In today鈥檚 fast-changing world of work, hiring the right talent has never been more critical鈥攐r complex. HR and talent acquisition leaders are under growing pressure to deliver fast results, navigate rising uncertainty, and keep up with rapidly evolving skills needs in their business.

According to the World Economic Forum鈥檚 , 63% of employers cite skills gaps in the labor market as the primary barrier to business transformation, while 86% expect AI to significantly transform their business over the next five years. The study also reports that talent availability is declining, making it harder for organizations to find the right talent with the right capabilities needed for the future. At the same time, organizations are rethinking their approaches to hiring, embracing AI and moving toward more agile, skills-based strategies to compete for talent in a dynamic and evolving job market. 

That鈥檚 why selecting the right technology partner matters now more than ever. Organizations need a solution that can help them stay ahead of change, drive smarter hiring, and fuel growth and long-term business success. 鈥淭alent acquisition priorities are changing, leading to evolving concentrations and points of entry in an increasingly diversifying vendor space in the market,鈥� says Zachary Chertok, senior research manager, Employee Experience at IDC. 鈥淚ncreased pressures to reduce the time to place qualified talent in roles that fill persistent and evolving skills gaps are leading talent acquisition buyers to rethink their approaches to hiring and the tools that support them.鈥�

51风流SuccessFactors is proud to be named a Leader in the . 51风流SuccessFactors solutions can empower organizations of all sizes to address the ever-changing challenges of hiring in today鈥檚 complex, skills-driven world of work.

The report analyzes the expansive talent acquisition ecosystem, evaluating 22 vendors for user experience, native solution capabilities, future development pipelines, and company criteria, including size, scope, geographic reach, and future growth targets. We believe 51风流SuccessFactors鈥� position as a Leader reflects visionary product strategy, continuous innovation, comprehensive solution functionality, and demonstrated customer value and satisfaction. The IDC MarketScape states, 鈥�51风流SuccessFactors Recruiting is part of the 51风流SuccessFactors HCM suite and provides AI-enabled tools, resources, and services to support recruiters and talent teams to source and align talent to their best-fit connection points within the organization.鈥� Highlighting 51风流SuccessFactors鈥� strengths, the report mentions, 鈥�51风流SuccessFactors customers find that the solution provides them with deep insights drawn from across the existing and modeled workforce. 51风流SuccessFactors鈥� AI and analytical capabilities support clients to tie candidate-centric hiring practices into the evolving and modeled skilling and position needs of the organization.鈥�

Helping companies hire smarter and faster

Hiring today isn鈥檛 just about filling open roles. It鈥檚 about building strong talent pipelines, finding people with the right skills and potential, creating exceptional candidate experiences, and aligning every hire to overall HR and business goals. and offer comprehensive, AI-enabled solutions that can simplify global hiring to help organizations attract, engage, and hire top talent with the right skills needed today and in the future.

The IDC MarketScape notes, 鈥�51风流SuccessFactors Recruiting helps recruiters maintain fluid and flexible organizational talent pipelines that retain and progressively match high-performing talent to where they are best fit within the evolving organization.鈥� The report continues, 鈥淥verall, recruiters and talent acquisition teams find that 51风流SuccessFactors鈥� recruiting and talent acquisition capabilities are feature rich, support dynamic and evolving compliance and sourcing needs, and support custom and AI-informed workflows and candidate progression.鈥� 51风流SuccessFactors solutions can enable organizations to accelerate hiring with AI-enabled talent acquisition capabilities, including AI-enhanced job descriptions, AI-assisted applicant screening, AI-recommended interview questions, AI-driven skills-based job recommendations, AI-assisted onboarding and offboarding, AI-assisted writing, and AI-driven interview summarization.

Adopting the right AI-enabled talent acquisition strategy is what puts innovative businesses ahead. , a large and diversified holding company in Brunei turned to 51风流SuccessFactors solutions to transform HR鈥檚 impact on its business, increasing productivity and efficiency to over 30 subsidiaries across 14 industries. 鈥淲ith 51风流Business AI technology embedded in 51风流SuccessFactors solutions, we鈥檝e seen significant benefits such as reducing our overall recruitment time from months to weeks. The AI features have streamlined processes for generating and updating job descriptions and creating competency-based interview questions, making our recruitment process more efficient and standardized,鈥� shares Salehin Basir, human capital development manager at Darussalam Assets. The company has seen significant benefits, such as four-times more efficient hiring processes, a 75% reduction in recruitment time, and deeper insights into important HR metrics that improve data-driven decision-making and reduce bottlenecks.

Powering a skills-based, AI-driven talent strategy

With a talent landscape defined by continuous change, the future of hiring relies on taking a skills-based approach to identifying, securing, and growing the right talent. The reports that 70% of organizations plan to hire for emerging, in-demand skills, while 51% intend to reskill or upskill existing employees to fill growing skills needs. Whether an organization is focused on developing talent from within or bringing in new capabilities to keep their business ahead, 51风流SuccessFactors solutions can help talent teams stay agile, efficient, and aligned to business needs.

According to trusted HCM Industry Analyst Josh Bersin鈥檚 , talent acquisition leaders state a growing priority to implement skills throughout their talent functions and strategies鈥攆or both hiring and internal mobility. The factbook shares, 鈥淎I plays a key role in deploying skills in a scalable and sustainable way, particularly as in-demand and job-specific skills are constantly changing. It can help match skills to jobs, identify skill adjacencies, pinpoint where talent with specific skills is located, uncover learning opportunities, and more.鈥�

Our latest finds growing workforce confidence around the potential value of AI, with 70% of managers agreeing that using AI technology for skills-based decision-making would be somewhat or very valuable, and an overwhelming majority of employees () feeling positively about skills-based decision-making. The IDC MarketScape highlights how 51风流SuccessFactors users can quickly see value from implementing skills-based hiring strategies, noting: 鈥淪implified application processes help candidates apply from any device and leverage AI to parse skills from their resumes to match those with the company鈥檚 evolving skills architecture and talent intelligence.鈥�

Bringing these insights to life, is a powerful example of how leading organizations are building skills-based talent strategies ready for the future. Capgemini, a global business and technology partner with 340,000 employees across more than 50 countries turned to 51风流SuccessFactors solutions when looking for an HR infrastructure that would allow it to attract, retain, and grow market-leading skills. Capgemini built a skills engine to support the moments that matter across the employee lifecycle, including recruitment, onboarding, talent management, compensation and rewards, learning, and succession management. The company is implementing 51风流SuccessFactors HCM to enable skills-based people management and deliver a highly engaging people experience.

