To date, many employers have approached pay equity at their own pace, but a new era is beginning, one that will redefine pay practices and workplace culture for organizations across the European Union (EU). Set to take effect across EU Member States in 2026, the (EU Directive 2023/970) strengthens the principle of 鈥渆qual pay for equal work or work of equal value鈥� as enshrined in EU law, requiring employers to adopt transparent pay practices and close gender pay gaps or face potential legal and financial consequences.

can provide a single source of truth for the critical data-driven insights needed to help organizations meet EU pay transparency requirements. Today, 51风流is announcing new capabilities that can make it even easier for organizations to meet their requirements across EU countries.

Launching in 1H 2026, EU Pay Transparency Insights is a new capability within the , an intelligent, AI-powered application that can deliver ready-to-use, actionable insights to help leaders make more informed decisions. EU Pay Transparency Insights enables organizations to analyze compensation, identify outliers, and address pay gaps, helping them meet reporting requirements while unlocking the workforce and business performance benefits of achieving true pay equity.

Three requirements every employer must meet鈥攁nd how 51风流SuccessFactors HCM supports them

The EU Pay Transparency Directive represents one of the most sweeping changes to workplace compensation in decades. To meet its requirements, organizations will need to reassess their current HR data management capabilities and processes and begin planning now. As countries move toward putting the directive into law by June 2026, some obligations may already apply, with others set to take effect as soon as national laws are enacted. And because pay gap reporting deadlines vary by organization size鈥攕tarting in 2027 for employers with 150 or more employees and based on 2026 workforce data鈥攐rganizations must act now to be ready.聽

51风流SuccessFactors HCM is uniquely positioned to support organizations in addressing the three key requirements outlined in the directive鈥攇ender pay gap reporting, employee pay transparency, and candidate pay transparency鈥攚ith several capabilities already available today and advanced analytics for gender pay gap reporting delivered through EU Pay Transparency Insights in 1H 2026.

1. Gender pay gap reporting

Once national laws are in place, employers will be required to disclose their gender pay gaps on a predefined schedule, and any gap of 5% or more must be explained or mitigated with a joint pay assessment. With EU Pay Transparency Insights within , organizations will be able to access rich workforce insights to analyze compensation and identify drivers behind pay gaps, giving them the information they need to generate actionable reports with a complete view of workforce equity in a single place.

2. Employee pay transparency

In accordance with the directive, employees have the right to request information on average pay levels by gender for comparable roles. By leveraging the powerful document generation capabilities in 51风流SuccessFactors HCM, employers can provide employees with a self-service experience to display individual pay transparency statements directly from the People Profile in . These statements can give clear insight into the employee鈥檚 annual pay and the average pay of the same worker category broken down by gender.

3. Candidate pay transparency

Employers will be required to disclose pay ranges in job advertisements or before interviews. They will also be prohibited from asking applicants about salary history. 51风流SuccessFactors solutions help enhance pay transparency by enabling employers to display pay ranges directly within job postings published through SAP鈥檚 recruiting solutions, including 51风流SuccessFactors Recruiting and .

In addition to these 51风流SuccessFactors capabilities, 51风流continues to work with our vast partner ecosystem to support pay parity and pay transparency efforts.

An opportunity to lead with accountability

The EU Pay Transparency Directive sets a new baseline for accountability in how organizations manage and disclose pay. By preparing early and partnering with SAP, organizations can deliver transparent compensation insights, empowering employees with a clear view of their total rewards and career journey and supporting HR professionals in making consistent and measurable decisions with confidence. With continuous innovation and trusted localized expertise, 51风流helps organizations stay on top of changes and build a sustainable, employee-centered approach to pay equity across the EU.

Learn more about how 51风流SuccessFactors HCM can help your organization stay compliant with the EU Pay Transparency Directive in the

Dan Beck is general manager and chief product officer for 51风流SuccessFactors.

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 .

As organizations adapt to these changes, HR teams must lead the way in building a future-ready workforce that can meet the business demands of today while preparing for those of tomorrow.

With strong global core HR, embedded AI capabilities, and a unified skills foundation, connects HR across the organization, unearths key workforce insights, and provides the flexibility organizations need to succeed in a world that never stands still. 

In the first half 2025 (1H 2025) product release, we鈥檙e excited to introduce more than 250 innovative features and enhancements, many assisted by AI, that are designed to help organizations address any business need and stay ahead of the curve.

51风流Business AI

51风流continues to be at the forefront of business AI with new capabilities to help drive organizational efficiencies.

With this latest release, we are announcing Joule on 51风流SuccessFactors mobile. , the AI copilot from SAP, helps employees and managers to quickly find information, complete tasks, and gain valuable insights — all through a self-service interface they can use at the office or on the go. In the new release, Joule helps employees easily understand their pay statement and create and update time-off requests, while managers can gain quick access to status of required learning for their teams and more.

In addition to English, Joule is now available in 10 new languages, including Chinese, French, German, Greek, Japanese, Korean, Polish, Portuguese, Spanish, and Vietnamese.

Recruiting and onboarding

With this release also comes a redesigned application experience in . A guided, modernized user interface helps applicants dynamically enter their information while simplifying and accelerating the application process, reducing application drop-offs. The new experience gives candidates access to a refreshed applications dashboard, enabling them to view their submissions, complete post-application actions, and easily access, navigate, and update their information.

As part of the offboarding capabilities in , alumni can now manage personal鈥痠nformation鈥痑nd gain access to support, documents, and resources, even after termination. Additionally, AI-assisted offboarding through Joule helps enable task completion and provides departing employees with a well-structured offboarding experience.

Performance and goals

We are excited to unveil the new performance form experience in , now with a dynamic, intuitive design for a more engaging user experience. The new interface enhances performance tasks by providing contextual information and optimizing screen space, minimizing cognitive load and scrolling to boost focus and efficiency.

To further enhance the experience, we are introducing new AI-assisted features, including:

• Comment suggestions based on the skill and rating selected, helping evaluators provide constructive, growth-centric feedback
• Performance insights for managers, which analyzes talent data and summarizes employee鈥檚 strengths, achievements, and areas for improvement
• Sentiment analysis for 360-degree reviews to help employees quickly identify negative or mixed feedback, highlighting areas that need improvement and enabling focused professional development.

Learning

As organizations face growing skill gaps, continuous learning remains critical for employees to stay competitive and adapt to evolving challenges.

New skills-focused learning offers a curated list of learning opportunities to improve key skills and competencies. Users can discover filtered learning options tailored to their upskilling needs, supporting organizational transformation.

