超级员工的崛起 -The Rise of the Superworker: Delivering On The Promise Of AI《超级员工的崛起》研究报告揭示了AI如何深刻改变工作场所与工作方式。随着AI技术融入工作流程，传统工作模型被重新定义，AI正助力“超级员工”以创新的方式提升生产力和创造力。
报告指出，企业若想在AI时代中保持竞争力，必须重新设计工作与组织模式。首先，需要通过AI实现任务自动化并提高工作效率；其次，推动工作流程的整合，利用智能代理提升整体生产力；最后，培养员工适应变化的能力，推动动态化的工作环境。
AI并不是简单地取代工作，而是通过赋能实现员工能力的跃升。例如，一些企业利用AI快速生成培训计划，将原本需要数月的工作缩短为数天。报告也强调，随着AI成为“同事”，全新岗位将随之出现，如知识库维护员、AI数据隐私与伦理管理者等。
为了迎接这一变革，报告提出了五大关键战略：重新设计工作与组织模式，构建动态人才模型，调整薪酬与绩效体系，加强以人为本的领导力，以及加速系统性HR®的转型。只有将技术与人的因素完美结合，企业才能成功实现AI转型。
报告强调，AI的核心并非技术，而是通过创新推动人与组织的共同成长。1月28日的发布会将深入剖析这些趋势与战略。
We’re excited to launch our groundbreaking research “The Rise of the Superworker,” a deep dive into the impact of AI on the future of work. As our hallmark research for the year, it defines the roadmap for leadership, technology, and HR. (Register for the launch webinar on January 28.)
The Workforce and Workplace Environment
We are entering a year of political change, economic disruption, and changing labor markets. As I discussed recently (The Tumultuous Year Ahead), the world is experiencing talent shortages in front-line and blue collar work (US unemployment remains at 4.1%) while white-collar employment is softening. CEOs are investing in AI in a quest for productivity and workers are asking to be retrained. And many core values (diversity and inclusion, pay equity, remote work) remain challenging.
Companies believe that AI will transform their business, so investment in technology is exploding. Yet as history tells us, this “trillian dollar AI-based re-engineering” effort is about people, not technology. As the research points out, the AI revolution, as exciting as it feels, is all about redesigning the way we get things done. And that lands in the laps of HR: how we redesign, reskill, and redeploy people in a world of highly intelligent systems.
Understanding The Superworker and The Superworker Company
Let’s start with the basics. Companies are filled with business processes, tools, and job models designed around traditional people-centric work. Every job function, from sales to marketing to manufacturing, has been designed around the old-fashioned job families of the past.
In other words, we’ve run our companies as “people machines.” We design a set of jobs and job families, then hire, train, and promote people to grow. This model creates a sprawling company filled with skills challenges, people wanting promotion, and fragility as the business goes through change.
The digital revolution, which defines the last 27 years of transformation, did speed things up. It automated many processes and opened up the ideas of self-service, e-commerce, and direct consumer transactions. But it didn’t fundamentally change how companies are organized: rather it accelerated the processes we had.
Suddenly, with AI everything is different. As the most intelligent and data hungry technology ever, AI stands to integrate and redefine every business process and “superpower” every employee. And this shift, toward copilots, agents, digital twins, and intelligent platforms, forces us to rethink how we’re organized, what we do, and what we define as a “job.”
We are building a company of Superworkers.
What exactly is a “Superworker?”
A Superworker is an individual who uses AI to dramatically enhance their productivity, performance, and creativity. As routine work gets automated, AI has the potential to empower everyone, eliminating some roles while empowering many others.
A “Superworker company” is an organization that embraces this transformation, building a culture of adaptability where people reinvent themselves. Our new Dynamic Organization research shows that such change-ready companies outperform their peers by six-times.
Just as Superman Clark Kent learned to channel his powers, we must learn to harness AI for individual and team performance. This means not just automating existing tasks, but rethinking how work gets done, empowering people to do more, and creating opportunities for growth.
The Historical Perspective: From Automation to Autonomy
We’ve seen waves of automation before, but this time it’s different.
In the past we used machines to automate the work of craftsmen and tradespeople. A welder, farmer, or shoemaker had his or her expertise built into a machine so their craft could scale at low cost. The expert didn’t go away, rather he or she helped design the machine.