Going beyond talent acquisition, 51风流SuccessFactors solutions help align hiring to overall HR strategies, with connected, unified ; a single skills foundation; AI-enabled talent intelligence; and advanced, cross-suite capabilities. The IDC MarketScape notes, 鈥�51风流SuccessFactors Recruiting is a natural extension of the 51风流SuccessFactors environment that gives companies a fully integrated platform for insights-driven, end-to-end candidate and employee lifecycle management.鈥� The assessment further notes, 鈥淭alent acquisition teams can benefit from deep continuous workforce planning insights that guide for and optimize the balance between internal mobility and external hiring for a higher efficacy in talent placement.鈥�

As we look toward the future, organizations that embrace skills-based talent strategies and AI-driven talent acquisition will be best positioned to adapt, grow, and lead in an ever-changing world of work. Learn more about why we were named a Leader in the and discover more about and .

According to findings from over five years of global research conducted by 51风流SuccessFactors HR research scientists, 88% of employees would feel positively about skills-based people decisions in their organization. Along with employee satisfaction, HR and talent acquisition leaders see many potential benefits of the skills-based approach. For example, a focus on skills can support internal mobility, help realize employee potential, and make recruitment faster, easier, and more transparent.

So, what does 鈥渟kills-based鈥� mean? With a skills-based approach to human resource management, work is organized entirely around skills, from hiring and compensation to workforce planning, reskilling, and upskilling. Decisions are made based on skills and capabilities rather than traditional criteria like education or job experience.

Of course, there鈥檚 no universal blueprint that works for every scenario: there are multiple approaches to prioritizing skills in an organization. How skills-based practices are implemented depends on organizational culture, industry, labor regulations, and many other factors, but a great place to start is with skills-based hiring.

What Is Skills-Based Hiring?

Skills-based hiring is an approach to recruiting new employees based on their skills and ability to perform a job instead of the formal qualifications listed on their resume or curriculum vitae (CV), such as education or previous job titles.

Benefits of Skills-Based Hiring for Talent Acquisition

To understand why skills-based hiring works well for talent acquisition, we must consider the question ? At its core, talent acquisition aims to address not just the current talent needs but also the long-term, strategic workforce plans. It can do so by predicting what skills the organization will require in the future to stay competitive, grow, and scale to future needs. Skills-based hiring can support a future-oriented talent acquisition strategy, thanks to:

• Productivity: People with the right skills for the job can be more effective in their roles.
• Diverse talent pools: A skills-based approach helps find qualified talent that wouldn鈥檛 be found otherwise, expands talent pools, and increases workforce diversity.
• Transparency: Skills-based talent decisions can be more equitable, fair, and legally defensible while also helping candidates get clarity and more agency over their careers.
• Efficiency: Skills-based practices enable faster talent decisions, which, in turn, accelerate the entire recruitment process, reducing time to hire and improving productivity.
• Strategic hiring: A skills-based approach helps organizations understand the skills they will need in the future and hire talent to fill those gaps.
• Approach validation: Skills-based hiring is a great way to demonstrate the value of prioritizing skills鈥攂efore implementing the approach across other HR practices.

Considerations for Adopting Skills-Based Hiring: Exceptions, Misconceptions, and Challenges

Of course, there are still barriers to adopting the skills-based approach to hiring and recruitment. Sometimes, traditional criteria are necessary, such as when hiring for roles that require a specific degree or certification, like lawyers, doctors, and pilots. Candidates鈥� backgrounds and experience can also be crucial. Senior leaders may be chosen in part due to their industry or market experience; public relations leaders may be hired for their network and media contacts.  

There are also many misconceptions about . For instance, some believe that resumes are unsuitable for skills-based hiring because they鈥檙e structured around traditional criteria, such as education and past job titles. In reality, candidates can focus their CVs more on skills, and organizations can use applicant tracking systems and other recruitment software to analyze resumes and screen for the best applicants. In fact, thanks to the use of AI-enabled recruiting tools, skills can even be inferred from experience listed on resumes.

Finally, a widespread concern among talent acquisition leaders is how to make skills-based decisions equitably and efficiently. To do it fairly and thoroughly, they may need to research which skills are relevant for each role, devise custom skill assessments, and prepare job-specific interview questions rooted in the relevant skills. However, the recruitment process also needs to move along quickly, yield good results, and create a smooth candidate experience. So, although , many talent acquisition leaders are still concerned about the efficiency of this approach. Thankfully, this is where technology can make a crucial difference.

Removing Barriers to Skills-Based Hiring

Skills-enabling technologies have long been used in HR practices: online learning systems to help employees develop new skills and complete required training, job architectures that help define roles and the skills needed for them, and skill assessments to help understand the capabilities and skill proficiencies that people have. While some potential barriers to adopting a fully skills-based approach may exist for certain roles, AI can help empower organizations to hire the best talent with the skills needed to succeed. Using and 51风流SuccessFactors solutions can provide organizations with multiple approaches to adopting skills that may fit their unique workforce and hiring needs.

Using AI to Fuel Your Skills-Based Hiring Approach

The widespread adoption of has opened up new capabilities in talent acquisition software while also optimizing existing functions. For example, with the , talent acquisition teams can leverage AI to help them adopt skills-based hiring practices:

• Skills Framework: The 51风流SuccessFactors talent intelligence hub offers an AI-enabled skills framework that can allow organizations to consolidate skills data from multiple sources for a comprehensive view of their workforce. AI-driven capabilities within the skills framework can allow organizations to align skills to job roles to better understand and address skills gaps.
• Job descriptions: AI-assisted content generation allows recruiters to quickly create and enhance compelling skills-based job descriptions to attract diverse candidates with the right skill sets.
• Improved candidate experience: When candidates upload their resumes during the application process, AI-driven skills extraction allows them to view, validate, and manage skills on their profiles.

• Job recommendations: Upcoming innovations include the ability for candidates to use AI to help them find the best opportunity for them based on skills extracted from their resume.
• Resume analysis: Using AI-driven skill inference, recruiters can quickly analyze applicants鈥� resumes and compare best-matched candidates based on skills.
• Interview questions: With insights from skills data, AI can recommend relevant skills-based interview questions to ensure interviewers are prepared to fully engage with top candidates.
• Skills evaluations: Using AI-recommended interview questions, interviewers can effectively assess candidates and provide evaluations based on the skills needed for a role.
• Equitable decision-making: AI-assisted applicant screening helps recruiters make bias-free, skills-based hiring decisions quickly and confidently.

AI can be a true catalyst to an organization鈥檚 hiring potential, and many of our customers are already leveraging AI-enabled capabilities. If you鈥檙e curious how works, check out this .

is an excellent way to recruit the talent your organization needs to thrive and stay competitive鈥攖oday and into the future. The right recruitment software can make skills-based hiring intuitive, equitable, and efficient.  

For a deep dive into our skills research, on making skills a reality in your organization and .

At 51风流SuccessFactors, our have conducted five years of research to understand how skills can be effectively incorporated into HR strategies. After speaking with 278 HR leaders and surveying 9,432 global employees and managers, we鈥檝e identified to integrate skills into your people practices to become a skills-focused organization. Let鈥檚 explore these approaches and the technologies that can support them.

