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There’s a New Era of Talent Management in Town
As “The Great Resignation” marches on, optimized talent acquisition and management strategies are top-of-mind for businesses across the nation, presenting a unique opportunity to gain a competitive edge in a post-pandemic world. Gone are the days of the old, “live to work” paradigm, the demand for greater freedom, flexibility, fulfillment, and balance ushers in a new era of talent management.
So, how can businesses pivot to meet this new standard? For one, embrace and meet the expectation for some form of remote work model, whether that be a fully remote or “blended” work environment. Second, map out your employee experience strategy, which will inform your firm’s talent acquisition, management, and retention marketplace. Third, leverage the increased availability of technology and artificial intelligence to help your firm optimize, upgrade, and automate how you attract, retain, and manage top talent
Embrace the Shift to Consumer-Like Talent Management
As we close in on the second half of 2022, it is clear that remote work is here to stay, but to what degree is to be determined by the needs of each individual business. Covid-19 forced firms to go fully remote nearly overnight while at the same time, inspiring American citizens to reconsider their life priorities, quit unfulfilling jobs, and look for more flexible and purpose-aligned work options; a phenomenon referred to as “The Great Resignation.” Never before have we seen resignations of this scale, leaving businesses scrambling for ways to attract and retain their top talent. This colossal shift in how we approach and interface with work and life presents a unique and unprecedented challenge for businesses to stay competitive.
No longer dependent on a geographical location for work, employees have become accustomed to the increased freedom and flexibility that remote work offers, forcing businesses to meet their expectations. But, employees are not just looking for more freedom and flexibility, they are also looking for greater fulfillment and opportunities to grow. In this new, more personalized, and “consumer-like” environment, firms must prioritize the needs and desires of their future employees while still adapting to the shift from paper processing to fully digital workspaces. This means top talent is interviewing you, not the other way around.
How Can Technology Help Your Talent Management Strategy?
Consider how your firm currently identifies and aligns prospective talent with available work and compare that to your process for mining leads in your business. What is your current strategy and process for aligning talent with the work you have for them and how does that compare to your process for finding your ideal client avatar? For client retention purposes, many businesses will invent new products and services to offer existing clients. The same approach can and should be used for your employees. Do you currently have a process in place that serves the growing demand for unique paths conducive to new skill acquisition and learning for your employees?
Within the above questions lies the core of the challenge businesses are having to overcome today and so, dictates the shift to think of talent management in a similar way as client management. Consider applying the same external sourcing and customer relationship management (CRM) strategies you use for your clients internally to create an internal talent marketplace that connects each employee’s unique skills and work experience with the needs of the firm. It is critical to put forth the effort to build and maintain a talent management ecosystem, with seamlessly integrated digital systems that allow for speedier and more productive decision-making, essentially automating your talent management process.
Technology can help digitize your HR processes and, when using a CRM-like strategy internally, allows you to combine multiple data inputs, such as work experience, geography, job level, etc. to tailor a project to play to that specific employee’s strengths. And, if your firm values the ability for employees to mobilize across different projects, you can use technology to store additional input that allows for non-traditional talent paths and new roles, meeting the need for novelty among your staff. According to Matt Jones, Cielo senior vice president of global operations, “This means that investment will continue in CRM, AI, Intelligent Automation (IA) in the point-solution layer to give firms what they need to identify, attract, engage, and retain top talent.”
Mapping Out Your Talent Management Technology Marketplace
The first step your firm should take when building out your talent management technology marketplace is to strategize your ideal employee experience journey. Some top questions to give you an idea of the parameters for this initiative include:
- What is your current process for attracting top talent and onboarding them?
- Where are the opportunities to create a more seamless and integrated experience?
- How are you integrating the demand for some form of a hybrid work environment into your firm?
- How can your firm elevate your work culture so that your employees feel connected to their team and part of something bigger?
- What opportunities are you providing for an environment conducive to learning, continual growth, and personalized career paths?
- What collaboration tools can your firm implement to ensure that your employees feel connected and have a consistent work experience?
- Can you create a list of recommendations for routers and equipment to combat poor wifi connections and otherwise less-than-optimal processing systems?
- What are the bandwidth guidelines required for employees to do their job successfully?
- Are you able to provide routers and equipment for your employees to use to ensure a consistent and seamless experience?
- Does your firm have the flexibility to lean into asynchronous work, allowing your employees to work across multiple time zones?
- Do you have a team to oversee, develop, and manage your talent management strategy and process?
- What cyber security systems will you invest in to protect your talent management system?
Confronting new challenges head-on can feel like battling with a hydra -- you fix one problem at your firm and two more pop up in its place. Digitizing your HR and internal talent management brings up the issue of increasing cyber security threats, which should be given its due diligence to protect your business. It is more important than ever to partner with a company whose cloud services have a proven track record for protecting their client’s most private information, especially CPA firms.
What Cloud-Based Solution is Right for Your CPA Firm?
At Cetrom, we are passionate about serving CPA firms and specialize in accounting-specific applications. We leverage our proven cloud expertise to create services that are custom-designed for each company to ensure success. Our team of top-tier engineers supports our networks along with the most advanced AI security technologies on the market, resulting in 24x7x365 cloud accessibility for our clients. We can also offer your firm cybersecurity training and best practices to keep your staff informed on evolving cyber threats and tactics, so that you can feel empowered with the know-how of your investment.
Our customers are our #1 priority, which is why we maintain a controlled growth model to maintain our reputation for excellence from client onboarding, migration and continued client support. Take our quiz to determine if Cetrom is the right Cloud Services Solution for your firm today!