AI does the same for white collar work. Writers, analysts, marketers, and sales people are now superpowered, leveraging their skills to drive scale. AI will not replace these special individuals: it empowers them to scale and expand their impact.
But in the case of AI we go further: it doesn’t just automate tasks; it becomes a co-worker itself: listening, learning, reasoning, and acting. So new and better jobs are created, designing, training, and managing the AI.
And the shift to Superworker happens everywhere: from the retail clerk to the nursing supervisor to the senior executive.
The New Corporate Imperative: Redesign Work and Jobs
This transformation won’t happen without effort.
Today, as AI systems still mature, our challenge is not implementing AI, but redesigning jobs, and business processes around AI. And that’s why success with AI is a people problem, not a technology one. And if you don’t get this right, your AI transformation will lag.
Academic studies show that 45% of change management programs fail, and 72% of the reason is “people resistance.” So consider this:
For each dollar spent on machine learning technology, companies may need to spend nine dollars on intangible human capital,” Erik Brynjolfsson wrote in 2022, citing research by him and others.
Consider the four stage model below, where we look at “current jobs” vs “re-engineered jobs” on the horizontal, and level of output on the vertical.
AI transformation begins with assistance, then moves to augmentation, then to work replacement and then to autonomy. The level of performance improvement goes up exponentially.
This process of rethinking business processes takes time. When electricity was invented companies replaced horse-driven machines with motors. Decades later engineers realized we could redesign the entire manufacturing process by integrating the entire supply chain.
The same will happen again. We may start by automating emails and data access, but over time we build “digital twins” and configurable agents to manage entire projects and business processes.
One of our clients built an entire platform that can interview stakeholders, import documentation, build training programs, and publish training and certification programs by AI. Humans are still needed, but now they’re the “super-curators” and “craftsmen” perfecting the product. New programs that took 3-6 months can be generated in a few days.
This kind of redesign is now being used for claims analysis, sales enablement, RFP generation, and workplace design. (Our report 100 Use Cases For Galileo explains dozens of such solutions available now for HR.)
The Work Redesign Challenge
How do we get there? Business and HR teams work together, following these stages.
Improve efficiency at current job: Use AI to make existing work more efficient: same job as before, new tools to make it easier. Examples include an office worker using MS Copilot.
Automate tasks to increase scale: An engineer uses AI to write code. A marketer builds videos and campaigns automatically. An HR manager rapidly builds job descriptions or analyzes performance.
Integrate processes to improve productivity: Agents now handle multiple connected steps. A retail clerk automatically checks out customers; a nurse uses a machine to monitor dozens of patients and make diagnostics; an HR manager builds learning programs in minutes.
Leverage autonomy for more: The AI manages multi-step processes (customer service, candidate communications, recruiting, campaign design) and the people “manage” the digital employee.
This creates four types of Superworker:
An Example: The HR Business Partner
Consider the role of HR Business Partner (HRBP), a complex job that’s constantly changing.
An HR business partner (HRBP) equipped with AI like Galileo™ can automatically analyze turnover, productivity, individual performance, and leadership potential. The AI HR Agent can help compare job candidates against multiple requirements. Analysis, coaching, and hiring speed goes up, and the HRBP is now a Superworker.
Then the transformation continues. What if we give the AI to managers. Do we need the HRBP at all? (IBM has made this step.)
Yes, now the HRBP manages the AI. Just as Wayze may drive you automatically, someone behind the scenes is monitoring your trip to help you when things go wrong. This “Superworker” job is the upgraded role of the HRBP.
AI As A Job Creation Technology
Many new jobs will be created. Who maintains the knowledge base that feeds the AI? Who ensures data privacy and security? Who handles the ethical issues that arise? Who monitors the AI to make sure it’s trained well? And once these multi-step digital employees exist, who will manage them?
These are new Superworker jobs.
Five Imperatives for 2025
How do we make this transition a success?
Here are five key imperatives detailed in our study:
Redesign Work, Jobs, and Organizational Models: Focus on the customer, how success is measured, then apply AI. This is what we call “productivity-based job design”. Deconstruct work into activities, evaluate AI solutions, and determine the human role alongside AI, using the models above.
