this with only 5% of leaders actually rating their teams as excellent.

The new digitally and socially connected talent market requires competencies in a host of skillsets. Some of these are:

1. Overhauling Traditional Talent Acquisition Strategies– 500 word recruitment ads? Check. Vacancy Ads in Print media and Job Boards? Check. An email notifying interview schedules for recruitment drives? Check. Traditional talent acquisition strategies like these are being thrown out the window as industry leaders and even their followers are implementing new, redefined standards of talent management best practices. Some examples include engaging with the talent pool where they’re present(online communities, social networks), integrating talent outreach campaigns into the overall social media strategy of the business, inclusion of behavioral analyses from third party networks and platforms, and many more. Such talent acquisition processes are increasingly finding favor in the minds of HR business partners across the world. Talent Managers who have been certified in their capabilities to deliver such innovations are, naturally, being sought out, at higher compensation and better positions in corporations and startups as well.

2.Embracing Disruptive Technologies in Talent Management– The traditional in-house HRMS is history. Talent Acquisition platforms operating in the cloud, facilitating anytime, anywhere recruitment and screening, screening and checks from third party platforms and sources, people analytics integrated to give deeper insights into a prospective employee’s skillsets and past achievement records, the list of modern technologies in talent acquisition and the functions they perform is long and fascinating. It all comes to naught without a capable talent manager handling all these seamlessly, automating certain processes and analyzing and defining parameters of others. Certified Talent Managers are comfortable with new disruptive technologies and integrating them into prevalent workflows. The result? Adding on functionalities to current systems and getting a 360® view of a prospective hire. Every organization worth its salt in the digital age wants a professional like this, and more will follow suit.

3. Sustainability and Innovation in Workforce Planning– Forecasting Talent Acquisition needs to merely meet business objectives is the way of the past. Changes in Strategic workforce planning processes require a different approach altogether. Skilled and Certified Talent Managers are capable of managing every single aspect of the talent supply chain. From contingent workforce to deployment of flexible talent or the use of risk management models and other workforce management metrics, talent managers are increasingly being sought out to not only manage the talent supply chain, but also innovate and build new strategies.

The capabilities of a skilled talent acquisition manager are immense and diverse. From strategic workforce planning, talent acquisition cost optimization, employee flight risk management to performance management strategies, talent managers constantly set new benchmarks in innovation and best practices. Every organization is seeking professionals of this kind in the present day and age, and having a certification of competence is the only way to validate their capabilities at the very outset. We forecast that the demand for certified talent managers will only grow in the years to come, and we’re certainly not the only ones doing so.