The NelsonHall HRO team is pleased to once again contribute the annual HRO Today thought leaders forecast of trends that will influence the year ahead. ‘Artful Predictions’ covers a range of topics with talent management (TM) as one of the highlighted trends. We have covered the subject of talent management frequently as we see the opportunity for it to become an integral part of HR business process outsourcing.
For some time, I have called talent management a disputed ground and a potentially disruptive force that could shake up the HRO field. Why? This is because TM elements include so much of the human capital management value chain and cross over everything—from HR ERPs, software modules, HRO business process outsourcing, HR consulting and the roles of HR leaders, HR business partners, and internal shared service centers. TM includes performance management, succession and career planning, recruiting and staffing, compensation, and learning. I also include workforce planning and management under the TM umbrella.
In addition to the HR ERP vendors and the specialty TM software providers, there are HRO providers that are also building out their TM capability internally as well as through strategic partnerships and acquisitions.
- Kenexa acquired BHI (Batrus Hollweg) a TM company. Although Kenexa has developed TM expertise internally, the company has also been enhancing its efforts over the past few years through prior acquisitions that have included:
- Salary.com to strengthen its compensation management capability
- The Centre for High Performance Development to further strengthen its leadership development and management training offering
- Gantz Wiley Research to increase its employee survey research capabilities.
- Mercer acquired Censeo Corporation to enhance its TM consulting capabilities and online platform of assessment services.
- Both Kenexa and NGA are partnering with SkillSoft for learning content.
- In July, Talent2 re-branded itself to simplify its talent management focus.
- It also became a reseller of Cornerstone OnDemand, most widely used for its performance management, including succession planning and learning modules.
- Talent2 also added advisory services as a service offering to help clients more effectively deploy the capabilities.
With recruiting as one of the core TM processes, RPO vendors are among the early leaders in developing internal as well as external TM service options. NorthgateArinso has been moving in this area as well, coming from the standpoint of bring it all together into one integrated system and services package. With the acquisition of The Right Thing, ADP signals both a stronger move into RPO and its interest in TM.
The HRO Today article also discusses whether HRO has reached the maturity stage of providing ‘true business value’. I believe that talent management evolving into a full-fledged HRO service with technology-enabled tools, data integration across the full suite of HR data, supported by analytics assistance and consulting is critical to HRO providing true business value results for clients and achieving its own full measure of success as an invaluable industry.
Linda Merritt, Research Analyst, HRO, NelsonHall
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