This Week in Talent (27th April)

Hello for the final time TWIT readers,

This month has flown, I can’t believe my time as guest editor is over! For those that know me, I am partial to moments of recognition, so I want to take this opportunity to recognise and thank some key individuals over the past month. Of course, credit to Lucy, Jo, and the whole crew at ATC for constantly bringing us amazing content and bringing us together as an industry. And thanks to the awesome TA team at Slalom & Slalom_build AU&NZ. “A rising tide lifts all boats,” and you all make me better at what I do and I’m constantly in awe of how much I learn from working with you.

I must admit, this past week has (rather surprisingly) been a lovely BAU week with the team firing on all cylinders, and everything seemingly going as planned. It doesn’t usually last, but I will enjoy it while I can. This regularity in pace has afforded me an opportunity to become more involved this week in some strategic workforce planning with one of our practice leaders. During my time at Slalom, it’s been so refreshing to have a role in this type of work and seat at the table when designing & growing our business. A lot of my colleagues in TA, however, find they never get the chance to be involved in this type of work and sometimes, their involvement is not even considered.

An obvious barrier to entry to become involved with strategic work for a lot of us in TA is of course workload. When hiring gets busy, everything else seems to fall away in favour of finding, hiring, and onboarding as many of the best people we can find. And while I don’t disagree with this typical approach, it is of course the primary function of our role, there should be balance. I think the solution to being seen as advisors and consistently being involved in strategic work comes down to the operating model of TA within the business.

I’ve long held the belief that a TA team serves a similar function to that of a sales team and has a broadly similar process as well with a primary difference of output. A sales team brings in projects, clients or customers and we bring in people. I would argue that both are equally important to the success and growth of a business, so why are they typically treated differently? Our sales teams are often considered key drivers in achieving strategic business objectives and they typically report up into the Senior or Executive leadership team. In my eyes, TA is no different and should operate as its own function with a direct link to business leadership. This is how we have structured the team at Slalom, and from experience, it is a game changer.

If you’re keen on learning more about how this works at Slalom, or anything else we do for that matter, please reach out and connect with me on LinkedIn.

I found a range of different articles this week that cover a variety of different topics. I’ll be honest I couldn’t quite find a way to string them into a narrative but, I feel they are all valuable and relevant so take your pick below.

Thank you for reading.

Why Talent Acquisition is Vital for Business Success

This probably goes without saying for many of you, but I still think there is work to be done in educating and helping business leaders understand the importance and value of Talent Acquisition. This article starts from the ground up, and many of you are probably more mature in your practices but it’s a good place to start.

101 Employer Branding Strategy Ideas for 2023: Brand, KPIs, Personas, EVP

I couldn’t go 4 weeks and not mention EVP, right? Now more than ever, when many businesses are in the news for the wrong reasons and there are plenty of articles about redundancies, your EVP has the chance to really cut through. This article has some great tips & tricks that don’t require a big budget to execute.

Treating burnout with belonging

Yes, burnout is officially here to stay, despite the pandemic declining and a lot of us returning to the office I think burnout has been an issue for decades. So, what can we do about it? This article draws a lovely connection to creating belonging with “a healthy sense of connection, mutuality, and the space to honour both.”

 Survey Respondents Report Preference for In-Person Interviews

I personally LOVE a virtual interview, it’s simple to schedule, I don’t have to travel etc. etc. However, what do our candidates think about them? Should we return to in-person interviews? Again, this is a US based study, but it sparks the question, what do our candidates think? We should probably be asking them.

TED Talk: How to be a team player – without burning out

Whilst we are all in the middle of this hybrid workplace and still wanting to connect & collaborate, how do we maintain our own personal boundaries and avoid burnout? Collaboration researcher Rob Cross discusses some key findings and strategies to reclaim our time and de-stress our lives.