Core HR and payroll

51风流provides industry-leading solutions spanning core HR, payroll, and time that give organizations the flexibility to meet any business challenge.

Building on the successful launch of our updated people profile in , we鈥檝e continued to enhance the user experience by bringing in additional content from across 51风流SuccessFactors solutions, including benefits, payroll, and learning.

To further support the unique requirements of public sector organizations, we are introducing a new portlet that displays the financing status of an employee.

With this release, we are also introducing the integration of the position budgeting control workbench with , previously announced at SuccessConnect. Along with existing integrations with 51风流SuccessFactors Employee Central and 51风流S/4HANA Cloud, this provides payroll administrators with real-time insights into position budget utilization and costs. The wider visibility enables better management of allocated funds and grants, offering a comprehensive view of salary costs, committed budget, and available funds for personnel expenses.

Additionally, we are enhancing our payroll control center, delivering a comprehensive, end-to-end view of the entire payroll process. With this enhancement, payroll administrators can optimize operations with a flowchart of tasks and their sequence in each payroll cycle. This improved experience provides real-time insights from pre-payroll activities to post-payroll processing.

We are also releasing a new local payroll version for Bulgaria, bringing the total number of natively supported locales to 53, with more supported by partners.

Learn more

These are just a few highlights from the 1H 2025 release. To learn about all of the more than 250 innovations and enhancements designed to give organizations the flexibility to address any business need, check out the or .

Bianka Woelke is group vice president and head of Application Product Management for 51风流SuccessFactors.

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.

This finding confirms what thousands of midsize organizations using 51风流SuccessFactors solutions already know. Accelerating the shift to digital HR isn鈥檛 just a critical advantage; it鈥檚 a game changer for business growth, especially as the need for new skills intensifies due to emerging technologies such as AI.

Oxford Economics鈥� research explains why: 鈥淎s AI-enabled technologies like chatbots and personalized recommendations become the norm outside the workplace, HR functions will need to strategize to incorporate similar self-service experiences and other AI-driven use cases into their employees鈥� way of working.鈥�

Driving Growth with a Talent Management Edge

Midsize organizations often seek a human capital management (HCM) solution that supports scalability and can match the pace and extent of their business growth. Yet, they frequently operate with limited HR capacity, hindering their ability to compete in a complicated talent landscape where a shortage of a million experts is expected by 2030.

Expanding midsize organizations particularly struggle to secure or develop talent with the skills required for growth. Oxford Economics reports that 49% of surveyed organizations cite the inability to find the right talent to maintain operations as their greatest near-term risk. Similarly, 41% of HR executives believe their organization鈥檚 inability to reskill and upskill workers to adapt to changing needs is a top threat.

With , midsize organizations can address both concerns. The HCM solutions can help run a cohesive, organization-wide strategy for upgrading outdated technologies and implementing modern, foundational capabilities such as workforce management tools and AI-enabled functionalities.

Here鈥檚 a sneak peek into the outsized outcomes 51风流SuccessFactors solutions can deliver:

1. Inclusive Job Descriptions and Assisted Candidate Screening

AI is transforming skills-based hiring by creating compelling job descriptions and enabling inclusive applicant selection so organizations can find the best talent quickly and efficiently. We have thoughtfully embedded these capabilities into the聽聽solution to provide organizations with tools to help attract and secure candidates with the right skills.聽

Embedded AI assistance helps talent acquisition teams make better, more equitable hiring decisions while reducing time spent on manual, tedious tasks such as creating job descriptions. Insights into applicant skills 鈥� extracted from r茅sum茅s using AI 鈥� allow recruiters to quickly identify and rank top candidates based on their match to a job, removing unconscious bias from the process.聽

2. Integrated Learning and Talent Management

As the nature of work evolves, so does the approach to HR technology solutions. Integrated learning and talent management systems are pivotal in addressing this dynamic, facilitating a smooth flow of development opportunities for employees.

By leveraging  solutions, organizations can tie learning initiatives with talent management processes to help create a cohesive, impactful talent strategy and employee experience. Employees can access learning resources based on their career goals and performance, aligning their development with personal goals and organizational objectives.

3. Intelligent and Personalized Skill Recommendations

The Oxford Economics survey reveals that 30% of HR and IT decision-makers are starting to understand how AI can help meet talent development and retention goals critical to their company鈥檚 growth. This includes helping employees stay on track with a personalized view into what they have to, need to, and want to learn.

Adopting a learning management system that includes AI, such as聽the solution, gives organizations capabilities that can enhance the learner鈥檚 experience. For example, instead of a 鈥渟earch and find鈥� approach to identifying relevant courses and content, an AI-driven system can offer learning options highly relevant to the learner by automatically surfacing personalized recommendations based on the employee鈥檚 role, skills, needs, and preferences.

This approach can help save time by pointing learners toward the most relevant and valuable resources, instead of requiring learners to search for them alone. Most importantly, access to self-directed learning and development opportunities fosters a habit of continuous learning and personal growth.

4. New Opportunities for Employees to Grow

Both consumers and employees expect personalized experiences that are easy to navigate and relevant to their needs. Reflecting on this trend, organizations are leveraging solutions 鈥� such as the  solution 鈥� to support upskilling and reskilling efforts. 

The solution can connect employees with relevant projects, learning opportunities, mentors, and dynamic teams, presenting recommended matches through centralized access. Integrating talent intelligence into these recommendations can enhance their effectiveness by enabling the identification of skills gaps and the analysis of individual preferences and career aspirations. In return, employees can be empowered to grow and develop in ways that benefit them and the organization, helping to create a more engaged and motivated workforce.

Additionally, with the  solution, organizations can optimize employee experiences by properly preparing them for their next role. For instance, employees can feel empowered to own their career development by exploring career options with AI-driven recommendations and intelligent skills gap identification. Also, with AI-assisted goals, employees can quickly create more ambitious development goals aligned with their growth plans.

5. Holistic Skills Management

Competing for and retaining top talent remains a significant challenge for midsize organizations as the skills gap widens. While visibility into current skills and those required for the future can offer a competitive edge, tackling this issue fully requires a more comprehensive approach beyond skills alone. 

 can address all sides of this complex challenge by considering individual competencies, aspirations, and preferences. Leveraging talent intelligence, the suite allows organizations to enhance the talent experience with a strategy that can cater to the 鈥渨hole self鈥� of the employee.

6. Enhanced Productivity and Engagement

Aligning employee goals to business objectives is crucial for enhancing productivity and performance. With AI-assisted goals, employees can craft meaningful and aspirational goals in a fraction of the time it usually takes. 