Create a Dynamic Talent Model: The traditional “prehire to retire” model is becoming obsolete. We need a more dynamic approach where people move across roles and projects. Prioritize internal mobility and foster a culture of growth. Focus on “doing more with what we have” by upgrading the productivity of our existing workforce. Focus on building “talent density“.
Rethink Pay, Rewards, and Performance: Move from traditional pay models to “systemic rewards,” based on role, skills, and output. New roles may warrant higher pay, not lower. (Lightcast sees a $45,000 premium for workers with AI skills.)
Refine Leadership and Culture: Focus on human-centered leadership: this is a time of change. Ensure leaders understand AI, foster innovation, and focus on productivity, not headcount. Start co-design projects in every functional areas. Get line employees involved in transformation efforts.
Accelerate the Shift to Systemic HR®: HR must operate in a consulting role. Integrate HR silos, develop a change-enablement team. Experiment with AI tools in HR and train the HR team about AI.
Let me give you an example.
One of our large clients, a healthcare company, created a “transformation enablement” team in HR that does co-design workshops throughout the business, helping with process redesign, role design, job changes and pay and rewards changes. They built a set of tools and methodologies which are well established. HR professionals rotate into this team for education. Every HR function should set up “AI transformation teams” like this.
AI isn’t here to replace us; it’s here to empower us.
How To Get The Research and Learn
The Rise of the Superworker predictions report is available to all users of Galileo™, The Josh Bersin Academy, or Corporate Members. (A Galileo Pro membership is only $39 per month, and JBA membership is $49 per month.)
If you want to learn more and follow our ongoing case studies, briefs, and AI tools, download the Rise of the Superworker Overview today. You will be registered for regular updates. And please register for our launch webinar on January 28 where I will detail this entire story.
The Superworker era has arrived, join us in the journey!
Systemic HR
2025年01月16日
Systemic HR
LinkedIn推出AI招聘助手：重新定义未来招聘流程LinkedIn Enters AI Agent Race With LinkedIn Hiring Assistant
LinkedIn推出了首个AI Agent : Hiring Assistant，旨在帮助招聘人员重新成为招聘人员。
LinkedIn于本周推出了全新的AI招聘助手，这款工具旨在自动化招聘过程中高达80%的工作，特别是候选人筛选和招聘前的步骤。通过与LinkedIn平台的无缝集成，这款助手不仅提高了招聘人员的工作效率，也显著提升了候选人的质量。该工具的“体验记忆”和“项目记忆”功能，可以记录招聘人员的搜索和操作习惯，并将所有与招聘项目相关的信息进行整合，从而智能化地优化招聘流程。
这款助手已经在西门子、Canva等公司的招聘流程中得到了应用，这些公司报告称，通过LinkedIn招聘助手，招聘人员的生产力显著提升，候选人质量也得到了极大的改善。招聘前的AI辅助搜索仅需30秒即可完成，而传统的搜索通常需要15分钟。
LinkedIn招聘助手还通过AI驱动的沟通功能改善了候选人的体验。数据显示，使用AI辅助发送的招聘信息的接受率提高了44%，接受速度也加快了11%。此外，AI搜索的候选人接受率高出18%。
随着越来越多的公司采用AI技术，招聘与候选人之间的竞争日益加剧。求职者也在利用AI工具优化简历，甚至在面试中使用AI辅助表现，从而使HR在筛选候选人时面临更多挑战。因此，LinkedIn招聘助手等工具正成为招聘人员不可或缺的助手。
LinkedIn招聘助手不仅仅是提高效率的工具，它真正的价值在于解放招聘人员，使他们能够专注于与候选人和招聘经理的对话，改善雇主品牌，并更好地了解就业市场。这种转变反映了人才获取的战略性转变——从执行角色转变为人才顾问，帮助公司更好地实现增长。
详细请看Josh Bersin 写的这篇介绍
As I discussed in the article Digital Twins, Digital Employees, Agents Everywhere, tech vendors are creating AI-powered Agents as fast as they can. And in HR, where we deal with hundreds of mundane checklist-types of processes, the opportunity for automation is everywhere.
This week, just as Microsoft launched a tools to help companies build Agents in Copilot, LinkedIn announced its Hiring Assistant. And this is a pretty amazing product.
The Hiring Assistant is the first highly-integrated agent I’ve seen that fits right into the LinkedIn workflow. And the companies using it now (Siemens, Canva, AMS) are seeing recruiter productivity and candidate quality skyrocket.