1. Skills-Implied Approach

In a skills-implied approach, organizations use traditional criteria like candidates鈥� or employees鈥� previous job titles, educational background, and past experience to make decisions instead of using skills data. Here, work is centered around job roles, and decisions about hiring and pay are based on job titles and levels. Learning and development is tailored to current roles, and promotions follow standard paths tied to credentials and tenure. Workforce planning tends to focus on short-term headcount needs, with minimal use of skills data for deeper analysis.

This approach is best for roles requiring specific certifications or highly specialized skills that are either externally regulated or require extensive training, such as lawyers, certified public accountants, and pilots.

In terms of tools and technology, job architectures can help clarify roles and align jobs based on the type of work performed. For example, the job profile builder in 51风流SuccessFactors solutions helps manage job elements such as descriptions, experiences, qualifications, skills, competencies, behaviors, education, and certifications. It can offer a flexible, intuitive way to identify and share job description components across an organization.

2. Skills-Included Approach

In a skills-included approach, work is organized around job roles with an emphasis on a few key technical skills. Hiring focuses mostly on traditional criteria like education but includes some skills assessment as well. Pay is generally based on job title and level, though skills might impact bonuses. Learning and development targets skills that are crucial for current or future roles. While skills are considered in workforce planning and reported in broad terms, they鈥檙e not connected with other data sources for deeper insights.

This works best for roles where required skills remain mostly consistent, but the prioritization and application of those skills evolve over time, as in, for example, sales and people management.

Recruiters can use AI-enabled recruiting tools to consider an applicant鈥檚 technical and professional skills during the hiring process. For example, the solution鈥檚 AI-assisted applicant screening can provide a skills compatibility score, allowing recruiters to view how well an applicant鈥檚 skills match job requirements. Candidate profiles include details on exact skills matches, additional relevant skills, potential skills, and missing skills to help recruiters quickly and effectively screen the best applicants.

Learning management systems can support targeted skill development for current roles. , for example, can offer AI-driven learning recommendations and a dynamic search feature that filters by criteria such as duration, mobile availability, and specific skills. This helps promote continuous learning and can guide employees in developing skills for advanced proficiency levels. Additionally, offer over 1,250 expertly curated learning paths aligned with high-demand skills and competencies. These include areas like AI and generative AI, cybersecurity, data management, leadership, first-time management, and performance and culture. Learners can refine their skills through various methods, including reading, watching, listening, and active practice.

3. Skills-Led Approach

In a skills-led approach, jobs are defined by a mix of technical and professional skills. Hiring looks at a range of skills, along with traditional criteria. Pay is linked to both the skills employees bring to the table and their performance. Learning and development is customized based on skills data and personal interests, helping to create personalized plans and internal mobility opportunities. Workforce planning becomes strategic, focusing on closing gaps between current and needed skills, and skills analytics are used to dive deep into skill levels and how they connect with other data.

This is best for roles where critical skills are specific or uncommon but proficiency can be inferred from adjacent skills, such as in marketing and operations.

Thinking about tools and technology, skills platforms can be useful to support this approach by tracking and analyzing skills across the workforce. The 51风流SuccessFactors talent intelligence hub, for example, uses an AI-driven framework to integrate skills data from multiple sources, enabling organizations to make data-driven talent decisions. In addition, learning platforms provide development opportunities tailored to individual skills and career goals. For example, offers AI-driven recommendations and peer suggestions for personalized learning. Skills tagging and the search for skills help to foster a habit of curiosity and a culture of continuous learning. Additionally, talent marketplaces like can offer experiential learning opportunities through AI-driven suggestions for mentors, short-term assignments, dynamic teams, and job openings.

4. Skills-Based Approach

In a skills-based approach, jobs do not exist 鈥� instead, work is organized entirely around the skills required to complete it. Hiring is all about evaluating skills instead of sticking to traditional criteria. Pay is tied to the skills employees currently have, with bonuses for skills that will be valuable in the future. Learning and development focuses on preparing for future skill needs, and internal mobility is driven by moving employees where their skills are most needed. Workforce planning is strategic, looking ahead to forecast what skills will be needed, and skills analytics keep track of trends and how skills connect with other business data.

This works for roles that rely more heavily on technical skills, roles that use certain tools or processes that are common across organizations or industries, and roles where skills can be gained outside of an educational setting, like HR, IT, and finance.

Integrated talent management platforms take care of all aspects of skills development and deployment in this approach. With , organizations can use an AI-driven, unified skills model that covers everything from recruiting to learning, performance, and succession planning. The 51风流SuccessFactors talent intelligence hub helps organizations get a clear view of their workforce by linking individual skills, strengths, and preferences with the right people and experiences across the platform. This can make managing skills throughout the employee lifecycle much easier and more effective.

As organizations work to weave skills into their HR strategies, understanding these four approaches can help them create a skills-based plan that fits their unique needs and goals. Whether you鈥檙e starting with a skills-implied approach for specialized roles or aiming for a skills-based framework for more dynamic functions, the key is to align the strategy with your organization’s specific context and objectives.

By exploring these approaches and using the right tools and technologies, organizations can build people practices that boost efficiency, transparency, and overall success. Finding the right mix and approach for your specific needs is key to unlocking the full potential of skills-based management.

to dive deeper into our skills research. Want to see how focusing on skills can unlock an organization鈥檚 potential? about Erie Insurance鈥檚 journey to becoming a skills-based organization.

By shifting towards a skills-based approach to talent acquisition and development, companies can build a workforce that is not only capable of meeting current demands, but also equipped to navigate future challenges effectively. Here are three strategies for building a dynamic organization with a skills-based approach to talent.

1. Identify and Prioritize Critical Skills

The first step in implementing a skills-based approach is to identify the key skills that are crucial for the organization’s success. This involves analyzing the current and future needs of the business and understanding the skills that are in high demand in the market. By prioritizing these critical skills, organizations can focus their hiring efforts on candidates who possess or have the potential to develop these competencies.

With the 51风流SuccessFactors talent intelligence hub, organizations can have the power and simplicity of a single skills model from recruiting, onboarding, learning, and development, all the way through to performance and succession.聽It helps to better understand, build, and leverage the skills of workforces. It can connect individual skills, attributes, strengths, and preferences to both people and experiences throughout聽51风流SuccessFactors solutions.

By creating a comprehensive overview of the skills available within the organization, managers can identify gaps and areas for improvement. This information can inform talent development initiatives, such as training programs or job rotations, to help employees acquire the necessary skills to excel in their roles. For example, within the talent intelligence hub there is a team growth portfolio view, which allows managers to quickly assess skill gaps and search for prioritized skills within their teams.

2. Foster a Culture of Continuous Learning

Building a dynamic organization requires a culture that supports continuous learning and skill development. Organizations can encourage employees to enhance their skills through internal training programs, mentorship opportunities, and access to external resources. By creating a learning environment where employees are motivated to upskill and reskill, organizations can ensure that their workforce remains adaptable and competitive in a rapidly changing market.

