Human Resources

For many years, being a Local Government Chairman meant managing administration — signing approvals, responding to requests, and overseeing routine matters. But times have changed.

With greater autonomy now comes greater responsibility — not just to act, but to deliver. And in this new era, the biggest shift is not in structure. It’s in how leaders lead.

Autonomy doesn’t just transfer control from federal to local levels. It transfers accountability. Citizens now look to you, and not Abuja for results. That spotlight brings a new challenge: are your leadership systems ready?

The Real Shift: From Oversight to Leadership

In councils across Nigeria, Chairmen are learning that authority is no longer enough. Teams are bigger. Budgets are larger. Expectations are rising. Yet many councils still operate with outdated leadership models — where control is centralised, and decision-making slows down when the Chairman is unavailable.

The real challenge now is not only what you decide, but how you lead others to act.

This was the focus of Rwanda’s Imihigo system, where mayors sign annual performance contracts with measurable goals, reviewed publicly. Beyond the contracts, the real breakthrough came when district leaders were trained to set direction, track execution, and hold their own teams accountable. Leadership became a process — not a personality.

Similarly, in the Philippines, the Local Government Academy has been used to develop mayors and municipal leaders through structured coaching, peer learning, and leadership diagnostics. Over time, councils that invested in leadership saw better service delivery and improved citizen engagement.

These cases show that in a decentralised system, it’s not policies alone that drive progress it is leadership capacity.

What Holds Leadership Back in Many Councils

In our work across Nigeria, we’ve seen four challenges that weaken public sector leadership at the local level:

Reactive, Not Intentional Leadership
Many councils respond to issues as they arise but don’t set a clear performance rhythm that drives focus week by week.

Leadership Gaps Below the Chairman
When Heads of Department aren’t equipped to lead independently, all decisions funnel upwards, slowing action and breeding frustration.

Lack of Team Alignment
Councils often operate in silos. Directors pursue different agendas, and performance reviews rarely happen. Without shared goals, delivery is inconsistent.

Weak Accountability Culture
Because feedback and follow-up are informal or absent, underperformance is tolerated and the system slowly accepts delay as normal.

How We Help Build Leadership That Delivers

At H. Pierson, we help Chairmen and their executive teams strengthen leadership from the inside out, using systems, routines, and coaching that embed performance into daily operations.

Here’s how:

Leadership Development & Coaching

We work with Chairmen and top officials to clarify leadership styles, improve decision-making, and develop successors who can lead without waiting for directives.

Culture Transformation

We help councils move from compliance-based environments to performance-driven ones where people take ownership and execution is expected, not requested.

Performance Management Design

We support councils to introduce structured systems: scorecards, check-ins, and measurable reviews. These create follow-through, even when priorities shift.

Leadership Is the Culture You Create

Chairman, the people you lead take cues from how you lead. If meetings lack clarity, they do the same with their teams. If accountability is optional, it becomes the norm. Leadership is not just your personal example — it is the environment you tolerate or change.

The question isn’t whether you’re in charge. It’s whether your team knows how to perform without your daily push.

Final Thought

Autonomy gives you the platform. But leadership gives you the results. And the councils that will stand out in this new era are not the ones with the biggest budgets, they arethe ones with the strongest leadership systems.

Chairman, now is the time to build the kind of leadership that outlasts your tenure and transforms how your council performs.

Let’s build leadership that works not just for now, but for what’s next.

Here are key tips to strengthening organizational culture:

Define and Communicate

1. Establish a clear mission, vision, and values.
2. Communicate culture through storytelling and examples.
3. Ensure leadership embodies and promotes the culture.

Employee Engagement

1. Foster open communication and feedback.
2. Encourage employee participation and involvement.
3. Recognize and reward employees for cultural contributions.

Leadership Accountability

1. Hold leaders accountable for cultural alignment.
2. Provide training on cultural leadership.
3. Lead by example, demonstrating cultural values.

Inclusion and Diversity

1. Foster a culture of inclusivity and respect.
2. Promote diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives.
3. Celebrate differences and unique perspectives.

Continuous Improvement

1. Regularly assess and evaluate culture.
2. Solicit employee feedback and suggestions.
3. Implement changes and adjustments as needed.

Employee Development

1. Invest in employee growth and development.
2. Provide opportunities for learning and advancement.
3. Support work-life balance and well-being.

Reinforce Cultural Norms

1. Develop rituals and traditions.
2. Celebrate milestones and successes.
3. Embed cultural values in performance management.

