Issue link: https://www.e-digitaleditions.com/i/73199
Workforce Leadership A company might link up skills and competency management with learning management, thus ensuring that its workforce develops and maintains a profile of competitive skills. is the capital of success. The easier and more natural we make it for people to learn, the more successful the organisation becomes. It's that simple." All in all, talent management providers and consultancies are bullish on the current state of the market. "Many employers are having difficulty in hiring, as there is a mismatch between skill sets required and skill sets available," says Gary Bragar, HRO director at NelsonHall. "This has heightened organisational awareness and focus on acquiring, developing, and retaining the best talent." In countries experiencing an aging workforce—in the United States, the Baby Boom generation (currently one-third of the labour pool) will soon be retiring in droves—professional development training is increasingly important. Equally, in emerging economies such as China, a pronounced lack of job skills is driving parallel demand. The talent management provider universe is meeting these needs in innovative ways. "Learning technologies have advanced dramatically over the last few years, and there have been significant improvements in both systems capabilities and user adoption," says Henry Barenholz, senior director of global BPO at Oracle. "This has been complemented by the growth of the cloud as a rapid and effective deployment mechanism." In this quest for talent enhancement, several best practices are in play. Chief among them is integration—linking up talent management practices that historically were housed in discrete silos or different departments to achieve a more coherent view of talent and better align it with business goals. For example, a company might pair skills and competency management with learning management to ensure that its workforce develops and maintains a profile of competitive skills. "Integration is the current 'holy grail,' " says Paul Marchant, head of channel and alliances/ UK at Lumesse. Others agree. Debbi Franci, vice president of HR BPO solutions at Aon Hewitt, says that buyers are increasingly evaluating the purchase of more than one application from a single technology vendor for their learning, performance, succession planning, compensation, and recruiting objectives. "Companies seek to integrate and tie data together from these various applications," she says. "In doing so, some are willing to give up best-in-class functionality to gain reduced complexity and cost." Franci notes that a hybrid approach nonetheless predominates: "Clients might be combining certain modules from a single vendor, such as performance and recruiting or performance SPRING 2012 | www.hroglobal.com [31]