The TA Community’s biggest priorities for 2024

Future Workforce Design

Ben George, Talent Acquisition Business Partner, Thales

I want to be a contributor to future workforce design so I can advise on skills and experience availability. This year, I’ve had to convince the hiring manager to alter what they’re looking for after trying to source the 10/10 candidate for too long. I want to push my stakeholders to consider more development opportunities to grow their future Subject Matter Experts.

Expanding Talent Pools and Leveraging Influence

Kelly Dangerfield, Talent Acquisition Business Partner – Pacific, Schneider Electric

In 2024, we’re adopting an even more commercial lens, staying at the industry forefront.

Firstly, we want to leverage our subject matter expertise and influence; to now move into the role of “Coach”. To continually challenge our hiring manager’s thinking, not just at a hire-by-hire level, but to impact organisational change, particularly in the space of diversity, equity, and inclusion. We’re equipping hiring managers to not only fill roles; but to build teams sustainably.

As for our second focus, (as a TA team) we are deepening and honing our knowledge across new, and emergent, skills and competencies. This transcends our own traditional Industries, looking transversally at the entire labour market. By exploring these alternate talent pools, we can then guide hiring managers in workforce planning for pre- and post-boarding activities; that are so critical when hiring for adjacent talent.

Automation & Internal Mobility

Stefan Welack, Global Talent Acquisition Enablement Lead, Xplor Technologies

With more people looking for new opportunities in 2024, more applicants are leveraging AI tools to mass-apply for jobs – hence we’re challenged with a massive surge of applications. The influx puts a lot of pressure on our Talent Team because candidates expect high response rates and positive interactions. And of course, we want to provide a great experience to everyone.

So, to manage candidate experience at scale, we’re looking to implement more automated recruiting workflows and feedback tools – while finding smarter ways to better pre-screen candidates at the top funnel. We know, AI won’t be going away, so we also want to understand how the technology can help us further enhance the recruiter and candidate experience this year. Well, and this all comes with additional training needs for the team.

We’ll also be focussing on Internal Mobility this year. Being a larger software and payments business, we’re in the fortunate position to be able to offer more career opportunities to our employees across the globe. And from a TA perspective, we understand that internal mobility and promoting from within have become increasingly important recruitment strategies for us. The current job market and uncertainty around it means talent we actively approach is often reluctant to change jobs; sourcing external hires is more competitive than ever.

Looking internally first also allows us to build a more resilient and flexible workforce – certainly something you’d want in 2024. We have a lot of talent at Xplor, so retaining our employees and their knowledge by helping them take the next careers steps with us will continue to be a priority.

Focussing on Self-Care

Pavi Iyer, Head of People & Talent, Mindset Health