Measure and Monitor

1. Track cultural metrics (e.g., engagement, retention).
2. Conduct regular culture surveys.
3. Analyze data to inform cultural decisions.

Embed Culture in Processes

1. Integrate cultural values into hiring processes.
2. Incorporate cultural considerations in decision-making.
3. Align policies and procedures with cultural values.

Leadership Succession Planning

1. Develop future leaders who embody the culture.
2. Ensure leadership transitions maintain cultural continuity.
3. Plan for cultural sustainability.

Additional suggestions:

– Create a culture committee or ambassador program.
– Host cultural events and activities.
– Incorporate cultural values into performance evaluations.
– Develop a comprehensive onboarding process.
– Monitor and address cultural misalignment.

Here are the top five HR trends to expect in 2025:

Unlocking HR Potential with AI: Artificial intelligence will continue to transform the HR landscape, streamlining recruitment and onboarding processes, supporting effective employee management, and enhancing decision making with data driven insights.

People Centered HR Strategy: This approach prioritizes improving the employee experience, encompassing wellbeing, engagement, and satisfaction. It recognizes that happy, engaged employees are more productive and less likely to leave their jobs.

Work Life Balance and the FourDay Work Week: As businesses explore ways to improve worklife balance, the fourday work week is gaining traction. This trend reflects a broader shift towards flexible working arrangements, which can increase productivity and employee satisfaction.

Advanced DE&I and Company Culture Initiatives: Diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives will become more sophisticated, creating an environment where all employees feel valued and included. This requires ongoing training, clear policies, and a commitment to continuous improvement.

Adapting to a Distributed Workforce: With the rise of remote work, companies must adapt their HR and operational procedures to support and collaborate with a distributed workforce. This includes effective remote working policies, robust communication tools, and strategies for maintaining team cohesion.

These trends highlight the evolving needs and values of employees, and HR professionals must stay informed to attract, manage, and retain talent in the modern workforce.

Plan and Replace Your Top Talent Seamlessly with Succession Planning

Succession planning is the process used to find potential leaders and high performers, helping them to develop and advance within an organization. An effective succession plan prepares identified successors with the skills and competencies needed for any future roles. Using a customized development plan can help employees grow and ensure your successors are the right fit for the future position. Creating no need to worry about open positions when top leaders leave.

Succession Planning is essential because, as a business grows, developing current employees for future critical positions is more cost-effective than hiring new talent. Succession planning can also boost engagement and retention rates by providing employees with a clear path forward in their careers and your organization.

The Importance of Succession Planning

The succession planning process is key to long-term business success. It fosters growth in future leaders and replaces them when key contributors leave.

Here are some top reasons why succession planning is essential to your business:

Reduce Costs when Hiring Top Talent

Hiring top talent can be expensive, and your company could lose money if you are not confident in the new replacement. By creating an internal talent pipeline, you can protect the return on your hiring investment with potential successors.

If your successors come from within your organization, you will not need to recruit externally, which reduces costs even further. You can invest the money you save in other areas – like employee training and development.

Find Key Leaders

With the right approach, you can find key employees who can perform well in new specific roles. Helping to measure options and make the best decisions regarding successors for a role. You can also ensure the succession pool aligns with your diversity and inclusion goals for the company and its future growth.

Mitigate Risk

When top roles within your company go unfilled for tooling, your business success will be at risk. With succession planning, you will have a plan when changes occur so your business is always prepared.

Create Your Legacy

When business leaders are aware of their successors for a critical role, they can provide mentorship and share knowledge. All their experiences will be translated into the future efforts of their successor, so your key employees can leave a lasting mark on the company.

Shapes an Exit Strategy

Succession plans ensure leadership exits are smooth and seamless. An effective plan outlines key resource replacements, so your business can run adequately whenever those individuals exit.

Promotes Progression

Succession planning helps you shape the mindset of crucial employees for continuity. When leaders consider how certain events could affect the business, they might be more agile in facing unexpected events.

How Technology Helps in Succession Planning

Most businesses consider succession planning as a time-consuming and ineffective process. With a traditional approach, leaders spend hours compiling spreadsheets which can quickly become outdated and might not lead to actual employee development.

These latest technology features can eliminate risks and streamline your succession planning strategy. You can boost employee growth and drive business success with the right tools.

Identifies Talent and Readiness to Fill Top Positions

For the best hiring decisions, businesses should be able to see their talent all in one place and understand the full scope of each employee’s skill set. With the right tools, you can find the highest potential talent and add them to your succession plans for future growth.

