2014 Strategic Talent Acquisition Conference Day 2
Waking up to a rainy day in Boston, the 2014 Strategic Talent Acquisition Conference attendees were treated to another day of engaging day of content exploring the themes of “Source innovatively”, “Make Data-Driven Decisions”, and “Design the Sustainable Pipeline.”
Engage Talent Communities
Continuing on the theme from Jessica Lee’s keynote on day one regarding communities, Recruitment Technology Manager for Global HR Operations at GE, Shahbaz Alibaig, shared six key components to effectively engage talent communities; Vision, People, Data, Technology, Process, and Structure. “Vision,” Shahbaz explained, begins with defining the purpose and includes building brand awareness & brand loyalty, engaging candidates, collecting feedback and advertising the critical open positions for a firm. The inter-related infrastructure components form the “Structure.” Firms have to be able to identify all the moving parts and engage at each level. Alibaig explained the need for clarity of and between roles for “People” as employees will frequently wear multiple hats depending on the time and day. Building, cultivating and maintaining creates an effective “Process” which allows the effort to be repeatable, sustainable and controlled. Shahbaz extolled the role “Data” plays as well. The metrics have to be tracked and evaluated so future trends and predictions can be extrapolated. For “Technology,” Shahbaz suggested to keep it simple and systemize and simplify whenever possible. “Vision without traction is hallucination,” Shahbaz cautioned the audience as wrapped up his keynote and suggested some extra resources to attendees providing some further tips and tricks to engage talent communities.
Create an Experience that Matters
How do you integrate the employer brand into the overall business strategy? What employer brand functions should be owned internally and what can be outsourced? Estela Vazquez Perez, Director of Employment Brand at the Royal Bank of Canada, delivered answers to these questions and more in her keynote, “Employment and Consumer Brands: Understanding the Heart and Soul of Your Business.” Estela displayed a mastery of the technology and engagement with the audience by preparing time released tweets/Facebook posts and Google + updates to be released during the course of her presentation.
“Marketing realized the real product to sell is people and culture,” Perez said telling the audience that HR owns that message. Estela went a step further and stated, “Employment brand is not only communicating what you have but also the change management of how the brand experience evolves from before a candidate is hired to after.” Sharing an interesting model for the cycle of positioning an employment brand, Perez explained to the audience how the process of connecting with a candidate moves from emotional to rational to experiential. “Firms need to create an experience that matters.” shared Perez, and based on her presentation and tools attendees should be able to immediately create some value back in the office from her content.
At the close of the 2014 Strategic Talent Acquisition Conference, attendees were left with a firm understanding of not just what exactly communities can and should be, but also specific game plans to on how to use them to drive engagement and provide some true ROI. Members were also introduced to new technologies and ideas about where the future of HR is headed. There is quite of bit of change to prepare for and look forward to but with the strategic outlook that comes from engaging with fellow practitioners and thought-leaders attendees can rest assured that they will be prepared for whatever challenges lay ahead.