The  solution enables flexible and continuous performance modeling. Real-time coaching and feedback are included in the flow of work, helping employees feel more supported and engaged while enabling continuous insights and growth.

Building a Workforce Culture of Growth with AI

51风流SuccessFactors solutions can offer a holistic approach to take advantage of the critical role of talent management strategies in driving business growth, as highlighted in the Oxford Economics report. With innovative AI capabilities, the solutions are helping many organizations worldwide win the race for talent and skills and build an agile workforce.

 is not just about cutting-edge technology. We create HCM solutions that are relevant, reliable, and responsible. Backed by this AI principle, 51风流SuccessFactors solutions can offer a competitive edge in the current dynamic talent landscape. Organizations are not only empowered to keep up 鈥� they鈥檙e also prepared to lead the way with talent management strategies that drive ongoing growth, innovation, and success.

Discover how growth-focused midsize businesses prioritize their HR and IT strategies to help them grow and remain competitive. Read the Oxford Economics study, sponsored by SAP, .鈥�

Margit Bauer is director of Product Marketing for 51风流SuccessFactors.

And for you and your business, you can tell all those success stories 鈥� and more 鈥� with the 51风流SuccessFactors HCM suite and our first half 2024 release.

As your organization and employees begin to embrace AI, HR has the opportunity to drive new levels of employee productivity, engagement, and growth. 51风流SuccessFactors HCM can give you everything you need 鈥� the global foundation, skills framework, people-first experiences, and purpose-built AI capabilities 鈥� to help take HR to the next level. With the 51风流SuccessFactors first half 2024 release, we are delivering more than 250 innovative features and enhancements.

51风流Business AI

In 1H 2024, we are thrilled to introduce more than 25 new AI capabilities to enable better employee experiences and new levels of productivity.

Among these capabilities include the ability for applicants to provide skills during the application process. This can enable recruiters to see a skills compatibility for each applicant based on matching the applicant鈥檚 skills and the job requisition, helping improve applicant screening and time to hire. Furthermore, personalization in 51风流SuccessFactors Opportunity Marketplace is enhanced with new AI-driven recommendation categories, 鈥淚gnite Your Role鈥� and 鈥淩each Your Aspirations.鈥� These guided experiences can enable employees to proactively take steps to reach their development goals.

Generative AI continues to be embedded across the 51风流SuccessFactors HCM suite, including new capabilities to help employees create ready-made performance and development goals and AI-assisted writing to help improve the quality, clarity, and conciseness of writing across a variety of areas within 51风流SuccessFactors solutions.

Further, with this release, insights based on an employee鈥檚 compensation and job history are available to help support managers in having effective and well-informed compensation discussions. 

We have also added more than 15 new capabilities in this release to help both managers and employees get work done in a conversational way, such as creating or changing a position, creating spot awards, clocking in and out, and viewing pay statements as well as time capabilities like requesting time off, checking leave balances, and syncing holidays to Outlook calendars while managers can review and approve time off. Further, employees can now clock in and out using Joule, Microsoft Teams, or the 51风流SuccessFactors Mobile app.

51风流SuccessFactors Employee Central

We are excited to unveil two new people profile experiences 鈥� the profile preview and the spotlight view. The profile preview can provide a snapshot of key areas of the employee profile, including job, manager, location, and contact details, to quickly view and connect with others. Additionally, the spotlight view can showcase employee skills and competencies, mentoring and target roles, and other relevant personal and organizational information.

We are also introducing a new org chart experience with a refreshed look and feel. Available on desktop and mobile, users can explore their organizational structure with improved expand and collapse capabilities, which helps provide full accessibility to an employee鈥檚 profile preview, with an option to open the new spotlight view.

Customers can now automatically process new hires from 51风流SuccessFactors Recruiting and 51风流SuccessFactors Onboarding into 51风流SuccessFactors Employee Central. This capability helps further reduce the time to hire, which is especially important with mass, seasonal, and high-volume hiring.

51风流SuccessFactors Employee Central Global Benefits

With this release, we are pleased to introduce a new benefits enrollment experience for insurance, savings, and pension benefit types. Available on both desktop and mobile, the guided experience for benefits elections can give employees increased convenience with improved navigation and increased confidence with side-by-side plan comparisons and embedded instructional text. Additionally, employees can update dependent information and manage beneficiaries directly from the benefits enrollment process, which helps further streamline the enrollment experience.  

51风流SuccessFactors Time Tracking

We are thrilled to share the launch of a new time sheet experience that integrates the latest version of My Timesheet in 51风流S/4HANA with 51风流SuccessFactors. Employees can now record time for payroll, as well as against activities and cost objects, from a single time sheet across applications. This helps organizations leverage real-time connectivity between HR and finance operations to keep track of employee activity and labor costs and to pay employees accurately and on time.

Additionally, a new monthly calendar view for time sheets can give employees and managers a complete picture of recorded time over a month. Users can drill down into specific days and submit or approve time for pay periods beyond a week, such as biweekly or monthly.

For managers, a new time approval center helps simplify approvals with a centralized dashboard highlighting anomalies for swift resolution. Managers can monitor team working hours effectively, helping to ensure accurate and timely payroll processing.

51风流SuccessFactors Onboarding

With enhancements to the onboarding journey experience, new hires can now use the new Your Onboarding Checklist page to reference and complete all tasks 鈥� onboarding data collection, compliance tasks, additional onboarding tasks, and exploring the onboarding guide 鈥� from one place with a single view. Available for new hires, rehires, internal hires, and employees with global assignments, this improved experience can save time for onboarding participants while helping to ensure productivity from the start.

And that鈥檚 only a fraction of all the innovations we鈥檙e bringing to customers in 1H 2024. There鈥檚 much more in the release, including new and exciting updates in:

• Generative AI and Joule capabilities
• 51风流SuccessFactors Opportunity Marketplace
• 51风流SuccessFactors Compensation
• 51风流SuccessFactors Succession & Development
• 51风流SuccessFactors Incentive Management
• 51风流SuccessFactors Work Zone

Read the and watch the to find out more.

Bianka Woelke is group vice president of Application Product Management at SAP.

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.

Global specialty materials company overcame its HR reporting challenges by implementing story reports in 51风流SuccessFactors solutions, making its reporting easier and more efficient. For example, a standard talent report 鈥� once a labor-intensive task that took several days of precious time 鈥� is now generated in under two hours complete with detailed graphics that are continuously updated with live data. Indeed, an 51风流 found that with the analytics tools available in 51风流SuccessFactors solutions, customers reported a 74% decrease in time spent on report generation, saving days and even weeks on HR reporting.  

