The Rhythm of Business: Highs, Lows, and Missed Opportunities.

Imagine this: You're at a concert, and the drummer is a bit off-beat. The guitarist and the bassist are doing their best to keep up, but the harmony is not there. Now, replace that drummer with your Talent strategy and the other band members with your C-suite. If they're not all in sync, you're not going to make great music—in this case, a harmonious, efficient, and effective Talent ecosystem.

The same holds for your Talent and Digital Transformation strategies; timing is everything. The natural inclination for most businesses is to hold off on significant changes during economic downturns, waiting instead for the light at the end of the proverbial tunnel to green-light any transformation projects. This reactive strategy might make sense at first glance, but let’s dig deeper and understand why this is a missed opportunity of colossal proportions.

More often than not, Talent and digital transformations are executed at the least optimal time.

Does the following scenario sound familiar?

PEAK PERIOD

The Talent team are evaluating and analysing its Talent strategy around people processes and technology and is about to go to market for further investment to help revolutionise how it attracts, selects and hires talent.

RECESSION

***NOTE - DURING THE RECESSION PERIOD IS WHEN YOU SHOULD EVALUATE, STRATEGISE, EXECUTE AND OPTIMISE YOUR PEOPLE PROCESS AND TECHNOLOGY STRATEGY - THIS IS THE PERFECT PERIOD OF DOWNTIME BUT...***        

C-Suite tells Talent Acquisition to slow hiring volumes.

In some cases, hiring externally comes to a complete standstill.

C-Suite tells Talent Leaders to start reducing headcount in the Talent org and look at where else they can reduce the OPEX and CAPEX of Talent.

Talent Leader reduces Talent team to one-third of two-thirds of what they originally had.

The remaining Talent team work on projects to keep them busy. The most common project is what is aptly named 'internal mobility initiatives', which should be known as 'forced mobility' because some employees are being forced into roles they don't want to do based on their skills profile that AI chose for them or what is positioned as 'hybrid roles' which in reality is also known as 'doing two jobs and doubling your workload.'

Apologies. I digress.

TROUGH

C-Suite starts to see the light at the end of the tunnel or have a line of sight of the inevitable hockey stick they've been looking for as the business shifts into Recovery and Expansion mode.

C-Suite hands down a list of hiring demands to Talent Leaders to articulate what talent they need to get back into the business to help achieve their revenue recovery goals.

Talent Leaders find a quiet room in their empty office because everyone works from home and bangs their heads against the wall. They have fewer people and disjointed hiring processes because they reduced their tech stack when the C-Suite told them they needed to reduce OPEX and CAPEX.?

***THIS IS WHEN THE C-SUITE TYPICALLY TAKE THE BUDGET SHACKLES OFF TALENT LEADERS AND TELLS THEM TO GO AND MAKE MIRACLES HAPPEN***        

C-Suite finally released a ‘some’ budget, which is used to bring an RPO onsite, throw some roles out to recruitment agencies and up the ante on job postings to attract Talent (even though your EVP strategy budget also had a blow torch taken to it at the start of all this).

EXPANSION

And there you are, back in Expansion mode with a Talent team scrambling to assemble a jigsaw puzzle with pieces that no longer fit. This isn’t just firefighting; it’s playing catch-up in a marathon you were never prepared for. This is the very scenario that keeps Talent Leaders up at night.

HERE'S WHAT YOUR C-SUITE NEED TO KNOW AND UNDERSTAND.

This strategy is nothing more than a reactive, money-burning, transactional strategy with no long-term impact on your business. Yes, RPOs are a great thing and can add fluidity to your business (we work with many), and yes, you certainly will need to use job boards and recruitment agencies for niche or hard-to-fill roles, BUT don’t put all your eggs in those baskets. Short-term strategies like this have no long-term impact on your business, and you are burning money that you could have invested in longer-term playbooks on a Talent strategy that has fluidity in people, process and technology that can scale up and down or change shape and tact dependent on what the market does and what your business needs.

Instead of reacting, let’s be proactive. When hiring volumes are low, and the Talent team is often underutilised, the trough of an economic cycle is the prime time to reevaluate, strategise, and implement digital and talent transformations.?

Here's why:

1?? Optimised Budgeting and ROI predictions: Many modern service providers offer more favourable terms in a recession. Use this downtime to work with vendors to build the business case, get the budget you need, and return accurate ROI predictions.

2?? Transformation Team: Use this time to create a dedicated transformation team within your existing talent group. The hiring volume is low, freeing valuable human resources to strategise and implement changes.

3?? Streamlined Processes: Revisit your workflows. Downtime allows for a thorough audit of your hiring processes and candidate journey, ensuring you come out leaner and more efficient.

4?? Talent Pools: The lull allows you to focus on building relationships with potential future hires. When the upswing comes, you'll have a pre-engaged pool of talent, reducing your time-to-hire.

5?? Tech Overhaul: Your tech stack should be agile and capable of scaling up or down depending on economic conditions. Use this time to implement systems that give you this flexibility, like SmartRecruiters.

FINAL THOUGHTS

We have many complimentary resources at SmartRecruiters to help you evaluate, strategise, transform and optimise your Talent strategy, now and in the future. If you would like some of these, join us at our event in November in Sydney or check out our resources page for publicly available resources.

I urge C-Suite executives to rethink their timing. Empower your Talent Leaders at the onset of a downturn, enabling them to build a resilient, adaptable hiring engine that survives and thrives during economic upswings.

If you can successfully execute your talent and digital transformation in the trough, you’re not just preparing for the future. You’re redefining it.