Siloed hiring prevents talent mix being optimised
Organisational silos are the biggest barrier to employers hiring the optimum mix of employed and non-employed talent, such as contingent workers, freelancers, independent contractors and consultants, according to a report commissioned by recruiter Alexander Mann Solutions.
The report found that organisational silos were the main barrier to organisations optimising their talent mix, with 75% of those who contributed to the report citing it.
Toward a Total Talent Future says the nub of the problem is that in many organisations different groups control the hiring of different types of talent.
Based on a survey of hundreds of leaders in, primarily, enterprise US and European organisations, the report found that typically HR was responsible for full-time employee recruiting and/or the management of RPO (recruitment process outsourcing) relationships, while procurement took the lead in overseeing the provision of non-employed talent, either directly or through an MSP (managed services programme). But some organisations also had a third area of responsibility in that IT recruitment was independently being managed solely by a talent group within the IT function.
A procurement analyst for a government services organisation, who participated in the survey, explained the negative effects of siloed hiring; “When one type of talent is overseen by HR and one by procurement, you can never get a full picture – you need to understand the bottlenecks in both the employee and the contingent journey.”
Commenting on the report, Helen Houghton, director of contingent workforce solutions at Alexander Mann Solutions, said; “Solving this challenge isn’t easy, but to address the problem of organisational siloes, all sides must see clear benefits. With the top drivers of total talent acquisition ranging from controlling labour costs (cited by 69% of respondents), skills shortages (61%) and the need to collect workforce data (61%), the evidence is there to support the need for strategic total talent acquisition. We just need to ensure the conversation is happening.”
Other significant barriers to achieving the best mix of employed and non-talent within an organisation were the lack of data analytics for making decisions, and the absence of a business case with a compelling ROI (return on investment), the report found.