鈥淭he ability to give our [HR] information to leaders as they need it is huge,鈥� says Nina Nabors, manager of Talent Systems, Eastman. She summarizes the transformation in improvement over past reporting methods. 鈥淏efore, it was lagging data. It was never data that was live. Having that benefit of building the story report in 51风流SuccessFactors and it continuously updating with the latest information is very nice.鈥�

Based in Tennessee, U.S., Eastman Chemical Company was founded in 1920 as a subsidiary of Eastman Kodak. It has a workforce of 14,000 employees in 15 countries. Energized in its purpose to 鈥渆nhance the quality of life in a material way,鈥� Eastman engages with customers in 100 countries to deliver innovative materials found in items people use every day, including safe, durable medical materials; premium plastics for eyewear frames and lenses; food and beverage packaging; sustainable fibers for luxury home furnishings; and energy-efficient window glass for the construction industry, among others.

Cloud HR Delivers Sustainable Value with Exceptional Employee Experience

To future-proof its workforce, Eastman set itself up for success by moving to the cloud with 51风流SuccessFactors solutions. Eastman was already using an on-premise human capital management (HCM) solution from SAP, but wanted the scalability and cost-effectiveness of a cloud-based HR solution. 鈥淒elivering [HR] services in the cloud gives us an opportunity to make the technology available to our employees in a way that is more sustainable than having it housed on our servers,鈥� says Nabors.

Prachi Sathe, director of Global HR Technology and Solutions, Eastman, underscores the value of receiving the latest innovations and new features with each biannual 51风流SuccessFactors release update. 鈥淲e also wanted to make sure our HR platform is sustainable in terms of how we support it, how we grow it, and how we make more functions available to our employees. Going to 51风流SuccessFactors just made sense for us,鈥� she says.

Eastman uses a range of solutions in 鈥� including 51风流SuccessFactors Employee Central and modules for recruiting, learning, compensation, variable pay, performance and goals, career development planning, and succession 鈥� to help harness the efficiency of end-to-end integration and provide an exceptional experience throughout the employee journey from hire to retire.

The 51风流SuccessFactors Recruiting solution, for example, is a key driver of Eastman鈥檚 talent strategy. 鈥淭hat鈥檚 how we bring our new talent into the organization. That鈥檚 really their first introduction to our tools,鈥� says Nabors. 鈥淲e鈥檙e bringing great talent into the organization. How we do it is very important, and 51风流SuccessFactors is a part of that.鈥�

Accelerating Efficiency with Real-Time Analytics

Eastman needed a streamlined approach to HR reporting that accelerated efficiency and optimized value by fully using the analytics and data in 51风流SuccessFactors solutions. 鈥淲e were using separate tools outside of 51风流SuccessFactors solutions to pull our reporting together,鈥� recalls Sathe. 鈥淭he challenges with that [were figuring out] how we get data out of 51风流SuccessFactors solutions and feed it into those reporting tools.鈥�

Eastman鈥檚 customer success partner for the plan identified 51风流resources to help Eastman increase value from its use of 51风流SuccessFactors People Analytics. Eastman also joined a hands-on lab session at SuccessConnect 2022 to gain experience working with story reports, a tool available in the report center of 51风流SuccessFactors solutions. Story reports can deliver real-time data analytics and generate reports faster by using live data from across 51风流SuccessFactors HXM Suite, displaying presentation-style reports in a clear format with detailed visual graphics that communicate insights in an understandable way. As Sathe notes, 鈥淲hen we saw [story reports], it was so motivating for us that data is already there and tools are there. We came back and started working on our first dashboard.鈥�

鈥淲e鈥檙e so happy Eastman joined us at SuccessConnect,鈥� says Maryann Abbajay, chief revenue officer, 51风流SuccessFactors. 鈥淗ands-on lab sessions like the one Eastman participated in are invaluable learning experiences. Eastman is a great example of how customers are applying that new knowledge to unlock value with 51风流SuccessFactors. With story reports, they are already able to deliver the type of data-driven insights that transform HR into a strategic partner for the business.鈥�    

Data-Driven Insights That Advance People Strategy

Eastman began working with a manager dashboard, one of the many time-saving templates preloaded in story reports, and later built its own version tailored to the information requirements of its organizational leaders, supervisors, and people managers. The HR team also developed custom objects to use in its story reports, including an organizational hierarchy table with extensive drilldown capabilities and a currency exchange table to help executives track international labor costs. The story reports, customized with the look and feel of Eastman鈥檚 branding, quickly gained broad acceptance with Eastman鈥檚 organizational leaders.

The HR team recently built a dashboard showing a holistic view to help leaders identify opportunities to advance the organization鈥檚 people strategy. This dashboard uses data from 51风流SuccessFactors Employee Central and will later be augmented with data from the recruiting and learning solutions. A talent dashboard is also forthcoming to Eastman鈥檚 HR community, which includes talent partners and leaders. Sathe notes, 鈥淏y creating the stories, as its name says, we are bringing various data sources together.鈥�

Michael Glenn, talent assessment and analytics manager, Eastman, is building a new learning dashboard that will go out to all learning administrators and supervisors to enable them to see how many people are overdue on their learnings and what learnings are coming up in the next 30 days 鈥� and how many hours are required to complete the learning sessions. This information is especially important for production teams that work on fixed schedules, as it enables managers to plan the learning hours into the employee鈥檚 schedule.

To ensure the reports provide the right level of information to each recipient based on their role, Glenn intends to use the role-based access permissions available in story reports. So far, he is impressed with the feature, which saves him time from performing manual activities and distribution list maintenance. 鈥淲e鈥檝e been testing out role-based permissions and it is just working great,鈥� he says.

Empowering HR Administrators with User-Friendly Solutions for Improved Productivity

Nabors says that though she has no background or training in analytics, she found that she was able to get up to speed with stories very quickly. She recalls previously spending several days to build a single report that integrated data from 51风流SuccessFactors Employee Central and 51风流SuccessFactors Recruiting. In stories, she is now able to generate the same report in just one to two hours.

Also, troubleshooting and addressing gaps in data is much easier. 鈥淚f there鈥檚 an error somewhere 鈥� for example, requisition data that shows up under the wrong person鈥檚 name 鈥� being able to see it in a story is very easy,鈥� she says. 鈥淚t鈥檚 easy to address that error quickly because you can go right to the error without having to dig through lines and lines of data, rows and columns of data.鈥�

Better Analytics for Faster Decision-Making

Eastman plans to build on its early success with story reports to drive more insights for the organization. For example, there are plans to integrate data to track progress towards Eastman鈥檚 ambitious inclusion and diversity , which include increasing diverse talent and supporting employees in bringing their whole selves to work. Real-time information from 51风流SuccessFactors solutions supports organizational leaders in advancing Eastman鈥檚 strategy to build a high-performing organization.