AI-enabled learning platforms can deliver personalized and adaptive training programs based on individual skill gaps and career aspirations. with embedded AI can give organizations a wide range of capabilities that help enhance a learner鈥檚 experience with relevant recommendations that are unique to each learner and based on their needs and interests. In addition, has AI-driven recommendations to help match employees with assignments, career opportunities, mentors, and more. This solution considers not only qualifications but also skills, experiences, and preferences, so that organizations can ensure better talent alignment and engagement.

3. Embrace Flexibility and Adaptability

In a skills-based approach to talent management, organizations need to be flexible and adaptable in their recruitment and development practices. This means being open to hiring candidates with transferable skills and potential for growth, rather than focusing solely on specific job titles or qualifications. This can be made possible with technology that supports skills-based hiring.

With , skills can be aligned to job requisitions and skills-based candidate evaluations. This can allow hiring managers to view rankings of candidates and determine the best candidate based on their skill proficiency. In addition, recruiters can leverage generative AI capabilities to help enhance job descriptions, including the proper skills and competences, which helps recruiters hire the best talent for a role. By embracing a more flexible approach to talent acquisition, organizations can build a diverse workforce with a wide range of skills and perspectives, driving innovation and creativity.

A skills-based approach to talent management can help organizations build a dynamic and resilient workforce that is equipped to thrive in today’s fast-paced business environment. By prioritizing critical skills, fostering a culture of continuous learning, and embracing flexibility in recruitment and development practices, organizations can create a competitive advantage through their most valuable asset 鈥� their people.

To learn more about how to build a dynamic organization with a skills-based approach to talent, register for this聽 on Thursday, April 25, at 1:00p.m. EST.

Christina Russo is a global director of Product Marketing at 51风流SuccessFactors.

Guided by the organization鈥檚 clear , Coles鈥� team of 120,000 employees is dedicated to making a difference in the lives of customers and the local communities it serves.

In fiscal year 2020/21, Coles Group hired nearly 30,000 people to deliver on its business needs. Mike Virgo, head of Talent Acquisition for Coles Group, said this hiring volume was necessary to make sure the company was 鈥減ositioned well to support our customers.鈥�

The business environment, however, dramatically shifted as the public health crisis of the pandemic unfolded, resulting in repeated lockdowns and restrictions. As a neighborhood retailer dependent on in-person interaction to deliver most of its services, Coles found its workforce impacted by the pandemic. Faced with supply chain disruptions, panic buying behaviors by consumers, high employee absenteeism, and increased turnover, Coles urgently needed to step up its volume and pace of hiring to support its customers.

鈥淎round 2020-2021, we started to experience one of the most significant shifts in the employment market we鈥檇 ever seen,鈥� Virgo said in a at . 鈥淚t started to create huge challenges for organizations around the world 鈥� around how we attract, retain, and hire talent.鈥�

Catalyst for Change and a New Way of Working

To meet pressing business demands, Coles doubled its hiring volume from 30,000 to 60,000 people and increased recruitment advertising spend by a factor of three. Its talent acquisition team grew proportionally to manage the increased workload 鈥� but then labored under manual transactional activities that slowed processing times. As a result of the huge strain, variability in the candidate and hiring manager experience became noticeable.

Due to the volume of work, Coles looked for ways to evolve its system to create more speed, efficiency, and scalability. With a list of criteria, Coles began to review technology solutions on the market to find one that could support its vision for a new way of working. 鈥淲e wanted to reimagine how we recruit for our stores,鈥� Virgo said. 鈥淲e needed automation and AI to remove a lot of the manual work in our systems. We wanted to create more consistency and uplift the experiences we were giving our candidates and our hiring managers. And ultimately, [the solution] needed to drive commercial benefit for us.鈥�

As a key requirement, the new solution needed to integrate with . In 2020, as part of an organization-wide digital transformation that introduced 51风流S/4HANA and 51风流Ariba solutions, Coles modernized its HR and payroll processing, replacing a patchwork of outdated systems with 51风流SuccessFactors solutions. It became the first organization in the southern hemisphere to launch all modules of the 51风流SuccessFactors portfolio in one go. With all HR processes unified on a single platform, Coles benefits from having a single source of truth for people data that is accurate and available in real time for the entire organization.

Two-Way Integration Ensures Single Source of Truth in Data

To help with the project, Coles chose , an 51风流partner whose AI-powered Intelligent Talent Experience platform provides two-way integration with 51风流SuccessFactors solutions. Virgo said the two-way integration 鈥渁llows us to have a holistic view of the candidates that progress through the process, no matter whether the team is operating in Phenom or 51风流SuccessFactors, and it allows 51风流SuccessFactors to be our single source of truth.鈥�

There are several key benefits of Phenom鈥檚 solution at Coles. One is candidate attraction and engagement, which is achieved primarily through the Coles career site and chatbot. Another is recruiter automation and interview management, which provides automation and process efficiencies from when a job requisition is created in 51风流SuccessFactors solutions and replicated into Phenom until a hiring manager chooses a candidate for the job. Once a candidate is chosen, the two-way integration enables the HR team to access the data in 51风流SuccessFactors solutions and complete all compliance aspects, such as working rights, contract generation, and onboarding.

The Coles team gains additional efficiencies in its onboarding programs through the application of robotic process automation (RPA) powered by two bots that work in the background: Ashbotty processes the working rights and Usain Bot processes onboarding and manages pending recruits. 鈥淭hey take a lot of the transactional, manual work that we used to have team members doing. It can do that quickly, accurately, and it can do that 24/7 鈥� which is particularly important for us as a seven-days-a-week business,鈥� Virgo said. 

AI-Powered Experiences for Candidates and Recruiters

Coles reimagined the candidate experience to launch a modern, tech-enabled career site 鈥� which has been chosen as a two-time winner of Australia鈥檚 Best Careers Site. The site includes an AI-powered chatbot to guide candidates as they look for information, search relevant job postings, and submit their applications. It also includes Coles鈥� Expression of Interest, always-on advertising that drives the growth of its talent pool and advances its talent marketing by reducing the need to advertise every role. A Hosted Apply process, facilitated by integrations with Phenom, presents a consistent candidate experience and increases the conversion rate on applications.

Phenom AI Scheduling, a key part of Coles鈥� hiring experience, enables candidates to book themselves an available interview slot and automates the coordination of hiring team calendars. The new solution provides a fully mobile-enabled experience to meet the demands of candidates for an omni-channel, real-time experience where they can learn, read, and apply for jobs where and when they want.

Inundated by nearly 1 million applications each year to review, Coles also took steps to elevate the recruiter experience and increase the speed and accuracy of candidate screening and job matching. It implemented Phenom Fit Score, an AI-powered feature that assesses a candidate鈥檚 suitability for an open role, based on location and optimal travel distances, availability, and working rights; then, assigns a fit score and surfaces the most closely matched candidates to the recruiters. In addition, the new solution empowers in-store managers to collaborate with recruiters to review candidates and make quick hiring decisions with confidence.