Make Firm Decisions When Talent Leaves

When your key employees leave unexpectedly, it is essential to have a plan in place so you are not rushing to fill the open position. Technology helps you find the best fit for each role, help make precise hiring decisions and reduces negative business impacts.

Promote Growth and Development for Successors

The solution helps you find the employee skills gaps when they are recognized as a successor. This way allows the employees to support their growth and development in the areas that matter. When employees are ready to fill those crucial roles, there is no break in progress.

Your Succession Plan is Always Ready

An advanced tool will keep your succession plan up-to-date, ready, and at your fingertips to illustrate your business’s longevity. A robust succession platform tracks the metrics and ensures your top positions are filled when needed.

Takes the Difficulty Out of Succession Planning

An advanced succession planning system works seamlessly with your employee’ reviews and overall goals. When you can measure and align performance with your succession plans, you will find the best talent and ensures they develop correctly.

Reference: https://www.sutisoft.com/

Leadership Assessment is key at any stage of your career

Regardless of where you are in your career, leadership assessment can help you find your strengths and weaknesses as a business leader. It is important to know more about the leadership competencies because:

This will allow for utilizing one’s talents best
Understanding these skills also helps capitalize on opportunities in order not waste time or resources
A lack thereof could mean an inability of adaptiveness which would hurt company growth

The 4 benefits of leadership assessment:

Leadership assessments can guide you in creating your career goals
Leadership assessments can increase self-awareness
Assessing your leadership can help you improve in all stages of your career
Leadership assessments can help in improving the leadership development plan

1st Benefit: Leadership assessments can guide you in creating your career goals

Leadership assessment can give you an objective idea of your abilities as a business leader no matter what stage you are in your career. An effective leadership assessment lets you — and your organization — know in a constructive way just what kind of leadership skills you have.

Guiding your career goals
While gauging your capacity to handle different roles and responsibilities, a good leadership assessment can help you to define where you want to go as an executive and how to get there. Different leadership assessment tools offered by top international business schools can assess your performance in a variety of areas and situations.

But whether the leadership evaluation is focused on personal leadership or business management, it can tell you what your strengths are and what you need to learn to tackle new challenges. A detailed assessment can guide you on the experience and the leadership and management training required to achieve your career goals.

2nd Benefit: Leadership assessments can increase self-awareness

A high-quality leadership assessment will inform you about what kind of person you are. This is a critical factor on the journey to becoming a better leader. Self-awareness of your personal qualities and leadership skills can improve exponentially the way you lead organizations and deal with others. It can also help you build on your leadership strengths and confront your weaknesses.

Learning more about yourself can increase your leadership effectiveness in the process. You will be able to gain the support and trust of your team members if you have an honest assessment of your leadership capabilities. This in turn will boost your credibility.

You should remember, however, that leadership evaluation should not be seen as a way to provide a definitive picture of an executive’s potential capabilities. Leadership skills are continually developed and honed through experience and corporate training, rather than being innately acquired.

Good business schools offer one-on-one leadership coaching with experts who can provide a frank but sensitive appraisal of your management skills. When you are a leader it is often difficult for others to you tell you candidly how you are doing.

3rd Benefit: Leadership assessments can help you improve in all stages of your career

A lifetime of learning in top management means that you should be standing back to reassess your leadership skills at regular intervals. Leadership assessment can typically help you decide what training courses are right for you at different stages of your career. Leadership assessments are vital to ensure upgrading of leadership skills and competencies by the following people:

Functional Managers

An ambitious functional manager seeking management training courses to advance his or her career must first undergo a leadership assessment to find an appropriate leadership development program.

Mid-career Business Leaders

A mid-career business leader considering an executive development program to boost his or her value to the company needs a leadership assessment to find a training program that perfectly fits.

Senior Executives & CEOs

A senior executive or CEO at the top of an organization, seeking ways to move the organization forward while seeking out opportunities and leading with conviction and authority, must first submit to a leadership assessment.

People Seeking Development Of Leadership Skills

People looking to develop strategic leadership skills to tackle specific challenges, such as business development strategy or sustainability through targeted business management training, must first take a leadership assessment.

4th Benefit: Leadership assessments can help in improving the leadership development plan

Leadership assessment can play another critical role for your organization as part of a leadership development plan. It allows a company to appraise the abilities of business managers at different levels to lead teams and projects.

Leadership evaluation helps human resources departments to identify gaps in the talent pool, while establishing who is prepared to take on senior general management positions when vacancies arise. With the baby-boom generation reaching retirement age, companies need a solid succession planning process to ensure continuity of leadership.

That involves identifying the executive education needed to ensure your company has the right people with the right training in place at the right time. The process can get a healthy head start with effective leadership assessment.