Here’s how to think about it: consider a schematic of the recruitment workflow.
As you can see, there are more than 30 steps to complete, and this doesn’t even include background checking, offer-letter generation, benefits discussions, pre-boarding, and onboarding.
With this brand new Assistant LinkedIn believes they can automate almost 80% of this pre-offer workflow. And the LinkedIn Hiring Assistant is just getting started.
Here are some screenshots of the workflow:
As you can see, the agent prompts the recruiter with intelligent responses and questions along the way. And throughout the process it stores more and more information to get smarter and smarter.
This Is A Sophisticated Product
This is a well-engineered product. Not only does it include many subtle features (ie. “find me a candidate like Joe,” which brings in Joe’s profile and analyzes Joe’s role, skills, and experience), it includes several platform innovations.
The first is something LinkedIn calls “Experiential Memory,” storing the recruiter’s search and activity history for future work. The Hiring Assistant learns what this recruiter is doing, how they communicate, and how they operate, to tune its results to each recruiter’s needs (ie. a tech recruiter vs. an executive recruiter).
Second is a feature called “Project Memory,” which brings together all the information about a single search project. This means the candidate selection criteria, emails, and input from hiring managers are stored in the project, enabling the assistant to see the whole experience of selection. Recruiters understand this challenge: every hire and every hiring manager is different, and each project has unique and sometimes new requirements which have nothing to do with the job description.
Other Agents Will Have To Take Notice
LinkedIn is not the first mover in this space, but the company’s credibility will accelerate the market. Paradox, the current leader in recruitment automation, has been automating high-volume recruiting for almost a decade and offers an agent that not only helps recruiters but also supports job seekers. It isn’t focused on sourcing liked LinkedIn, but it automates the rest of the process (candidate inquiries, interview scheduling, assessment, onboarding).
And it really works: this week Chipotle announced that Paradox’s solution reduces time to hire by 75%, making it a central part of the company’s growth strategy.
LinkedIn Hiring Assistant is receiving similar accolades.
“Doing a normal search before AI took upwards of 15 minutes. Now, with AI-Assisted Search, it takes about 30 seconds to get results. The time saved is tremendous. It is so much more convenient and easier doing it this way,” said Victoria Östryd Söderlind, Senior Recruitment Specialist, Toyota Material Handling Europe.
“The AI features on LinkedIn have allowed our recruiters to do more, to be better and to grow faster in all of our activities. It’s about spending time in the right places where our time is more valuable and LinkedIn’s AI features have enabled us to do that. What it’s not doing is removing great conversations with candidates, stopping our ability to ask them questions or getting to know candidates as people and humans,” said Olivia Brown, Head of Talent Acquisition, Octopus Energy.
Improving Candidate Experience
While LinkedIn talks about the value to HR, the bigger value may be for candidates. The company found that AI-Assisted outreach messages generate a 44% higher acceptance rate and are accepted 11% faster by job seekers. And AI-based searches produce 18% higher candidate acceptance. As Paradox has discovered, candidates don’t like to waste time scheduling calls with recruiters if they can avoid it.
And that leads to another important issue. There is now a growing AI battle between recruiter and candidates. AS AI helps recruiters source and screen candidates, the candidates are using AI to “power-up” their resumes. One of our clients told me that almost all their job applicants now submit resumes that look eerily similar to job descriptions. Why? Job candidates are using AI also!
This means is that tools like LinkedIn Hiring Assistant are more essential than ever. As job seekers tweak their identity and even use AI interview assessments to game interviews, HR has to beef up its tools to better differentiate candidates.
Liberating Recruiters To Recruit And Advise
The big story is actually this: while Hiring Assistant is an efficiency tool, what it really does is free up recruiters to talk to candidates. Recruiters who are bogged down with drudgery can talk with hiring managers, improve employment brand, and get to know candidates and the job market better. This is part of what we call Systemic HR: moving talent acquisition away from the “fulfillment center” role to that of a talent advisor, helping the company think about its best ways to grow.
As you look at these tools and think about automation, I encourage you to read our new research on the strategic shift in talent acquisition. Automation is not just about productivity and cost savings: it’s really about liberating our minds to think and add value in new and exciting ways.