Talent Pools Grow with Improvements to Hiring Speed and Efficiency

With the new augmented solution, Coles is experiencing tangible benefits across multiple categories and key metrics for success: time-to-fill is down six days; time-to-hire is down two days, which is impressive considering candidates can book the in-store interview up to two weeks in advance; and advertising spend is down 50%.

Most notably for Coles as a people-centric organization is the development of its talent pool, now numbering 2 million potential candidates. It achieves an 85% application conversion rate on up to 1 million applications per year. Through its to be a safe, inclusive, and diverse workplace, Coles has applied the new solution to provide greater accessibility for more diverse candidates, resulting in an increase of 24% more hiring for people who identify as having a disability. 

Virgo said that the talent acquisition team will continue to evolve its solution and assess more opportunities for AI and automation to bring value to the recruitment process. Although these technologies are not cure-alls for every recruitment scenario, they can save recruiting teams precious time and resources to focus on more high-touch interactions further down the recruiting funnel. In sharing lessons learned, Virgo noted, 鈥淚 think the important call out is the level of automation you can inject in your process will likely diminish as the seniority, complexity, and requirements of your roles increase because they are likely to be more high touch, perhaps need more interpretation or judgment calls from your recruiters to identify who the right talent is for your organization.鈥�

Watch on demand.

The report covers the complex talent acquisition landscape, considering user experience, core applicant tracking system (ATS), candidate relationship management, recruitment marketing, analytics, internal mobility, and onboarding of 20 vendors.

With multiple challenges converging at once, including a growing skills gap, ongoing talent shortage, and rising inflation, leaders are increasingly focused on recruiting the best talent and developing their current workforce. With the macroeconomic disruptions happening globally,聽how can they optimize their current workforce by placing the right people in the right roles? More than 75% of business leaders say the ability to hire and retain talent is most critical to achieving growth, according to the , and only 31% expect talent shortages to ease this year.

At 51风流SuccessFactors, we have and continue to invest in our to empower our customers to take these challenges head on with a holistic approach to building a sustainable workforce — from recruitment to internal mobility to learning and growth. Our talent acquisition product development is focused on enhancing the candidate experience, providing greater support for recruitment solution users, automating processes, and enhancing core capabilities.

As the IDC MarketScape noted: 鈥�51风流SuccessFactors continues to add new features and functionality to its platform to provide recruiters, hiring managers, and candidates the best possible experience while improving key metrics such as time to fill and quality of hire.鈥�

Intuitive recruiter dashboards with candidate “select and compare” options, new hire onboarding with embedded listening, and embedded features to reduce implicit bias are all noted as strengths of the 51风流SuccessFactors solutions for talent acquisition.

Our excitement for being recognized as a Leader by the IDC MarketScape is surpassed only by our passion to see our customers win the war for talent. For example, a financial services group in South Africa, was able to reduce time-to-hire by 25% using 51风流SuccessFactors solutions. Kammy Sing, the company鈥檚 group head of operations said: 鈥淭he best candidates are often the ones with multiple job offers, and any delays in the hiring process could lead to a missed opportunity. With faster hiring processes we鈥檙e even better placed to find and attract top talent to our organization.鈥�

, an international food and agribusiness, is also using 51风流SuccessFactors solutions to transform its talent management. President and Group CIO Thiagaraja Manikandan said: 鈥淭o operate at the speed modern business demands and strengthen our position as a leading employer, Olam chose 51风流SuccessFactors and Qualtrics to reimagine how we equip candidates and employees with the resources, services, and tools to support their work and development.鈥�

The IDC MarketScape recognized 鈥渢he option to integrate 51风流SuccessFactors Recruiting and 51风流SuccessFactors Onboarding as part of the 51风流SuccessFactors HXM suite or to purchase as standalone provides clients with strong flexibility in choice for solutions.鈥�

While talent acquisition remains an important strategy to address talent challenges, the positive results will be short-lived if not combined with an effective growth and development strategy. 51风流SuccessFactors solutions are designed with flexibility and extensibility in mind, enabling customers to take advantage of the latest innovations faster than ever before. For example, organizations can embed 51风流Fieldglass software into recruiter dashboards to manage contingent workers and 51风流SuccessFactors Opportunity Marketplace can help organizations be more agile in how they upskill and utilize skills from their employees to fill gaps quickly.

As we look toward the future, we are focused on continuing to build our whole self model to support organizations in continuing to provide opportunities that are relevant for each individual 鈥� helping them to grow their careers in line with their personal growth. The magic happens when organizations can bring together talent data across the employee life cycle, starting with each candidate, and deliver a consistent, individualized experience for the entire workforce. Combined, this is what will help organizations build a sustainable workforce capable of delivering greater economic sustainability.

To learn more, download a complimentary copy of “” (doc #US48357022, June 2022).

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Amy Wilson is senior vice president of Products and Design for 51风流SuccessFactors.

To entice talent, businesses are upgrading the quality of experience they provide both to their employees for internal mobility and to external job candidates. Innovations in artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning are enabling businesses to deliver this new level of experience, which is transforming internal mobility and talent attraction.

Stacy Chapman, chief data strategist, , and former CEO and founder of SwoopTalent, a leader in talent data intelligence that was recently acquired by SAP, takes a clear-eyed view of the power of AI to sort hiring and employment decisions. She says, 鈥淭he potential for AI to play a part in improving the human experience is really high, but there is always a decision point in, as a society, do we head to utopia, or do we head to dystopia? I don鈥檛 know that that鈥檚 played itself out yet.鈥�

51风流Acquires SwoopTalent Intellectual Property to Boost Talent Data Intelligence

What concerns Chapman and others are the manifold possibilities for AI to be applied poorly or superficially as a quick fix for efficiency woes but with little regard for the rights of the individual. Alarms have sounded from organizations that track bias and systemic discrimination. In October, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) launched an aimed at ensuring algorithmic fairness for the benefit of applicants, employees, employers, and technology vendors, citing concerns that 鈥渢hese new technologies do not become a high-tech pathway to discrimination.鈥�

On average, 40% of enterprise companies are using some AI matching capabilities to support their talent acquisition and sourcing effort, according to , a human capital management (HCM) research and advisory firm. 鈥淲hen done right, AI matching improves the candidate experience, reduces bias in hiring, and improves the quality of applicants,鈥� says Madeline Laurano, founder, Aptitude Research, in a recent . 鈥淐ompanies must take a critical look at the providers they are evaluating, the algorithms that they have in place, and the impact it has on their fair and equitable hiring practices.鈥�

Employment decisions are too important to 鈥渓et the machine take care of it.鈥� Employers that are committed to fairness and transparency require a trusted technology partner that adheres to standards for and has access to the troves of quality data needed to train AI models responsibly. 鈥淲hen you talk about AI, there鈥檚 this extraordinary amount of functional understanding that goes into what鈥檚 right, not just what鈥檚 accurate,鈥� says Chapman. 鈥淭his is what we deliver at 51风流SuccessFactors. We bring so much rich domain expertise and such profound respect for ethics and privacy.鈥�

Opening Opportunity for Internal Mobility

With 20 years of leadership in HCM, 51风流SuccessFactors created a new cloud-based technology category for (HXM) with the goal to unleash the power of human potential in the workplace. shows that empowering employees leads to improved engagement, which has a direct impact on business profitability. A rich, personalized employee experience that matches talent with internal opportunity is a game changer for businesses to achieve agility and profitability while retaining their current workforce.