As companies prepare for another year of attracting, hiring and retaining employees, there are a few developments and trends in the HR and TA industry they should keep an eye out for, says Neil Costa, CEO of HireClix.

The world of work has changed significantly since 2020. Many organizations have adjusted their business strategy and approach, which has resulted in a change to their people strategy. More importantly, employees’ values have evolved. The “great reshuffling” taught us that employees are willing to move jobs for more balance, greater flexibility and growth opportunities. Many workers are no longer willing to stay with organizations if their needs and values are not aligned.

Sourcing the right talent continues to be a huge challenge for companies in the current labor market and will continue into 2023. And with the complex business environment of low unemployment rates amidst fear of layoffs and hiring freezes, Human Resource (HR) and Talent Acquisition (TA) leaders are getting mixed signals.

As companies prepare for another year of attracting, hiring, and retaining employees, there are a few developments and trends in the HR and TA industry they should keep an eye out for, including a focus on internal mobility opportunities, a consumer-like experience from career sites to attract employees, and creating and showcasing an authentic brand.

Prioritization of Internal Mobility

Companies will focus on providing more opportunities to internal employees by being more transparent about job openings and the internal hiring process. This is necessary to improve retention and provide the career growth employees crave. Recent data from the LinkedIn Global Talent Trends ReportOpens a new window shows that companies that excel at increasing opportunities for internal mobility have better retention, as employees who make an internal move are more likely to stay at their organization than those who stay in the same role. It is often easier for an employee to find an opportunity outside their current organization than inside. Executives will realize that internal mobility processes that are not employee-friendly significantly impact their turnover. Companies should eliminate the “hidden job market” and post all open roles for employees to view and self-nominate. Hidden job markets perpetuate diversity, equity, and inclusion issues as they send the message that you must be “in” with the right leaders to find your next opportunity.

Return of Hiring Events and Job Fairs

Due to the distance created between workers worldwide at the peak of the pandemic, we anticipate everyone will want more face time when it comes to making one of the biggest decisions in life: getting a new job. We believe that both employers and candidates will want the in-person time to get to know and understand each other’s values. Employers will be able to screen employees for productivity ability, something that is crucial as they continue to offer flexibility and remote work accommodations. Job seekers will want to meet with their future employers in person as the demographics are shifting to a younger workforce that values a company’s mission, culture, and authenticity more than its predecessors.

Revamp of Career Sites

The current employment market is dynamic, and creating an engaging candidate experience will be critical as job seekers expect more from big brands. The Fortune 500 job sites will need an extremely fresh user experience and operate more like retail consumer sites such as Netflix and Amazon, and we expect about 50% of these companies to do so. This means light and easy interfaces with smooth interactions. Finding a job used to be more of a transaction, but since changing jobs is a top life event outside of growing a family and buying a home, candidates will expect more from employers. Applicant rates are declining because of dismal candidate experiences and the tighter labor market, so organizations that move with speed and creativity will establish a competitive advantage when hiring.

Increased Employer Branding Budget

Over the past two years, we learned that candidates are more selective about where and whom they work with—culture and values matter. Most employers invest little in employer branding but focus their dollars on directly driving applicants to jobs. With the evolving nature of the workforce and the challenging labor market, it will be critical for companies to create positive brand impressions across all media and marketing channels so job seekers associate a positive experience with the brand and take action to apply for a job. We will also see some organizations refresh their employer brands to address the new world of work and showcase how employers are adjusting to the needs of employees – offering in-person, remote, and hybrid opportunities. Candidates will be attracted to those companies that can be more thoughtful and make a connection using smarter strategies to get their brand in front of them earlier in their job search by authentically representing them through consumer advertising channels.

Hiring Freight Train

The looming recession will continue hiring needs in the healthcare, transportation, and retail industries. As older generations retire from the workforce and expect to travel more, dine out more, and need more healthcare services, the natural dip in the population of the younger generations will have plenty of opportunities in those industries to find great jobs. The main street storefronts and the logistics behind getting products to their destinations will generate countless jobs, even in a tight economy. Hiring opportunities remain strong within what I call the “Main Street Workforce,” as several sectors have only just recovered from the pandemic, leaving more flexibility to keep recruiting and avoid mass layoffs. It is also much easier to switch jobs within sectors on the main street because many skills are transferable. For those who may have left their job due to family obligations, COVID-19, etc., it’s easier to return to the workforce via the main street.