鈥淲e really believe in sustainability and sustainable outcomes,鈥� says Sathe. 鈥淲e want our employees to be self-service reporting employees and create better analytics that give them information versus data. What we were doing previously was giving them data. Story reports transformed this.鈥�

For more information, read “.”

To help understand this evolution of the people manager role, the for 51风流SuccessFactors hosted interviews with 31 HR leaders from 51风流customer organizations and conducted a survey of 731 people managers and 716 individual contributors from around the globe. Based on the research findings, below are six ways organizations can improve current people managers鈥� performance and experience with 51风流SuccessFactors solutions.

Utilize Co-Leadership Models

Organizations look to people managers to execute important initiatives and people practices, leading to an overload of responsibilities. Implementing co-leadership structures, even for a short period of time, can reduce a people manager鈥檚 role overload and provide individual contributors with a valuable experiential learning opportunity.

One way to provide an experiential opportunity is through , advanced capabilities available as part of 51风流SuccessFactors solutions that can help create and manage cross-functional teams that exist beyond traditional hierarchies. reported that 66% of employees who had participated in a dynamic team felt a positive impact on their career, leading to higher engagement. Using dynamic teams can help organizations utilize co-leadership models for projects while also accessing individual contributor potential and incorporating those insights into future succession plans.

Update People Manager Job Descriptions

Many organizations have not updated their formal job descriptions for people managers to accurately reflect changes to their roles, leading to unclear performance expectations and ineffective systems for developing and selecting people managers. One way organizations can streamline this process is through generative artificial intelligence (AI)聽in the 51风流SuccessFactors Recruiting solution. Hiring managers and recruiters can fine-tune job descriptions with generative AI, which allows them to incorporate supplementary content, identify biased language, and help ensure alignment with business requirements. Instead of starting from scratch every time a new position is created or requirements are updated, recruiters and hiring managers can use AI to help draft job descriptions faster and stay in their normal flow of work. And more importantly, the final content is more meaningful, inclusive, and competitive 鈥� presenting a clear and accurate view of the role to attract a larger pool of qualified and interested candidates.

Rethink Career Architecture and Pathways to Advancement

Without other options for growing, gaining status, or increasing compensation, employees will seek people management roles even if they are not suitable for or interested in this type of role. Developing alternative pathways for advancement, such as specialist career paths, for high-performing individual contributors ensures that employees are entering people manager roles for the right reason 鈥� to manage people.

Sharing career architectures more broadly can also improve managers鈥� awareness of internal mobility opportunities, which they cited as a top challenge. Talent marketplaces, like the solution, can improve visibility into development and growth opportunities within the organization. It can provide AI-driven personalized recommendations for learning, mentors, internal roles, and dynamic teams. This allows employees to have experiential learning opportunities and can provide them alternate career paths.

Implement Succession Planning for All

Everyone agrees that people manager roles should become more exclusive, but that also means talent pools will become shallower. Implementing succession planning at all levels of the organization allows organizations to identify 鈥渉idden鈥� people manager talent. When developing succession plans, consider that a people manager does not always need to be replaced with an existing people manager 鈥� and that a people manager鈥檚 next role does not always need to be in management. The solution can make this process easier by helping employees expand their skills and advance their careers with visibility into continuous development dialogue, mentoring opportunities, and AI-powered career planning. It can also optimize succession planning, making it scalable to place the right people in the right roles and helping to secure the 鈥渉idden鈥� people manager talent.

Create a Community for People Managers

People managers consider staying engaged, feeling included, and managing their well-being to be top challenges. Creating a people manager community provides this crucial workforce segment with social support, which research has shown to be a positive driver of the people manger experience. This also offers the organization a clear channel to host two-way communication with people managers. One way to foster a community for people managers is to leverage the solution, which is a personalized digital workspace that helps support and encourage collaboration. People managers can create their own community and connect with each other, allowing for more engagement, sharing of best practices, and improvement in the overall employee experience.

Leverage Technology

Cloud HR technology can help support the strategies recommended here and solve many of managers鈥� most pressing challenges. With 51风流SuccessFactors solutions, organizations can put their people at the center of everything and create AI-powered experiences that can support current people managers while using talent intelligence to help uncover and develop the managers of tomorrow.

As the expectations of people managers from both employees and organizations undergo constant evolution, the role of people manager will increasingly become more 鈥減eople-centric鈥� 鈥� focusing on support, fostering development, and nurturing a positive culture. It鈥檚 important that organizations use the right HR technology to deliver engaging employee experiences, increase productivity, and drive better business outcomes.

For additional insights on the evolution of the people manager role, read the full report,聽“.”

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

A prime example of this modern digital shift in UX is embedding high-value, critical HR tasks directly into the applications employees use daily. By integrating  with other workplace technology solutions, 51风流enables people to perform HR tasks without interrupting their daily work.

All of us have seen how artificial intelligence (AI) can increase process efficiency and productivity, reduce human errors, and elevate user standards. But UX will change the most as the potential for new AI capabilities and models is expanded to address pressing business needs and employee expectations.

Shaping the User Experience with a Purpose

Whether predictive, conversational, or generative, advancements in business AI are expected to bring the most significant shift in how people use technology at work.

By investing in AI to strengthen 51风流SuccessFactors HXM Suite, 51风流supports how people naturally interact, get work done, and leverage technology in the workplace. And best of all, we are doing it ethically by following our guiding principles to be:

• Relevant: Helping users get greater insights and perform tasks more efficiently with AI designed with business context in mind to enhance the flow of work
• Reliable: Using AI that is trained on the customer鈥檚 industry and company data and accessible in the solutions used each day
• Responsible: Running responsible AI built on leading ethics and data privacy standards while maintaining full governance and lifecycle management across an entire organization

By only employing AI technology that meets our stringent standards, we help our customers ensure the delivery of a meaningful and engaging UX for their entire workforce. Doing so allows employees to not only reach their full potential but also feel accomplished, supported, and engaged.

For instance, HR professionals and their stakeholders are unlocking higher engagement and productivity for their employees, organizations, and businesses through their recruitment and talent development processes. One of the ways this is being accomplished is by unifying 51风流SuccessFactors solutions with leading business productivity applications such as Microsoft Teams and further enhancing that integration with AI embedded in 51风流SuccessFactors solutions to generate suggestions and recommendations using natural language. 

