The impact of Employee Value Proposition on the global Talent Acquisition process
Talent Acquisition has become a resource grail for many organisations, whether in-house or out-sourced. However, recent surveys have shown that companies operating in fast-growing economies have particularly complex problems in attracting and retaining critical skill employees and in effectively sourcing talent from the global candidate base that is, or aspires to, excellence.
The need for an integrated approach linking Employee Value Proposition to TA may seem like an obvious given, but such a statement ignores the need to ‘market’ a company or ‘attract’ talent to an organisation in ways that move outside the traditional search and acquisition process.
EVP, social media and market drivers
Social media has become one of the most pronounced drivers of organisational reputation and it is also a source of informal EVP, which can be extremely sensitive to regional and cultural differences. As a result, highly sought candidates, whether critical skill or top talent, are much more likely to weave formal and informal EVP into a matrix when making decisions about opportunity, or when communicating their own experience of an organisation. The water cooler is now global and universally accessible, what is said around it is shared in real time and opportunities to communicate formal EVP in relation to informal EVP can be highly limited.
Is Talent Acquisition becoming more like marketing every day?
In tight markets where there is acute competition for talent, the acquisition process is not just an analytical tool, nor simply a recruitment strategy, although both of these are vital. EVP can create new opportunities for recruitment and retention by providing a global structure within which every employee can locate themselves and which can serve as a format for the communication of informal EVP.
This global-to-local matrix of EVP works particularly well where organisations operate in regional markets with their own imperatives. Linking their current employees, as a talent base, to future talent acquisition allows for highly localised communication, based on a universally defined EVP. This can serve differentiation regionally, by specialism or by project, without creating a silo within which one talent pool becomes isolated. As a result, both geographical and skills-based segregation can be prevented, whilst sophisticated EVP treatment based on local or tasked related conditions can operate.
Talent Acquisition and brand communication
Talent acquisition has a relatively short history in relation to Human Resources, and it’s development in relation to EVP may be seen as simply a factor of marketing and public relations. This is a failure of opportunity, whether talent acquisition is in-house or a specialist external function. Building upon talent acquisition allows an organisation to extend the Employee Value Proposition via communication outside the company and delivery upon the proposition inside it.
A well-defined EVP, effectively communicated and delivered against, creates substantial benefits for any organisation. It allows the company to create brand distinction, to differentiate from their competitors for talent, and to tailor a global EVP to critical regional or specialist need without deviating from brand or creating employment silos which can inhibit supra-level organisational progress. In other words, it allows an organization to become a ‘talent magnet’.
Let the debate begin: Is your organisation a ‘talent magnet’?
With 100 of Africa’s top HR professionals in attendance and key speakers from some of the continent’s biggest brands, Recruiting Excellence for Africa is a must attend event shaping and investigating the recruitment process in top African businesses. Don’t miss out on this opportunity to participate in some of the most cutting edge discussions revolving around the HR industry.
To find out more please visit our Talent Agenda 2014 Johannesburg website.