As companies plan, budget, and prepare for 2023, these are some potential key trends to consider in their recruiting and talent acquisition efforts. Take the time to invest in your company’s career site, refresh your creatives and build brand assets to attract the right talent. Take advantage of renewed opportunities to connect with professionals and prospective employees at in-person hiring events. Highlight alternative career paths like internal mobility and the main street workforce. Overall, continue to pivot and adapt to the changing wants and needs of the workforce – or risk losing out on attracting some of the top talents in your industry.

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14 Talent Acquisition Skills Needed For Success In TA

What is one important skill needed to become successful at talent acquisition? To help you with Talent Acquisition Skills, we asked CEOs and CHROs this question for their best insights. From “Ability to Sell and Influence” to “Emotional Intelligence”, there are several recommendations that may help you with Talent Acquisition Skills in the future.

Here are fourteen insights for Talent Acquisition Skills:

Negotiation
Multitasking is Key
Ability to Sell and Influence
Reading Between the Lines
Emotional Intelligence
Get Your People Skills Up!
Look Forward and Behind.
Good Cost Management Skills
Organization With Scheduled Follow-ups
You Have to Be Able to See Beyond the Resume
One Skill to Become Successful at Talent Acquisition
Paying Close Attention to Detail
Aspiring Ta Pros Should Put On their Listening Ears
Industry Domain Expertise

Negotiation

Staffing is the toughest sales job on the planet because you have to illustrate to both parties that it’s the right choice. If you sell a product, service or even an idea, half the work is already done. A car doesn’t have an opinion. It doesn’t say, “thanks for the offer, but the dealership countered and I’m going to stay where I am.”People are tricky. Hiring managers and candidates each come with wish list of requirements that may not be realistic. Sifting the vital from the ideal, aligning needs, and earning the proverbial handshake all require the art and science of negotiation.

Multitasking Is Key

Multitasking is key for talent acquisition when you have dozens of people to interview to fill multiple roles. The key is to work quickly, but not too fast. How can you screen multiple people in a shorter amount of time? Take time to prepare your interview questions in advance and think about what red or green flags you’re looking for as folks answer them. Letting candidates self select into or out of the process will save you time further down the line.

Ability To Sell And Influence

If there is one skill that is important for talent acquisition, it is the ability to sell and influence the outcome. In order to be successful in talent acquisition, you need to be able to effectively sell the company, the role to potential candidates, and influence the outcome. This requires being able to articulate the company’s mission and values, as well as being knowledgeable about the role and the team. It also requires being able to pitch the company in a way that is attractive to top talent. This is not an easy task, but it is essential for success in talent acquisition.

Reading Between The Lines

Being able to read people or “read between the lines” when performing interviews is an invaluable skill for a recruiter. Sometimes it’s not what the applicant said but the way that they said it that either qualifies or disqualifies them.Being able to read someone through a voice or video call is an important skill, as it’s how many interviews are conducted now. Being able to discern if someone is telling the truth or withholding information is critical when talking about key skills required for the position. You don’t want to have your name on a candidate endorsed to a shortlist if they lied about their qualifications.Learning to read between the lines or becoming better at reading people will help you catch and hire the best talent while simultaneously culling those who aren’t qualified.

Emotional Intelligence

The most important skill to be successful at Talent Acquisition (and many other areas in HR and business) is emotional intelligence. As an executive coach and former talent acquisition director, I know firsthand the importance of emotional intelligence in being able to successfully attract, screen, recruit and onboard talent. Emotional intelligence is defined as a set of skills that collectively establish how well we understand our own and other’s emotions, how well we use emotions to cope with stress, solve problems, make decisions and interact with others. A high level of emotional intelligence supports talent acquisition professionals to navigate both internally and externally. Emotional intelligence is a skill and thus, can be built over time with the right support. As a strategic talent advisor, I recommend all TA functions I work with to invest in the development of emotional intelligence for all team members.

Get Your People Skills Up!

Someone who is planning to take on a talent acquisition role needs to know not only how to work with people, but how to work with many people at once. Internally, talent acquisition specialists often are required to work with multiple managers in departments outside of their own. Externally those working in talent acquisition need to be able to vet and onboard those applying to positions at their company with accuracy. This vetting and onboarding process requires people skills too like interviewing candidates and salary negotiation. When it comes to a career in talent acquisition there is no such thing as being too much of a people person.

Look Forward And Behind.