This business-oriented AI innovation represents some of the fundamental changes 51风流is creating to transform how people will experience work in the years to come.

Future-Ready HR for a Future-Ready Workforce

Our AI-enabled use cases for 51风流SuccessFactors HXM Suite are exceptional evidence of how HR tasks — from talent acquisition and talent management to core HR processes — can become a natural extension of people鈥檚 everyday work experience.

Consider the value of these scenarios heavily used in the recruiting process:

Creating Job Descriptions

Hiring managers and recruiters can fine-tune job descriptions with generative AI within the 51风流SuccessFactors Recruiting solution. This allows them to incorporate supplementary content, identify biased language, and help ensure alignment with business requirements. Once the final version is approved by the appropriate hiring manager and assigned recruiter, the job description can be published in 51风流SuccessFactors solutions.

Instead of starting from scratch every time a new position is created or requirements are updated, recruiters and hiring managers can draft job descriptions faster and stay in their normal flow of work. And more importantly, the final content is more meaningful, inclusive, and competitive — attracting a larger pool of qualified and interested candidates.

Interviewing Candidates

Hiring managers can construct unbiased and more effective interview questions by using AI-generated prompts, creating an exceptional impression on the candidate and leading to the right decision for both parties.

Recruiters and hiring managers can also provide their assessment of candidates throughout the process through Microsoft Teams, which is then captured by 51风流SuccessFactors Recruiting for further evaluation.

The Right Time to Ignite HR鈥檚 Full Potential

To learn more about how adding HR processes into the flow of work with business AI can redefine the user experience for your employees, register for  to access a variety of breakout sessions, demos, Q&A sessions and more on this topic, all available on-demand, including:

Take this opportunity to explore new opportunities to redefine your HR experience — setting the foundation for igniting the potential of your workforce and meeting the demands of a changing world.

AJ Whalen is a senior director of Solution Marketing at SAP.

Milliken was relying on an outdated, on-premise human capital management (HCM) system that struggled to keep up with the changing demands of its workforce. A poor user experience led to limited adoption and a slew of frustrations for admins and users alike. In addition, obtaining accurate reports was nearly impossible due to the number of disparate HR processes in use around the globe. It was clear that a new approach was needed. To fully support its workers, Milliken decided that it was time to move to the cloud.

Taking a phased approach, Milliken began by implementing cloud solutions to support its recruiting, succession planning, performance management, and analytics processes. By leveraging , it was able to offer mobile-friendly job applications in a number of languages and to create a more accessible and user-friendly experience for applicants. In addition, an expanded presence across more than 40 job sites helped Milliken make significant strides towards creating a diversified talent pool with quality candidates. Within one year, applicant volume increased by more than 300%. To further align its recruiting and succession processes with business diversity, equity, and inclusion (DE&I) goals, Milliken leveraged advanced analytics to capture data on headcount, turnover, and hiring. Comprehensive graphs and reporting capabilities enabled Milliken to visualize data across the workforce, from compensation and benefit trends to key diversity metrics.

Building upon its initial successes, Milliken began to transition its core HR processes from on premise to the cloud. To improve data quality and overall transparency, it leveraged to manage employee and organizational data across the globe. Moving towards a single platform has helped better support HR compliance and allowed Milliken to respond more proactively to legal and regulatory changes. Mobile capabilities were deployed to deskless associates, supporting the company鈥檚 sustainability goal to reduce paper consumption.

Looking forward, Milliken intends to continue its cloud transformation by moving benefits and compensation administration processes to the cloud. Improving the access and overall experience of key HR functions is an integral part of Milliken鈥檚 mission to support its people and ultimately create a sustainable workforce. With less time spent on operational tactics, Milliken鈥檚 associates can focus on delivering positive outcomes for their customers and communities.

Jeff Glauber is global solution marketing lead for 51风流SuccessFactors Employee Central at SAP.

Candidates are also customers, so poor candidate experiences can impact customer brand reputation. Virgin Media famously they were losing over $5 million per year in lost sales revenue because candidates who had a poor candidate experience became brand detractors and canceled their subscriptions.

Still, most companies get candidate experience wrong. Something that seems like a no-brainer, like communicating with candidates, doesn鈥檛 happen. New research conducted by Qualtrics and 51风流found 64% of job seekers have been ghosted by a company they interviewed with (40% say they often don鈥檛 hear back, 24% say they never hear back). Or it could be something more nuanced, like long applications preventing people from applying. The 2022 Greenhouse Candidate Experience Report that 70% of job seekers will not submit a job application if it takes more than 15 minutes to complete.

What is worse is that companies think they are getting candidate experience right. CareerBuilder research shows that 78% of organizations believe they do a good job setting expectations upfront with candidates and communicating throughout the hiring process, but only 47% of candidates agree, creating a large candidate experience gap.

If companies don鈥檛 close the candidate experience gap, they will see higher unwanted candidate withdrawal, lower offer acceptance rates, and higher cost per hire. Identifying an experience gap is only half the challenge; organizations often lack adequate insights to know what levers will close the experience gap.

Specifically, there are three main barriers:

• Lack of comprehensive experience data. Most organizations collect data at only one point in time, usually at the end of the hiring process. This can introduce bias because organizations miss out on experience data from candidates earlier in the process; having a listening post only at the end of the hiring process ignores an experience gap that may exist earlier in the process, like during application or interviewing.
• Constrained recruiting teams. Recruiters are in ; they do not have time to do additional manual work. More listening posts should not mean more work for them. Recruiters need technology that helps them be more efficient and spend their energy where there is the biggest payoff.
• Inability to identify worthwhile insights and take action. Recruiting and talent acquisition teams are already sitting on loads of data. They have data in their candidate directory and applicant tracking systems, and adding on experience data will not necessarily lead to more insights and action. Talent acquisition teams need help synthesizing data from disparate locations, so they can focus their attention where it is needed most and take action sooner.

To solve these challenges, Qualtrics and 51风流SuccessFactors are deepening integrations by releasing a new automated data synchronization so that data flows more easily, quickly, and securely from into . This integration enhancement combined with existing embedded feedback opportunities make it easier for recruiters and talent acquisition leaders to better understand candidates鈥� experiences and more quickly take action to improve them.