, introduced in 2021, opens a new dimension in the employee experience by empowering employees to seek new opportunities to grow and invest in themselves within their organizations. Employees will be able to manage their own unique talent profiles, dynamically powered by AI and machine learning, to unlock data-driven opportunities for internal mobility. Talent profiles will be created from data curated by the employee, which can include personal interests, archetypes, aspirations, work style, wellness, reading habits, and similar development tracks of coworkers.

鈥�51风流SuccessFactors Opportunity Marketplace looks really broadly and deeply at the whole self. It has the ability to recommend things far beyond what your previous professional experience might have been,鈥� says Chapman. 鈥淭here is quite a bit of potential to open up new career paths.鈥�

Winning Over Talent with Candidate Experience

Candidate experience has emerged as a leading metric for corporate recruiting success. With the volume of jobs left open in the Great Reshuffle, recruiters are too overwhelmed to manage all interactions across multiple touchpoints in the hiring process. They are looking to AI to provide a new level of efficiency and personalization that wins over talent with an amazing candidate experience.

Recruiters succeed when they use AI to supplement a holistic talent strategy while applying their own judgement and experience to evaluate candidates. 鈥淚 would advise them to not 100% rely on the AI as a replacement for their own evaluation,鈥� says Mengtian Jin, data scientist at , where she works with recruiting teams to deploy AI for optimal effectiveness and compliance. 鈥淎lways remember: AI is not to replace you, but to help you to improve your professional efficiency for your work.鈥�

Brilliant Hire by SAP, a fast-growing startup led by a team of 51风流employees, builds AI-powered solutions that can enable companies to shine as employers of choice by elevating the candidate experience and streamlining the hiring process. Available on for integration into 51风流SuccessFactors solutions, Brilliant Hire鈥檚 algorithm matches people with job openings based on their skills, not rigid keywords, which helps to attract diverse and qualified candidates by removing unconscious bias. Recruiting teams provide their input during model training to enhance accuracy on a per-customer basis. The startup recently launched an applicant scoring feature to enable recruiters to instantly uncover the most qualified candidates for a job requisition.

A new member of Brilliant Hire鈥檚 Board of Advisors, Chapman is impressed with the startup鈥檚 careful approach to AI. She says, “Brilliant Hire is not only cleverly thinking about the problem and using the right technologies, but it鈥檚 also thoughtfully and kindly thinking about it, so the use of AI becomes very human-oriented and ethical.”

One unexpected consequence of the ongoing pandemic is that millions of workers decided to say goodbye to uncompromising employers en masse, in a movement that has come to be known as the .

As a result, companies are finally realizing that people truly are their greatest resource. Smart employers are listening and taking heed, starting at the beginning 鈥� recruitment.

Here are a few ideas to help you engage candidates right from the start.

Help Applicants Help You with Auto-Assistance

How many of us have uploaded a perfectly crafted resume, only to be asked to manually type in every detail anyway? But you can鈥檛 complain. After all, you want the job, don鈥檛 you?

ProSiebenSat.1, a Germany-based entertainment and consumer brands group, wanted to redesign its career portal to offer candidates a smoother and more informative application process. ProSiebenSat.1 chose 51风流partner to facilitate the overhaul with its solution.

projekt0708鈥檚 solution emphasizes design, providing job candidates a visually appealing layout and a streamlined application process that accelerates input with the help of auto-complete, auto-correct, and auto-suggest.

Let the Games Begin!

One way to get the attention of creative and energetic candidates is to elevate the job application process from a chore to a fun and engaging activity. , created by Playful Software, an 51风流partner based in Bucharest, is a 鈥済amified smart experience created for conscious millennials and for companies who want out-of-the-box recruitment.鈥�

Candidates can strengthen skills through training courses created by Jobful and partner companies covering topics like “Technical Support Fundamentals” and “Communication & Teamwork.鈥� And with engaging quizzes, candidates can earn badges that can draw attention to their profiles.

Jumpstart the Interview Process with Chatbots

Now that job seekers have so many options, you can鈥檛 afford to lose candidates who tire of waiting to hear back from your recruiter. No-code, self-service platform , created by Singapore-based Ideatory Pte. Ltd., is transforming recruitment with its conversational chatbot that uses artificial intelligence (AI) to actually interview candidates. For the job seeker, this means immediate screening and the ability to get questions answered in seconds.

Now It鈥檚 Your Turn

These solutions go to great lengths to improve the candidate鈥檚 introduction to your company. It鈥檚 a good start, and just one crucial element of creating a positive employee experience 鈥� one that truly regards people as your greatest resource.

Faith Maginley is part of Global Ecosystem & Midmarket Marketing at SAP.

In today鈥檚 uncertain and still highly virtual times, the need for human interaction is greater than ever before. There has been a lot of discussion around the impact of the pandemic on organizations, specifically on recruiting strategies. It is important to also take note of the current sentiment among the growing pool of candidates. Just like recruiters will face, or are already facing, high volumes of applications, candidates will face or are already facing high volumes of recruitment activities, whether initiated by them or the organizations with which they are engaging.

Many say this unprecedented shift means that the power now lies with the employer. But candidates have also shifted the way they evaluate their future employers. Even before the global pandemic, showed that 35 percent of candidates consider social, environmental, and humanitarian actions as key criteria for what matters most when searching for a job. That sentiment of 鈥渨hat really matters鈥� is only growing to include stability, flexibility, and transparency.

Whether recruiting for a single opening, hundreds of openings, or looking internally to fill the gaps, the challenge remains. How do you deliver the right candidate experience to attract the right talent? And how do you ensure they select you when you select them?

This is where technology comes into play. The twist is that the goal of technology is not to replace those personal interactions that are so important in today鈥檚 times. The goal of technology is to increase across the entire recruiting continuum to first ensure those interactions are as meaningful as possible and second free up time for recruiters to focus on the area they know best 鈥� finding the right match for an organization.