To truly become effective at talent acquisition, it is important to remember to look forward and behind. While we are always dazzled by the latest shiny objects in Talent Acquisition, be it AI, TikTok, digital retargeting or new tech stack, sometimes it pays off to go “old-school.” Tactics that have worked effectively in the past e.g. flyers, posters, radio and mobile billboards are still especially effective for disrupting your target audience; particularly a passive candidate who is not actively searching the job boards. And while it’s great to keep your pulse on tomorrow’s trends, sometimes you can distinguish yourself AND your talent acquisition results by honoring the tried and true recruitment marketing methods of yesterday.

Good Cost Management Skills

Good cost management skills are a must for talent acquisition team members. A bad hire can cost companies thousands in training and re-hiring. Satisfying the monetary requirements of both the applicant and the company is no easy feat too. Finding the perfect balance to appease both parties takes not just numerical prowess, but patience and steadiness as well.

Organization With Scheduled Follow-Ups

Recruiting is a very fluid process with new applicants that need to be reviewed, scheduling interviews for other candidates in the pipeline, and making offers once you’ve found the right employee!When you’re managing the candidate pipelines for 15 or more jobs, you’ll see that some candidates can lag behind others and need a little nudge from time to time.My employer uses Greenhouse and many times our interview request emails and HackerRank emails end up in candidates Spam folders. I review the pipeline a few times a week and will set follow-ups on various candidates if they are lagging behind.Organization is key to keep up with a massive recruiting workload!

You Have To Be Able To See Beyond The Resume

To acquire highly-skilled talent on a consistent basis, you have to be able to see past the resume. While candidates should have polished resumes and CVs that showcase their experience and skills, there are other important things to look for. For example, if your company has a well-established culture, someone who will likely not contribute to that “vibe” may not last long. And with retention rates still dropping and onboarding becoming more and more costly, it’s more important than ever to make the right decisions.

One Skill To Become Successful At Talent Acquisition

I think one important skill needed to become successful at talent acquisition is communication. You need to be a successful communicator in order to communicate to your applicants what a great company you are recruiting for and the benefits that are offered at this company. Communication is also needed to write an effective job announcement to pursue applicants to apply for positions.

Paying Close Attention To Detail

When working with people, it is critical to recognize subtleties. This type of role necessitates someone who understands the value of accuracy and thoroughness. The ability to identify errors and potential weaknesses, as well as manage them until a satisfactory result is achieved, is critical to being efficient and professional. Candidates with high attention to detail are thorough and demonstrate the ability to focus on both minor and major details while completing a task.

Aspiring Ta Pros Should Put On Their Listening Ears

If you’re looking to get into talent acquisition it’s time to practice listening. While it may seem obvious, this skill is one TAs must perfect. This career requires sitting through multiple interviews each day. By the time you’ve hit your fifth candidate, all answers may sound the same. Truly listening allows a TA to pick out answers that best align with the open job and follow up with questions to dive deeper. Doing so makes it significantly easier to find the right fit for the role.

Industry Domain Expertise

The best recruiters understand the industry they practice in. They know the competitive landscape, who are the top players, the differentiators amongst them, and often the culture, pay and leadership within the companies. This helps on a number of levels, especially when it comes to candidate negotiation. If you know who they are likely to be interviewing with you can turn a mind quickly with the right insights and show your confidence behind the company/client you are representing.

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Talent acquisition is a foundational element of your organization’s success, and drives everything from company culture to profitability. The people you hire have a significant impact on the product or service you offer, the satisfaction of your customers, the reputation of your brand, and the atmosphere of your work environment.

Implementing an effective talent acquisition process to secure top talent is an investment that has the potential to improve every aspect of the way you do business.

What is talent acquisition?

Talent acquisition is a strategic approach to finding, identifying, and selecting qualified candidates for open positions. It’s usually the responsibility of human resources professionals and technically includes each step of the hiring process, including sourcing, interviewing, and even onboarding.

However, the most effective TA strategies have a big-picture perspective and include less obvious steps of the process, such as building a desirable employer brand, improving the candidate experience, and prioritizing relationship management in an effort to attract and retain high-quality candidates.

Recruitment vs. talent acquisition

Recruitment and talent acquisition may seem like interchangeable terms, but there’s some nuance that differentiates the two.

The recruiting process involves the tasks associated with hiring for open positions. Writing job descriptions, publishing job postings to job boards and identifying potential candidates are all examples of recruitment-related activities.

Talent acquisition involves implementing a strategy for long-term human resources planning and is designed to attract and secure the best talent with specific skill sets or experience and the ability to grow into bigger and better roles within the organization in the future.

Recruitment falls under the umbrella of TA, however, talent acquisition is an ongoing process of networking, outreach, and relationship-building versus hiring for a specific position.