Automating Secure Data Transfer to Enhance Candidate Experiences

Automated data transfer connects the deep operational data from the 51风流SuccessFactors Recruiting module 鈥� like candidate demographics, stage in the hiring process, hiring manager, job location, and job level 鈥� and integrates it with the holistic experience data from Qualtrics 鈥� like how candidates evaluate fairness, clarity, technology, and timeliness in the hiring process. This pre-built integration gives joint 51风流SuccessFactors and Qualtrics customers a unified view of their operational and experience data, ultimately enabling talent acquisition leaders to optimize their candidate experience.

Available in the second half of 2022 to joint 51风流SuccessFactors Recruiting and 51风流Qualtrics Candidate Experience customers, this improved integration securely and seamlessly automates data transfers between recruiting and candidate directories for greater data accuracy.聽 This improves upon existing data syncing capabilities to be even more efficient. Data integration is critical because it offers talent acquisition teams:

• Up-to-date candidate directory: Gone are the days of manually exporting, scrubbing, and uploading spreadsheets because the workflow automates data transfer and keeps records up-to-date. The connection enables talent acquisition teams to spend more time on what matters most by reducing manual administration work.
• Automated in-moment listening: Embedded feedback opportunities within 51风流SuccessFactors Recruiting captures candidate sentiment at key moments and the updated workflow automates survey distribution, so when a candidate progresses in the hiring process, a survey is distributed in-moment. This minimizes manual work and gathers candidate feedback in a timely manner to help ensure authentic responses that recruiters can respond to and act on immediately.
• Combined operational and experience data to analyze: Syncing candidate metadata, like demographics and job details, with candidate experience data, like perception of fairness, allows talent acquisition leaders to easily filter, analyze, and compare experience data from different views to make data-driven decisions using sophisticated analytics and dashboards.

New integrations continue to strengthen the experiences delivered by 51风流SuccessFactors Recruiting and 51风流Qualtrics Candidate Experience. Embedded listening and enhanced data connections make it easier, faster, and more secure for CHROs and talent acquisition leaders to not only understand who their candidates are and in what stage of the hiring process they are, but also why candidates are having certain experiences and where to take action. For example, joint customers can discover why women 25 to 34 years old are more likely to decline offers and then implement targeted changes that improve experiences for future candidates of that specific demographic, reversing the negative acceptance trend.

Using experience management solutions from 51风流and Qualtrics to understand and improve the candidate experience allows organizations to design a talent strategy that values the employee voice at every key moment in the talent lifecycle — right from the start.

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Amanda Crittenden is global solution marketing lead for Employee Experience Management at 51风流SuccessFactors.
Emily Lambert is product marketing manager for EX at Qualtrics.

Job Seekers Rush to Find New Opportunities with Better Pay and Work-Life Balance

Over 200 years later, we still face issues with diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI). In fact, many of the most critical challenges we face today are actually evolutions of the same challenges we faced over the last few years. Human resources (HR) leaders must understand how these challenges are creating the next normal, but also assess and determine how technology can accelerate HR transformation.

The Hybrid Era

2022 is the year to construct policies, practices, and norms around the permanent hybrid workplace moving forward. HR leaders must expand their conversations around hybrid work to consider reconfiguring job roles, modifying schedules and locations, and determining when an external workforce is the best route to take for staffing.

51风流provides the components needed for a successful total workforce management strategy. With 51风流solutions, organizations can source, engage, and actively manage external workers. In addition, can surface key tasks and insights, providing an intuitive experience that is personalized for each role and individual.

Learning and Internal Mobility

Organizations continue to struggle to get employees to own their development. It is critical for HR leaders to widely communicate what skills and roles are important priorities for the business, provide content and experiences to address these areas, and reward and recognize employee learning and development.

can offer everyone 鈥� whether they are in an office, at home, or deskless 鈥� visibility into development opportunities that are meaningful and relevant to the individual and important to the business. The can help you identify gaps and future needs and then align the right workforce learning and development to address those gaps.

Intelligent Technologies

Concerns are growing with the rise of newer, more intelligent employee monitoring technologies for hybrid and remote work, but intelligent technologies for data-driven decision-making are still considered fundamental. HR leaders will need to effectively communicate to help employees understand these tools: their purpose, their value, and how and where personal data is used.

With intelligent technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning embedded across 51风流SuccessFactors solutions, you can offer prescriptive guidance on a wide range of strategic areas. For example, personalized learning recommendations use machine learning algorithms based on employee profile information, learning activity, history, and more. 聽By connecting this unique learning experience to personal development and growth, you can help everyone understand the benefit of using these intelligent technologies.

Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Belonging

DEI continues to remain important in 2022, but with the rise of hybrid and remote work organizations must monitor how flexible work models impact DEI efforts. Involving DEI leadership in the creation and evaluation of hybrid work policies will be critical to ensure such opportunities are equitable.

With calibration decisions, you can analyze historical data and surface important information to managers that may have been overlooked in hybrid and remote settings. This guidance helps managers make informed talent decisions and ensure equitable treatment. Also, the writing assistant in can guide performance feedback that is equitable and actionable, regardless of employee demographic characteristics.

Employee Experience

Organizations are improving employee experiences by balancing policies that benefit the entire workforce with practices that meet each employee鈥檚 unique needs. Personalizing the employee experience can include linking learning and development with personal career goals, matching employees with internal jobs or gigs based on their interests or areas of expertise, and assessing the working style compatibility of team members.

Employee experience management solutions help organizations continuously listen to employees and take insight-based action to improve employee experiences and engagement. Organizations can capture employee sentiment directly within the flow of work by triggering embedded feedback opportunities in moments that matter.

Well-Being

Supporting holistic well-being will be foundational to people sustainability efforts. New policies and practices that emphasize employee well-being 鈥� such as four-day work weeks, comprehensive benefits, competitive wages, and development support 鈥� will become more widespread and serve as a tool for engagement, attraction, and retention.

can provide the first touch point with a potential employee. Articulating how your organization prioritizes well-being on your career site is key to attracting and retaining key talent.

The Race for Talent

The workforce is demanding more of their current organization and, if they don鈥檛 receive it, is increasingly proving they will find it elsewhere. Organizations must develop strategies to reengage their employees who are unhappy and disengaged with individualized development plans and internal mobility opportunities.

With unified talent solutions, you can enable everyone to share more about who they are 鈥� their strengths, aspirations, and preferences 鈥� so you can match people with meaningful work and build stronger, more dynamic teams. With this whole self approach and intelligent recommendations for employee development and growth, you can align people with purpose and drive the adaptability needed for better business outcomes.