Looking across the end-to-end recruiting process, , several examples of capabilities are designed to increase recruiter efficiency:

• Planning: Evergreen and duplicate requisitions, anti-bias job description language and salary recommendations driven by artificial intelligence (AI)
• Sourcing: Global job board distribution, talent pool recommendations, behavioral-based nurture campaigns, automated applicant communications and notifications
• Screening: Embedded pre-screening questions, automated applicant ranking, automated removal of EEOC identifiers
• Selecting: Next-stage workflow automation, integrated interview scheduling, automated creation and distribution of interview guides, automated feedback rankings
• Hiring: Mass-initiation of offers and approvals, digital offers with e-signature through
• Onboarding: Automated initiation for new hires

Together these capabilities help to eliminate countless hours of tactical recruiting tasks and reduce cycle times while improving the outputs. This allows for acting more strategically and focusing time where it matters most 鈥� getting to know potential future employees.

1. Better understand audiences and how best to engage with them

Spend time evaluating the types of candidates you are attracting and how they are or are not engaging. Use analytics to see which sources are resulting in new hires and the path required to get there. Review both external and internal career sites to ensure messaging is a true representation of what is important to the company. Create, test, and tweak audience-specific landing pages to increase the engagement with specific applicant pools.

2. Increase personal interaction time with top candidates and hiring managers

Focus more time on the upfront intake process. What skills and certifications are needed to be successful in this job? What has worked and not worked with employees in similar roles? What questions will really help determine if a candidate is a good match? Then spend more time talking with top candidates — and maybe extending that list — to really gauge if they will be a good fit, not just on paper but culturally.

3. Gain insights into how people feel about the company and candidate experience

Take advantage of the opportunity the career site presents for gathering feedback from those you are trying to attract. Was is easy to find what they needed? Do they have a clear understanding of what the company does and the opportunities available? Are they clear on next steps once they apply? Do not limit this feedback channel to those who make it through your entire process. With the , embedded surveys and the resulting insights can be leveraged to know if you are making the most of first impressions or missing the mark.

4. Continually optimize and measure

Having insights and ideas is one thing; having the time to put them into practice is a game changer. Move to a more strategic approach of evaluating the candidate experience from end to end and reviewing on a continuous basis. Make sure you are leveraging all available capabilities to make it as convenient and easy as possible for future employees. And if you identify a gap or bottleneck, spend time resolving it versus working around it.

A good recruiter has a keen sense of communicating the right message and selecting the right talent but needs the right tools to be successful. For recruiters who are struggling to focus on what really matters 鈥� interacting with candidates in meaningful and impactful ways 鈥� it is time for a change.

To learn how to redesign a recruiting strategy to increase efficiency and drive better outcomes, explore the .

Carrie Klauss is senior manager of Solution Marketing for 51风流SuccessFactors.

These issues include the resilience and agility with which HR professionals must work to realign resources to fill critical roles, reinforce business continuity, and reskill their workforces.

Recent studies have shown that organizations were vigorously seeking ways to upskill and reskill their workforces before the COVID-19 crisis set in. The pandemic only accelerated interest in training, with the imperative likely to continue for years to come as companies now realize they need to act faster to compete effectively. HR must drive this, meaning that taking charge of change is not an option 鈥� it鈥檚 a requirement for survival, no matter the size of the company.

Easy and intuitive software that offers vision, speed, and flexibility on mundane and strategic HR functions alike can help companies stay nimble and resilient while still managing basic HR functions. HR professionals are all in this new reality together and can transform the function to the strategic and business-driving discipline it was meant to be. And fortunately, there are few barriers to entry.

In fact, 80 percent of 51风流customers using human experience management (HXM) software are SMEs that leverage these tools to great effect, whether they are hiring, retraining, or realigning to drive their businesses forward. Leveraging the power of HXM software will be the key to companies operating intelligently and efficiently through these irregular times and regular conditions on the horizon.

Realign Resources to Fill Critical Roles

Any seasoned HR professional knows that a sure way to fall behind the curve is to recruit aggressively to fill square holes with square pegs 鈥� or, when there鈥檚 a downturn, cut headcount to meet a number without considering the needs of the business. Workforce modeling and contingency planning are now constant responsibilities rather than an undertaking earmarked solely for expansion and contraction. A holistic approach is required to think about how, when, and where to cut, hire, and reassign 鈥� it鈥檚 just a matter of having the right tools that are easily accessible and simple to use.

• : This powerful application helps HR managers engage in active workforce modeling and reorganization at any moment and prepare for any scenario that may lie ahead. Easy drag-and-drop functionality provides real-time information and implications 鈥� such as diversity and salary 鈥� of moving departments and people to align with business objectives.
• and : These two solutions allow HR managers to create internal and external talent pools, respectively, for quick hiring and reassigning in response to business needs.
• : This simple solution helps HR managers run quick, effective, and compliant onboarding, offboarding, and reassigning transitions in lieu of getting mired in traditional, time-consuming, and paperwork-heavy processes when brainpower would be better focused on more strategic endeavors.
• : No matter how many people have been hired, let go, or reassigned, this application allows for quick and compliant e-signing of essential paperwork, so HR managers aren鈥檛 spending their time pushing paper.

Reinforce Business Continuity

When times are abnormal, work should still deliver the expected challenges and rewards. That鈥檚 why it is on HR to provide a sense of normalcy and smooth operations even when the world order and business conditions are roiling. That starts with listening 鈥� providing a direct and responsive conduit between HR and employees and, from there, delivering the tools and programs workers need to be updated and informed about their jobs. That includes questions about everything from paychecks to performance.

• : This straightforward, easy-to-use solution helps HR managers ensure and simplify global payroll compliance, as well as standardize payroll processes. Most importantly, this program gives employees the confidence that they鈥檒l be paid accurately and on time in an era when both are weekly worries.
• : The finance arm of the company wants assurances that the budget is accurate and risk is reduced, while managers across the organization want the ability to reward employees who are performing above and beyond. This solution helps companies achieve both 鈥� first, by ensuring fair and equitable compensation for a variety of roles in different locales, and second, by giving managers and HR clear insight into who鈥檚 exceeding expectations and should be compensated accordingly. There should be no ambiguity about who receives how much and why.
• : Since the business environment and needs of the company are constantly changing, this solution helps realign employees around new goals and targets so they understand what they鈥檙e working toward, why, and how things might need to change. Best of all, this malleable solution can fit different company cultures and communications styles, so employees and managers can have insight and interaction as often as they like, on whatever issues or projects are of the highest priority.

Reskill Your Workforce

, but now is the time for companies to transform into learning cultures. Reskilling and upskilling will be critical to companies鈥� survival now and to their ability to thrive when the time of recovery emerges. From there, a culture of learning and continued upskilling can endure. But getting upskilling initiatives off the ground and impacting the business now requires that HR take the lead 鈥� and empower employees to expand their skills.