The talent acquisition process

Creating an effective TA process requires more than crafting thoughtful interview questions. Get started by considering the following aspects of the Pragmatic Recruiting Framework:

Product: Understand your company, culture, and what a “good” candidate means to you.
Audience: Understand what motivates the right candidates and how your company can meet their needs.
Messaging: Craft an employer brand that positions your product as a compelling proposition for job seekers who are part of your intended audience.
Programs: Create go-to-market programs that place your opportunities in front of the right audience.
Readiness: Ensure your organization’s ability to execute on your selection process.

Once you develop a talent acquisition strategy, you need to build talent pipelines, create positive employer branding, and focus on talent relationship management.

An applicant tracking system can be a valuable tool to manage the logistical aspects of talent acquisition.

Benefits of talent acquisition

The primary benefit of creating and implementing this strategy is obvious: It optimizes the hiring process in a way that increases your odds of hiring top talent.

However, there are many advantages of having well-defined parameters for what you’re seeking in new employees. Creating a streamlined workflow that results in the best new hires available helps build the business you want.

Reduce time to hire, increase retention rates, improve talent management, and fortify company culture with an intentional staffing plan that prioritizes the core values of your organization.

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Use Leadership Assessments to Build Better Leaders

“You should measure things you care about. If you’re not measuring, you don’t care and you don’t know.”

– Steve Howard

We can all agree on the importance of leadership in a company. We can also agree that important things should be measured. Consequently, we could argue that everyone should use some form of leadership assessment to select, identify, and develop leaders. Below are just four situations when leadership assessments can help you build better leaders.

1. Hiring a New Manager/Leader

Whether you are filling a management position internally, or sourcing from outside the company, assessments can add a unique and objective perspective to your hiring process. There are a variety of types of leadership assessments that can increase the value of your management hiring process. For instance, you can measure leadership style, leadership personality, leadership character, and leader performance. The best way to ensure that you select the most valid assessment(s) is to enlist the help of experts. However, you can also follow a similar process to:

Assess your company’s future direction and where it is today
Define the requirements for the new leader (hint: this is about more than the job description)
Select the leadership assessment(s) that provides the most relevant data to support your hiring decision

2. Identifying Hi-Potentials

Similar to hiring a leader, identifying your Hi-Potentials should always start first with developing a clear understanding of your company’s current and future leadership needs. Second, create formal success profiles for each leadership position or family of positions. Next, once your success profiles have been established:

Choose assessments that best measure the criteria identified in the success profiles
Assess and establish a baseline of your current talent
Use the data from your baseline assessment to help allocate resources, and decide both who should be developed and what competencies need investment
Measure ongoing growth with periodic assessments like a 360-degree feedback tool

Figure 1 – GroupView Report from Leadership Skills Profile

3. Planning for Succession

A succession planning process requires you to create a structured approach for measuring your current baseline, predict your future leadership needs, and plan for how you will meet those needs. Therefore, leadership assessments can be a critical tool to help:

Establish a baseline for your current management team and use that data to shape future requirements
Measure leadership strengths and development opportunities for those next in line to identify gaps, help determine readiness, and create formal development plans to prepare them
Identify Hi-Potentials in order to create a deeper roster of leadership readiness for the future

4. Developing Leadership

Leadership development is at the core of everything that we do to build better leaders.

Assessments offer a simple, yet effective, leadership development tool that helps your leaders:

Demonstrate a greater degree of self-awareness
Validate leadership strengths and opportunities for development using a variety of perspectives
Prioritize development opportunities with the best chance of success
Understand how strengths and development opportunities impact performance
Develop a formal Individual Development Plan (IDP) to set goals to enhance leadership effectiveness

In short, while you can certainly develop leaders without using assessments, it is near impossible to gauge their effectiveness without some form of assessment.

Source:

“Dispirited, unmotivated, unappreciated workers cannot compete in a highly competitive world, to win in the marketplace you must first win in the workplace” Stephen. R. Covey

Employee engagement is fast becoming a prominent success factor in the current highly competitive marketplace. High and appropriate levels of engagements are important elements for the retention of talent, fostering employee loyalty, and improving employee motivation and organisational performance. Because employees’ engagement needs vary, taking a one-size-fits-all approach to employee experience will often mean you are not able to effectively identify and address issues that may be crucial, to the detriment and risk of employee productivity, and retention. Employee engagement strategies are best streamlined along the employee life cycle of onboarding, initial development, ongoing development, retention, and separation.

