How HRMS Can Be Used to Develop a Talent Marketplace

These days, larger organisations with more diverse talent pools are beginning to utilise new approaches to work allocation as a measure of talent management and development. The talent marketplace is an employee-centric format in which individuals are assigned to projects – or even better, asked to choose their own projects – according to their personal skillsets, knowledge and experience. The idea is not only to achieve a perfect match between the person and the job but to engage that person in the matching process itself.

Often, a talent marketplace strategy seeks to utilize the abilities of the most productive and ‘talented’ employees. In the right environment, this approach can enhance productivity, motivation, and ownership of (and commitment to) key projects. Another plus point is that it can boost the development of top performers to even greater levels.

Challenge #1: Our Organizations Are Too Small to Implement a Talent Marketplace

So far, American Express and IBM are the most frequently-cited examples of organisations operating a talent marketplace and smaller organisations can find it a difficult concept to implement. One big hindrance is the simple logistics of locating the right individuals with the right skills and knowledge from within the workforce. This is one area where a sufficiently flexible HRMS with learning and talent management records can be used to search and match projects to skills (both existing skills and potential – i.e. employees who would be able to both contribute to and benefit from the project).

Challenge #2: Our Organization’s Talent Management Processes Are Externally Focussed

Another problem is that when it comes to talent management, too many organisations have an external focus; setting up talent pipelines and concentrating on hiring and recruitment. Again, an HRMS system with the right talent management functionality can assist in identifying and developing internal skills for future projects (and, at the same time, reduce the rate at which talent might be lost to competitors).

The Solution: HRMS Talent Management and a Standardized Competence Framework

Modern HRMS talent management modules offer a number of features that can develop, align and identify talent at different stages and that, coupled with a standardized competence framework or similar tool that creates a common corporate language for discussing and measuring capability, can facilitate the talent marketplace concept. These features can and often do include mobile solutions, social collaboration, directory features, and more sophisticated time, attendance and availability functions for workforce management.

What this comes down to, is a shift of mindset and culture from ‘push’ (i.e. allocating the work to the talent) to ‘pull’ (attracting the talent to the work), similar to the shift in emphasis in recruitment practices that have been aided by technology in recent years.