Systemic HR
2024年10月29日
Systemic HR
Why it’s time for HR Business Partners 2.0文章中强调了人力资源商业伙伴（HRBP）从通才到战略顾问的演变。最初旨在将人力资源战略与商业目标对齐，HRBP经常被日常运营任务分散注意力。Kathi Enderes 主张通过加强培训、指导和系统性的人力资源方法来复兴这一角色，这种方法整合了商业咨询能力。她引用了TomTom和乐高集团的例子，这些公司已成功地将其HRBP角色转变为更具战略性、数据驱动和有效促进业务增长和创新的角色。文章指出，只有11%的公司完全整合了这种模式，但见证了更高的增长和创新。
Kathi Enderes的观点强调了在当今由AI驱动的市场中，将HRBP转变为战略顾问不仅是一种改变，更是一种必需。
Global Industry Analyst Kathi Enderes, SVP of Research at The Josh Bersin Company, sees the need to clear the dust off a 30-year great idea of HRBPs.
Expert Insight
HRBPs are a crucial part of the success of the HR functions, and organizations as a whole.
However, as Kathi Enders, SVP of Research at The Josh Bersin Company, shares in this exclusive OpEd, they need to move from being a jack of all trades to becoming a business savvy consultant.
Here's how to achieve this!
Thirty years ago, HR embraced a groundbreaking concept: the HR Business Partner (HRBP).
The idea was that these professionals would collaborate closely with business leaders and line managers to align people strategies with the organization’s broader business objectives.
This remains a crucial concept and a contribution that organizations desperately need.
The problem is that somewhere along the way, we lost sight of the strategic part of the equation.
As a result, we’ve ended up misusing resources and devolving the role of the HRBP into a much more tactical, and less globally impactful, function.
In fact, the HRBP role is the most critical, yet the most misunderstood, of all HR jobs.
But by refreshing and modernizing the original concept and investing in HRBP capabilities, we can revitalize the role and get it back to its even more strategic purpose.
How we got here, and where we have to go next
We introduced HRBPs when we transitioned to the tiered HR service delivery model in the 1990s.
Originally, the HRBP was envisioned as a crucial connector between the various HR Centers of Excellence (COE) and the business.
But before too long, a lot of operational tasks were loaded onto their plates by business managers who needed immediate assistance with less strategic, day-to-day issues—think, “I need to hire someone but don’t know how to submit the requisition in the system,” or “I need to transfer someone: can you help me with that?”
When this happens frequently, the HRBP unintentionally becomes more of an HR workflow admin assistant.
While this helps solve short-term issues, it detracts from the original strategic intent of the role.
Consequently, many HRBPs end up not working “at top of license”—acting more like HR generalists than the specialized, strategic partners they could be.
To get things on track and empower HRBPs to grow into the strategic role you hired them for (and what they came on board to do), look to:
accept and encourage them to become business consultants, not just advisors or general admins, and support them in developing strong relationships with business leaders and the rest of HR
build the level of HR business partner capabilities they need to do that
organize their roles in new ways, and communicate clearly how you expect them to operate and contribute.
Leading the development of this critical in-house resource
It’s important to emphasize that all three elements noted above are crucial to the success of HRBPs – and they are interconnected.
Implementing just one recommendation won’t achieve the desired outcomes.
Equally importantly, this isn’t about increasing headcount costs; it’s about enhancing the training and utilization of the people you already have.
Indeed, in some organizations, there are significant numbers of HRBPs; myself and The Josh Bersin Company have worked with organizations where there are 200 or more in place.
So, the mission of the CHRO is to develop them, help them build the right relationships across the business, give them the support they need, and consciously organize them for success.
For capability development, some of that investment will go towards formal learning programs.
However, a significant portion will also be dedicated to facilitating mentorships and fostering connections.
This approach works best by consciously placing HRBPs in project roles where they can expand their knowledge and gain valuable exposure.
How to move to next-gen HRBP ground-level support
A Systemic HR approach, a concept The Josh Bersin Company introduced to the market last year, can be the driver of transformation here.
Why? Because by its very definition, Systemic HR transforms HR from a siloed service provider into an integrated, consultative function that tackles a company’s most pressing business challenges.
By doing so, the HRBP evolves from an HR ‘jack of all trades’ to a highly-skilled, data- and technology-savvy business consultant.