Leadership

People management now requires leading hybrid and remote teams, which comprises setting expectations for flexible work, assessing performance virtually, and creating and maintaining a positive culture in a dispersed team, to name a few. Regardless of team member location, management is becoming more 鈥渉uman-centered鈥� and emotionally supportive. These new skills will require organizations to rethink how they select, promote, and retain people managers.

With , you can automate repeatable tasks to give managers more time for employee development, coaching and giving feedback to team members, and interacting with the team. You can identify new required competencies for performance assessments and selection of new managers.

For the complete insights and recommendations, read the . .

Susie Thomas, PHR is global director of Solution Marketing at 51风流SuccessFactors.
Lauren Park is a research scientist for Growth and Insights at 51风流SuccessFactors.

I find that pretty inspirational, as I did my discussion with Saumil Gandhi, vice president of Corporate Development and Alliances at Phenom, about the company鈥檚 (TXM) solution on .

Powered by artificial intelligence (AI), Phenom鈥檚 TXM solution enables enterprises to help candidates find the right job, employees learn and evolve their careers, recruiters discover top talent, and managers build their teams faster. The solution integrates with 51风流SuccessFactors Recruiting, allowing employers to create engaging, dynamic, and relevant experiences for all candidates as they engage with the brand and open roles 鈥� whether they鈥檙e a first-time visitor, returning visitor, qualified lead, or applicant.

Pairing Technology with Contemporary Hiring Realities

Phenom鈥檚 TXM solution couldn鈥檛 be more relevant to the way hiring has evolved today. 鈥淲e are in a profound moment in the history of recruiting,鈥� Gandhi observed. 鈥淔or a long time, humans have overcomplicated the process. You once got a job simply by walking through a door after seeing a 鈥榟elp wanted鈥� sign, talking with the boss, and hearing the magic words 鈥榶ou鈥檙e hired.鈥� We provide a digital platform that makes that process just as easy. We want to take the fear away from candidates 鈥� especially young people who have never looked for a job before. We are offering pure simplification, reducing the number of touch points.鈥�

As one example, Phenom TXM provides employers with a conversational AI chatbot to automate sourcing, screening, and interview scheduling 鈥� all in real time. 鈥淚t鈥檚 not unusual for 40 or 50 hours to go into this effort. The chatbot does it in minutes and is vital for high-volume hiring applications,鈥� Gandhi told me.

Connecting People Through Instantly Personalized Connections

For candidates, Phenom TXM works with 51风流SuccessFactors Recruiting to enhance their experience, ultimately allowing them to find and apply to relevant jobs faster.

The solution uses AI to deliver hyper-personalized career sites that dynamically provide tailored content based on a candidate鈥檚 skills, experience, location, and more 鈥� whether they鈥檙e passively browsing the site or actively looking for a job. (Phenom TXM is GDPR compliant to protect privacy.)

Recruiters can use the solution to build, engage, and track talent pipelines for the organization in a central place. AI-powered features can also be used to discover 鈥� and rediscover 鈥� qualified candidates, view candidate fit scores, and create effective talent marketing campaigns. These capabilities extend to university recruiting, enabling recruiters to create campus events, publish registration pages, and manage attendees in real time with a mobile app.

For employees, Phenom TXM provides greater visibility and easier access to internal jobs, company content, and career development opportunities, ultimately building an experience for employees that rival the attention given to candidates.

From a holistic standpoint, the idea is to empower both organizations and individuals to be successful in an environment where candidates are not sitting in front of a hiring manager demonstrating fit for the job.

鈥淭he dimensions of recruiting are changing,鈥� Gandhi commented. 鈥淭oday, companies are hiring software engineers, for instance, who can be located in any part of the world and be just as effective. Meanwhile, there is a great deal of cross-pollination going on across industries. As workers seek new opportunities, many are looking to bring their expertise and skills to new sectors, which opens up the talent pool significantly for employers.鈥�

Partnering to Do the Best for the Customer

Speaking of a good fit, Phenom has found that with SAP, noted Gandhi. 鈥淥ur partnership is key to achieving our vision,鈥� he remarked. 鈥淲e share the same core values. It鈥檚 in our DNA to contribute to someone else鈥檚 success. Both of our companies strive to put the customer at the center of the universe, and that sense of doing good for the customer warms my heart.鈥�

In his exceptional interactions with SAP, he added, 鈥淭he people we work with are so professional, so energetic, so willing to hear the voice of the partner.鈥� Through 51风流Store, 51风流and Phenom have more than 30 mutual customers using the integrated solutions. 鈥淎nd that鈥檚 why we鈥檙e better together.鈥�

I will wager that there could be a good match for your organization with TXM from Phenom. Why not check it out now on ?

To deliver the employee experience to support this culture across the globe and transform its human resources (HR) processes, RHI Magnesita implemented and . With a single, unified HR system globally, the company has reduced the time for data collection and reporting from weeks to minutes, and increased productivity.

RHI Magnesita serves customers globally, with around 12,000 employees in 30 main production sites and more than 70 sales offices, following the merger of RHI and Magnesita in 2017. While the merger scaled the company鈥檚 availability and combined talents to create a refractory powerhouse, it resulted in fragmented HR systems across multiple countries and data that was duplicative and unreliable. Managers and leaders were unable to access people information, such as headcounts and organization charts, on their own 鈥� placing a heavy administrative burden on HR business partners.

Since creating one unified system with 51风流SuccessFactors Employee Central, RHI Magnesita has enhanced self-service for managers and employees, improved data quality, and increased efficiencies with more automation. Reports are a mouse-click away and leaders can access employee data on a global level when they need it. By improving the quality and access of people data, HR can be more strategic and business leaders across the company can make faster, more informed decisions.

鈥� have been a game changer to improve the employee and manager experience,鈥� said Claudius Mitter, HR Project and Process manager, RHI Magnesita. 鈥淚n addition to simplifying and unifying our HR landscape, we knew we needed to support employees with reliable self-service options. 51风流SuccessFactors helps reinforce our culture of collaboration and innovation, which in turn increases value for our customers and furthers our mission to make the refractory industry more sustainable and efficient.鈥�

With , RHI Magnesita implemented 51风流SuccessFactors Employee Central and 51风流SuccessFactors Recruiting in 11 months. It is now implementing additional human experience management (HXM) solutions from 51风流to build out its HR capabilities.

鈥淭he Cloud Mindset Workshop as part of 51风流Preferred Success helped our team adopt a cloud-first approach,鈥� continued Mitter. 鈥淭his will be critical as we continue our HR transformation journey.鈥�

Fabian Flach is head of 51风流SuccessFactors for Middle & Eastern Europe at SAP.