• : This solution helps HR managers direct the right courses to specific employees who want and need new skills. Best of all, it also allows workers to proactively address their own skill gaps and take upskilling into their own hands so they鈥檙e getting the training they feel is most important to the business鈥檚 needs and their own long-term success. After all, employees drive the business, so let them have control of expanding their skillsets.
• : Time is precious. By one estimate, employees have only 14 minutes available each week to devote to training. But with these applications, employees can learn on the go, from anywhere, and on any device.
• : This collaboration platform allows employees to share training and information on specific topics and goals, rather than through e-mail. 51风流Jam facilitates learning as a collaborative exercise in which employees encourage one another and learn from one another.

If COVID-19 has taught the business world anything, it is that when change and uncertainty are the new normal, people look to collaborate more, working across teams to help keep the business moving forward. The key for businesses, and HR professionals in particular, is to harness that desire and drive the changes needed to make organizations and the communities they serve better places. If HR professionals can do that now, in troubling times, imagine what can be accomplished in a more prosperous period with the right mindset and tool kit.

Susan Thomas and Janne Wise are solution marketing directors for 51风流SuccessFactors.

The talent pool in some sectors is suddenly larger than it has been in decades, putting a strain on organizations that have to sift through more candidates to find the right match.

With multiple timelines dictating when businesses and offices can reopen, companies face further uncertainties. Whether they need to recruit at greater scale or with greater speed, a new set of tools is needed to replace or augment those put in place before the pandemic. This situation has led to crucial new questions for human resources (HR) leaders rethinking recruiting:

• How can we make sure we have the right people in the most critical roles to sustain and survive?
• How can we be most efficient and effective in recruiting operations?
• How do we quickly and effectively mass hire in response to accelerated demand?

Recruiter Efficiency Amid Uncertainty

To adapt to the new normal, companies must shed old attitudes and approaches and adopt new ones, supported by technology.

• Stay connected, be compassionate: Companies have new tools that can help them be responsible and compassionate at the same time. Censia, an 51风流endorsed app that maintains a global database of 500 million professionals, is offering companies the opportunity to connect to talent who have recently entered the job market. Learn more about the free program, . Eightfold, an 51风流endorsed app, is also linking organizations to job seekers. Its is currently available for a six-month free trial and matches laid-off and furloughed workers with available jobs.
• Design a recruiting strategy that works in a wide variety of situations: One of the biggest changes affecting many different types of organizations is that much of the work has moved online. Providing a positive virtual experience for job candidates can be challenging; it requires companies to have a system in place that not only allows for remote interviews, but also that is both convenient and compliant. Without these capabilities, any virtual recruiting approach is likely to exclude candidates — at a cost of sufficient numbers, skills, or diversity in the workforce.
• Prepare for increased volume and speed: To adapt to a loosened labor market, companies need the capacity to choose from a surplus of candidates. 聽Companies in hitherto stable businesses may suddenly need to think like startups on the cusp of rapidly upscaling. Where possible, automation should be implemented to replace manual processes. Automated systems can help recruiters achieve greater visibility into the status of all applicants or be able to make uniform and fair comparisons between a large population of potentially qualified candidates.

As the prospects for recovery shift by region, sector and season, HR professionals will constantly need to realign their resources in ways that will be impossible to forecast.

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After reading several articles about how organizations are struggling to prove the impact of corporate well-being programs 鈥� or justify why they even have them 鈥� I was glad to have had the opportunity to sit down with someone who conducted research on the very topic.

is an industrial and organizational psychologist dedicated to bridging the gap between academia and industry. Her research, consulting, and teaching roles focus on workplace health and well-being, diversity and inclusion, and employee assessments and development, and she is currently consulting at the and teaching at . Here, she shares her insights on the research she has done to help prove why well-being programs are a critical part of an organization鈥檚 strategy.

Q: What got you interested in researching how well-being programs impact recruitment?

A: The talent wars are on. Skills gaps and low unemployment rates require organizations to develop and market an attractive employer brand in order to stay competitive. It is increasingly critical that organizations develop and market themselves as a place where people really want to work. This was made truly salient to me when I worked as part of the 51风流SuccessFactors research team from 2015 to 2018. I had the opportunity to speak with dozens of [51风流SuccessFactors] Recruiting customers, and I listened to them describe the challenges of building a quality candidate slate to meet their goals.

I also had the opportunity to interview benefits and wellness directors and heard them explain time and again that their workplace well-being programs aided recruitment. I appreciated the expertise and experiences of those making these claims, but as a scientist in the field I had to ask, 鈥淚s anyone measuring this?鈥� They were not. I wanted to know, 鈥淎re these claims evidence-based?鈥� 鈥淚s there research to support these claims?鈥� So, I looked.

Where and how did you start?

Workplace well-being is an area of increasing importance in recent years, with a growing number of companies offering benefits to support employee work-life balance and wellness. For example, in 2019 68 percent of companies offered telecommuting options and . An abundant stream of research points to numerous individual and organizational outcomes related to these benefits, including links to burnout, organizational commitment, turnover, and health. It is clear that work-life and wellness programs are beneficial, but the research has largely neglected to consider how these benefits can influence what happens before an individual is hired.

Concurrent with my work at 51风流SuccessFactors, I was preparing to complete the last requirement for my PhD in Industrial-Organizational Psychology, a dissertation research project. Motivated by my conversations and experiences with customers, I designed my research to test the assumptions that well-being benefits positively influenced recruitment efforts, and to investigate why. I valued the expertise of the directors I had interviewed, and I wanted to provide them and others the empirical evidence for making their case.

Using a rigorous experimental design, * my research supported practitioner assumptions that companies offering work-life or wellness benefits are seen as more attractive. Potential applicants were also more likely to take action to pursue employment. But why? Results revealed that well-being benefits had a significant impact on perceptions of employer brand.

What did you find?

Similar to product marketing, marketing of an employer brand should consider three things: function, symbolism, and experience. First, what are the functional considerations of employment, such as location, pay, benefits? Second, what is the symbolic value, or, in other words, how does this employment connect to a person鈥檚 self-identity?聽 Imagine an employee of Apple versus Goldman Sachs. You likely conjure up images of two different types of people. Last, what does a potential job seeker imagine it will be like to work for your company?

Results from my study indicated companies offering work-life or wellness benefits were perceived as having higher functional value in terms of benefits. But they were seen as being more exciting and sophisticated, and it was expected that employees would be treated better.

The takeaway: Don鈥檛 underestimate the power of your benefits programs for developing a competitive advantage in your candidate slate! Well-being programs signal to prospective employees what it will be like to work for your organization. Build these programs and get the message out there.

To learn more, read the brochure: .

Follow Dr. Pytlovany on Twitter at .

Tammie Eldridge is director of Solution Marketing for 51风流SuccessFactors.

*More than 400 participants were presented with one of three recruiting advertisements: 1) a job ad listing traditional job benefits, e.g., health insurance, 401k; 2) a job add listing work-life benefits, e.g., flexible work hours, remote work options; or 3) a job ad listing wellness benefits, e.g., stress management resources, gym membership.