According to our research, only 11% of companies operate a truly Systemic HR function, so there is huge opportunity here – and these organizations have much higher company growth, delight their customers, innovate more, and create a great place to work.
Next-generation HRBPs can accelerate the journey towards Systemic HR and drive successful business outcomes.
However, to achieve this, you must be prepared to both pose and find answers to questions such as:
What are my new-style HRBPs’ specific accountabilities?
What does success look like?
How will our newly-energized and skilled-up HRBPs interact with managers and leaders?
Evidence from front-rank organizations, like TomTom, a geolocation technology company that specializes in mapping, navigation, and real-time traffic information services, suggests a move to a more integrated, fully data-driven, Systemic HR framework can deliver significant benefits.
In its case, TomTom has strategically restructured its HRBP team, moving away from a traditional, rigid HR model to a more fluid, team-based approach.
Its HRBPs are now organized into cross-functional teams that operate with flat hierarchies, allowing for quicker decision-making and more responsive HR practices.
Its HRBPs also now sit on the HR strategy and strategic business partnering team, which also includes HR strategy, people analytics and insights, HR portfolio management, and organizational development.
Working across this group, collaborating with the business, and supporting the highest-priority initiatives makes the HR function much more impactful.
Through this organizational model, TomTom ensures that its HRBPs are well-equipped to support the organization’s dynamic needs, driving effectiveness and efficiency.
Achieving ‘Master Builder’ HRBP capability
TomTom is not the only one looking at a new way to utilize HRBPs. Famous Danish toy leader The LEGO Group has taken a proactive approach to building HRBP capabilities.
Specifically, it implemented a series of initiatives aimed at enhancing business acumen, leadership skills, and understanding of complex organizational dynamics.
This includes specialized training programs to equip HRBPs with skills in change management, organization design, and coaching and developing leaders.
This new approach to the HRBP also centers on supporting their participation in cross-functional projects so as to develop a deeper understanding of its multiple business units and achieve a truly holistic view of the organization.
Doing so broadens their perspective and enhances their ability to contribute to strategic discussions and initiatives. This is an approach many other organizations can and should explore, as it’s a great way to develop full-stack HRBP capabilities.
In summary, HRBPs are incredibly important to organizational success, but along the way, we lost sight of how to maximize their potential fully.
As businesses accelerate under the influence of AI and other factors, this oversight becomes a luxury we cannot afford.
Therefore, the CHRO must prioritize developing HRBPs to enable their business to outperform competitors, nurture talent, and cultivate the innovation-driven organization necessary to thrive and endure.
原文来自：https://www.unleash.ai/strategy-and-leadership/why-its-time-for-hr-business-partners-2-0/
是时候重塑人才招聘了 -Research Shows It’s Time To Reinvent Talent AcquisitionJosh Bersin 的文章 "研究表明，是时候重塑人才招聘了 "强调了人才招聘亟需进行的变革。由于只有 32% 的人力资源高管参与战略规划，而且许多人觉得自己只是个接单员，因此这篇文章呼吁进行战略改革。在劳动力短缺和急需技能型招聘的情况下，目前削减成本和减少招聘力度的方法与对技能型专业人才日益增长的需求相矛盾。文章敦促企业将人才招聘作为一项重要的战略职能，利用现代技术并将其与学习和发展相结合，以提高效率并关注内部人才流动。
原文如下：
This week we published a disappointing research study, Talent Acquisition at a Crossroads. The study, conducted in partnership with AMS, points out that talent acquisition leaders (this is a senior position) are largely left out of their company’s strategic planning process and many feel they operate as “order takers.”
In today’s world of labor and skills shortages, this is a wakeup call for change.
Here’s the data:
Among these 130+ HR executives only 32% are involved in any form of strategic workforce planning, 42% believe their company has no workforce plan at all, and 46% say “they’re running around to keep up.” And when layoffs do occur, often the recruiters go first. (Witness Tesla this week.)
All this is happening in a world where 58% of companies feel skills shortages are significantly impacting their business plans, more than three-quarters believe they must transform their talent practices to grow, and “skills-based hiring” is a top priority yet difficult to implement.
Here’s the paradox: companies are cutting their talent acquisition spending at the same time CEOs feel that skills shortages are getting worse. What’s going on?