Onboarding (0 – 3months) is the process of integrating a new hire into an organisation, its vision, mission, core values, structure, and culture. It involves making available necessary support for the new hire to be productive, as simple as car park notice for employees, or how to access and retrieve stored documents. Onboarding is often interchanged or mixed with orientation. While Orientation is important for completing routine processes and paperwork, onboarding is a comprehensive process involving management and other employees which sometimes can last more than three (3) months. If properly implemented, it is an effective employee engagement strategy capable of positively impacting employee retention within the organisation and new hire’s productivity. However excited people are to start a new job, there will be concerns about meeting the expectations of their bosses, fitting in with other team members, and figuring out how their job will contribute to the success of the organization. Onboarding is a prime opportunity for employers to assist new hires with their concerns, and ensure they settle in easily.

Initial Development (3-24months) entails new employees establishing themselves in the organisation. Their focus shifts from developing the skills required to mastering their job functions. This creates a perfect time to speak with employees about their career ambitions and outline a clear growth plan. Initial Development is all about investing in your employees, which will ensure that people are able to meet the demands of their job and excel in the long term. For aspirants into more senior positions, it’s a way to provide the skills and training that will set them up for future success. Various and relevant developmental programs, as well as well-articulated mentorship programs, are usually impactful. Investing in employees is beyond building future assets for the organisation. Asides from helping employees to achieve their personal and professional ambitions, there will be a higher commitment on the job as well as loyalty to the organisation from the employee.

Ongoing Development and Retention (24 months & above) is about helping employees to develop the skills to master their job role, Ongoing Development and keeping employees engaged. By the time employees have reached this phase, reasonable investment would have been channelled into their progress, to have become key knowledge-holders within their function. Employees that have been retained this long, are a valuable pool of talent for leadership positions. They have market expertise, along with an intimate understanding of how the organisation works, its systems, culture, and people.

Separation occurs when employees decide to move on from an organisation. For some, reasons will be unrelated to negative experiences, they may have thoroughly enjoyed their time, but personal reasons encouraged them to move on. On the flip side, there will be those that decide to leave because of certain issues within internal control. Regardless of the type of experiences employees may have, the separation phase is an opportunity to have a grasp on why people are leaving. If handled in the right way, it will help understand the reasons behind employee attrition. With adequate attention and support to exiting employees, organisations can build a pool of lifelong advocates and brand alumni, from which there can be mutual benefits in the future.

Employee engagement spans different touchpoints and diverse interactions. With a holistic view from employees’ entry up to their exit, organisations will have a better understanding and value for how their needs evolve. When an employee’s journey is broken down into clear stages, it makes it more practicable to identify the processes that need improvement, as well as the assignment of such responsibility with specific actions to different people. This enables greater positive employee experiences in multiple aspects at the same time.

Written By

Tosin Oluwatimilehin MNIM

Senior Consultant

Head, Human Resources Consulting

H. Pierson Associates Limited.

Are you considering developing a structured onboarding process, conducting an employee engagement survey, or improving the employee engagement framework? At H. Pierson we assist you with an iterative approach to your employee engagement, which aligns with the fluid nature of an individual employee’s journey within your organisation

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Here are key tips to strengthening organizational culture:

Define and Communicate

Employee Engagement

Leadership Accountability

Inclusion and Diversity

Continuous Improvement

Employee Development

Reinforce Cultural Norms

Measure and Monitor

Embed Culture in Processes

Leadership Succession Planning

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Plan and Replace Your Top Talent Seamlessly with Succession Planning

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Reduce Costs when Hiring Top Talent

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Create Your Legacy

Shapes an Exit Strategy

Promotes Progression

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Identifies Talent and Readiness to Fill Top Positions

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Promote Growth and Development for Successors

Your Succession Plan is Always Ready

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Leadership Assessment is key at any stage of your career

The 4 benefits of leadership assessment:

1st Benefit: Leadership assessments can guide you in creating your career goals

2nd Benefit: Leadership assessments can increase self-awareness

3rd Benefit: Leadership assessments can help you improve in all stages of your career

Functional Managers

Mid-career Business Leaders

Senior Executives & CEOs

4th Benefit: Leadership assessments can help in improving the leadership development plan

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Return of Hiring Events and Job Fairs

Revamp of Career Sites

Increased Employer Branding Budget

Hiring Freight Train

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Negotiation

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Ability To Sell And Influence

Reading Between The Lines

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Get Your People Skills Up!

Look Forward And Behind.

Good Cost Management Skills

Organization With Scheduled Follow-Ups

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Use Leadership Assessments to Build Better Leaders

1. Hiring a New Manager/Leader

2. Identifying Hi-Potentials

3. Planning for Succession

4. Developing Leadership

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