Why an Outcomes-Driven Approach is the Future of Talent Management

Today’s issue of The Great Realization was guest-authored by MBO Partners VP of Enterprise Solutions Kristian Rayner

The modern workforce is undergoing multiple seismic shifts due to demographic changes, technological innovations spurred by generative artificial intelligence (AI) tools, and economic and geopolitical disruptions. Even though the jobs market has seen signs of cooling, vacancies continue to remain high as the older cohort of workers continue to exit the workforce in droves (the so-called Grey Tsunami).

Not only does this result in a shrinking headcount, it leads to an exodus of skills and specialized talent, further worsening the shortage.

The talent crunch is real and enterprises must battle amongst each other to attract and retain top talent.

To do this, however, business leaders must rethink their talent acquisition strategy.

Recruitment as a Box-Checking Exercise

For far too long, hiring managers have adopted a transactional approach in acquiring talent. When hiring for a position, a recruiter would cross candidates off a list based on what’s needed for a role, the skills required, educational background, demographic, certification, and professional experience.

While hiring based on a specific set of criteria isn’t entirely wrong by itself, this mindset leads recruiters and business leaders alike to think of jobs as if they fit in a box. When this mindset is adopted, applicants can get passed over for a role just because they didn’t fit the box.

Not only does this affect recruitment, but it also impacts an organization’s broader talent strategy.?

Today’s professionals are no longer cogs who fit in a finely-tuned machine, they’re change drivers who go on to drive similar changes elsewhere once they’ve gotten the job done. In a market experiencing a real talent crunch, adopting a transactional mindset in talent acquisition is severely limiting.

Focus on Internal Mobility

The name of the game today is agility, and that means internal mobility is needed to fully maximize the skills of an organization’s existing talent pool.

I’ve seen big companies make a push for internal mobility, where talent is moved to other roles because of their ability to achieve intended outcomes and not just because they fit certain criteria. Moving people internally is a great way of fostering employee engagement because people are given the opportunity to work on other projects they have the passion and ability to drive changes for. Unfortunately, emerging technologies such as AI haven't helped in upending this kind of thinking.

Leveraging AI for Recruitment

AI, specifically, generative AI has been seen as a boon in recruitment because it can help in analyzing candidate profiles based on job requirements and other criteria. While this frees up time spent on recruitment-related tasks, utilizing AI to screen applicants isn’t entirely a surefire way of assessing candidates since these AI-powered tools rely on the training materials provided to them. This essentially means that an applicant is eliminated or recommended to proceed to the next steps of the recruitment process based on a check box fed by humans to AI tools… and as I’ve said before, that kind of thinking is detrimental to talent acquisition.

Talent Acquisition Driven by Outcomes?

In a market that’s facing a talent crunch that’s poised to last for years, enterprises must hire based on who can enable them to achieve their intended outcomes, not on whether a prospect checks the right boxes. AI is not yet in a place where it can genuinely create something new as it is still highly dependent on data fed to it. … until that happens, anything that involves true reasoning, achieving outcomes, and creating new ideas will be human-driven.

Thus, individuals who focus on truly original work and non-transactional ways to get the job done will make themselves resistant to being made redundant in the face of emerging technologies.

An organization that deeply cares about driving outcomes and fostering innovation has to flip the paradigm on how they hire if they truly want to become a client of choice for top talent.

Trending Topics

• Deputy’s survey of more than 1,000 hourly workers across the U.S. revealed that 81% of Gen Xers say their current job doesn’t pay enough to make them feel financially secure, leading them to turn to second (sometimes third) jobs to make ends meet.
• Chipotle recently announced a new AI recruiting tool built by recruitment software company Paradox that would help the fast food chain to cut down hiring time by 75%. The AI tool is designed to chat with candidates in various languages, answer questions, collect basic information, schedule interviews, and send offer letters.
• The Department of Labor recently announced that it has recovered more than USD 1 billion in back wages and damages for American workers from January 2021 to September 2024.
• A report from Remote revealed that 67% of U.S. employers have lost talent to competitors who offered remote or hybrid work options to their employees in the past six months.