Talent Acquisition Needs A Reinvention
Let’s just face it: recruiting as a business function has to change. Once considered the “staffing department,” where companies posted jobs and scanned resumes, talent acquisition has become highly strategic operation. What skills do we need? How do we find people who will fit our culture? What internal candidates should fill our key positions? Who are the right leaders for us to hire?
Unfortunately, almost 80% of talent acquisition functions are quite tactical. PwC’s CEO survey found that CEOs rate “hiring” as the third most bureaucratic process in their companies, tied with “too many emails” and “too many meetings” as a time-wasting process. And that explains why two-thirds of TA leaders are being asked to cut costs.
I had a conversation last week with a former TA leader for one of the Big Three automakers. He told me that in the fervor to hire staff for EV engineering he was asked to hire “any engineer he could find, regardless of skill,” because the company was in such a hurry. No time for skills assessment, competitive planning, or even location analysis. Just “go out there and hire engineers.”
We have been studying the auto industry as part of our GWI study and found that important EV roles (reliability engineer or power plant engineer, for example), are quite specialized and hard to find. Strategic recruiting departments need to understand these roles and source these individuals carefully. Just hiring engineering grads from a local community college is not going to move this needle.
(Consider the data by Draup on what these roles are. Talent Acquisition teams with talent intelligence skills can pinpoint who to hire.)
And it gets worse. In our Dynamic Organization research we found that high performing companies focus heavily on internal hiring, talent intelligence tools to find hidden talent, and continuous internal development to fill skills gaps. We can’t simply throw job requisitions over to the recruiting function any more: the people we need may be buried inside the company.
This week Tesla announced a layoff of 10% of their workforce. Was their time to balance and redeploy talent internally? Absolutely not. According to my sources every business unit had to let 10% go, and and many of the people being fired were talent acquisition leaders, the very people who help with these issues.
We talk with many HR executives and there is an enlightened group. Companies that understand this issue (about one in eight) have elevated Talent Acquisition to a strategic function, they merge or integrate TA with L&D, and they redefine their recruiters as “talent advisors.” Mastercard, as a leader, just renamed their recruiters as “Career Coaches,” demonstrating their role in helping people find the right jobs.
Despite the onslaught of AI, this role is becoming even more human-centric. High-powered recruiting teams source internal candidates, understand company culture, and have a deep knowledge of jobs, roles, and organizational dynamics. When well supported and trained, these professionals are strategic advisors, not just “recruiters.” And companies that understand this often outsource or automate much of the administration in recruiting.
Technology plays a major role in this reinvention. Most large companies have dozens of legacy systems, many of which make the candidate experience difficult. When organizations focus on modernizing and streamlining their technology, talent acquisition can become 10-100X more efficient. This, in turn, gives recruiters and talent advisors the time to search for the right skills, carefully select the best candidates, and focus on internal hiring and development as a strategy.
Technology Is Here But Not The Entire Answer
Of all the HR technology markets, recruiting is the most innovative of all. New AI-powered systems like HiredScore (just acquired by Workday), Paradox (leader in conversational AI), Eightfold, Gloat, Draup, and Lightcast (pioneers in talent intelligence), and many others can reduce time to hire from months to weeks and weeks to days. But none of this technology works if the Talent Acquisition team is left on an island.
In the last year I have met with more than 50 heads of talent acquisition and once the door is closed and we talk honestly, they always tell me the same thing. “We are not treated as a strategic function, we are being asked to cut costs, and we are constantly running from fire to fire to keep executives happy.” This type of “service-delivery” focus simply will not work in the new economy.
What should companies do? As part of our Systemic HR initiative, we help companies evolve their TA Function to operate in a more strategic way. Organizations like Bayer, Verizon, and many others have elevated the role of recruiter to talent advisor, they’re building skills in talent intelligence, and they’re integrating the recruiting function with L&D, career management, and employee engagement.
I’ve always felt that recruiting is the most important things HR professionals do. If we can’t get the “right” people into the company, no amount of management can recover. But what does “right” mean? And how can we source, locate, and attract these particular people?
This is a highly strategic operation, and one that must integrate with internal mobility, culture, and employee experience. I encourage you to read our Systemic HR research, join our Academy, or reach out to us or AMS for advice. In this new era of talent and skills shortages, we simply cannot run recruiting in this tactical way any longer.
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