By now the theme for this year’s Australasian Talent Conference is live and hopefully you’ve seen it. IMPACT – Workforce Rewired | Roles Redefined | Value Reimagined
So, for my turn in the ‘This Week In Talent’ big chair, I’ve decided to run with the theme of IMPACT across different facets of TA over the month of June.
First is the impact TA can have for the business and how you get your business to see this if they haven’t already.
The expectations of a TA Advisor, Sourcing Specialist or Leader has shifted drastically in the last 10 years. No longer is it ok to just “get a role and fill a role”. Much has been written and said about this by many, but like the shift from Recruitment to Talent Acquisition, the shift from Talent Acquisition to a Talent Advisory function is real and happening quickly.
In today’s hyper-competitive and fast-evolving business environment, talent is more than a resource – it’s a competitive advantage. The ability to attract, engage, and retain high-quality people can be the difference between a business that thrives and one that merely survives. Yet, Talent Acquisition is often undervalued or viewed as purely operational. It’s time to shift that perspective.
Here’s my take on the impact of Talent Acquisition for business.
The impact of talent acquisition for business and how to get stakeholder buy-in
- Direct impact on business performance: The quality of your hires impacts everything from innovation, productivity all the way to customer experience, and ultimately, it impacts the bottom line. Great talent drives growth, brings fresh thinking, and helps businesses adapt to change. Poor hiring decisions, on the other hand, can cost dearly in terms of money, morale, and missed opportunities.
- TA shapes and has impact on organisational culture: Every new hire influences the culture. A strategic TA function not only fills roles but curates a workforce that aligns with company values, goals, and behaviours. Over time, this builds a cohesive, high-performing culture that retains top performers and attracts more of them.
- Impact on employer brand and reputation: TA is often the first touchpoint a potential employee has with your company. A seamless, respectful, and engaging recruitment process builds trust and enhances your employer brand. A poor experience, on the other hand, can damage your reputation and create noise that travels quickly in today’s connected world.
- Impact on future-proofing the business: Beyond filling today’s gaps, a forward-looking TA strategy builds talent pipelines and future capabilities. It helps organisations prepare for growth, transformation, and succession, reducing time-to-hire and enabling greater agility.
So understanding the IMPACT TA enables us to garner support from key stakeholders who will back the case for change. So how do you get support from leaders or executives?
Hopefully these examples might help.
Gaining executive buy-in: Making the case for TA
To secure buy-in from executives, TA leaders must translate people outcomes into business language. Here’s how:
- Speak their language
Executives think in terms of business performance, risk, and return on investment. Position TA as a value driver, not a cost centre. Show how great hires contribute to revenue, innovation, customer satisfaction, or operational efficiency and not just how many roles you’ve filled.
Use the language of the business, things like board reports, strategic objectives or your Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) policy to help hit those hot buttons and position the message appropriately.
Example: Instead of reporting “80 roles filled,” present “80 roles filled, including 15 in critical diversity areas and all were filled via direct sourcing channels, reducing agency spend by X and improving time-to-productivity by 25%.”
- Use data to tell the story
Quantify the impact of hiring. Use metrics like quality of hire, time-to-fill, cost-per-hire, retention rates, and candidate Net Promoter Score (NPS). Benchmark against industry standards and show year-over-year improvements.
Add storytelling to humanise the data. Bring in success stories of key hires who’ve made a measurable impact. Numbers open the door; stories seal the deal.
Example: At Unitywater we have been using benchmarked data on candidate experience to help improve our candidate experience and as a key driver to build the case for change. Having real and tangible feedback makes a story much more compelling.
- Link TA to business priorities
Align TA efforts with what matters most to the business: growth targets, digital transformation, Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) goals, or workforce diversification. Show how TA can be a strategic partner in achieving those outcomes.
Example: Strategic objectives, Board reports, corporate values all provide a fantastic guidepost for how you can align your TA strategy and forward planning to align to the business.
At Unitywater our Strategic Ambition 2030 articulates how we’ll reach our long-term goals for our people, customers and community. This is underpinned by four themes:
- Value every drop
- Customer of the future
- Keep it simple
- One Unitywater
Demonstrating alignment to these themes has been helpful when positioning for changes in our process, tech stack or expanding our early careers offerings.
- Solving problems or adding value
When dealing with leaders generally it will be a focus on one but more likely both things. Don’t just highlight gaps, instead propose solutions. Whether it’s implementing new sourcing tech, building talent pipelines, or enhancing employer branding, provide a clear business case with anticipated outcomes.
Example: When it comes to our pre-employment checking requirements we have some stringent requirements. We were managing this across multiple vendors, out of system and this was providing an unfavourable candidate experience, alongside unnecessary administration burden for the TA team. It was a case of one cover all rather than a role-based approach.
Using the data from candidate experience surveys, costs to the business, impact on time to fill and counter offers because of lag, I was able to pull this together to provide a business case to simplify our pre-employment checking process and to make it a more role-based approach.
Working with the relevant stakeholders we developed a pre-employment matrix across every role in the organisation which was endorsed and approved.
Then we were able to source a new provider that could deliver this through integration and automation to provide a far better and simplified process for the team to administer, and a much faster, streamlined and simpler experience for our candidates.
- Build relationships with key stakeholders
Influence is built on trust. Get close to business leaders, understand their challenges, and become their partner in solving them. The more you’re seen as embedded in their world, the more likely they are to champion your initiatives.
Example: The “what’s in it for me?” (WIIFM) question should be ringing loud and true. Do some homework on what the key priorities are for the relevant parties, take an interest and offer solutions.
Conclusion
What I’ve offered is my take that has proven to work for me. It hasn’t worked every time. Being consistent, persistent and credible has also been invaluable. Also realising that there is no one silver bullet and I don’t know it all.
There’s plenty of great resources and articles out there but I wanted to shout out to Nadine O’Regan’s recent whitepaper The Evolution of Talent Acquisition which is an interesting and insightful read. I was happy to see my thinking had followed hers. Always a good indicator that you’re on the right path.
Talent acquisition is no longer just about filling vacancies. It’s a strategic lever that fuels business performance, shapes culture, and drives long-term success. By reframing TA as a business enabler and proving its value through data, alignment, and outcomes, TA can earn a seat at the table and the time or investment needed to deliver even greater impact.
Link: The Evolution of TA by Nadine O’Regan
