Transforming Talent Management: The Impact of Social

and Digital Tech

May 8, 2014
Courtney Hunt

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Transforming talent management requires digitization and leveraging social and digital
technologies to promote and enhance communication, collaboration, and engagement.
This post presents some of the ways in which social and digital technologies are
transforming talent management throughout the employee life cycle. All of the
practices are currently possible based on available technology; however, none of them
are fully developed or widespread yet.

The Digital Era isnt coming, and its not just getting started. From a technology
perspective it is fully established, with roots that extend back to the middle of the
twentieth century, and a future that extends as far as anyone today can imagine.
Ongoing advances regularly remind us that the most profound changes are still to come.
We tend to think about social and digital technology more from a personal or consumer
perspective than their business or professional applications, but as the Digital Era
continues to progress, many of technologys most profound impacts are likely to be in
the world of work. In addition to changes in product and business development,
knowledge management, data analysis, and other operational processes, transforming
talent management will be a key priority for organizations striving to be employers of
choice.
The human capital implications of social and digital technologies impact virtually
everyone, regardless of the type of organization they work for, their profession, their
functional area, or their career stage. That means that the talent management functions
in all organizations, as well as the professionals who staff and lead them, have a critical
role to play in ensuring the efficient and effective transition and transformation from
Industrial Era models and processes to their Digital Era upgrades.
Its no surprise that talent management has already become more high tech. Many
employment related activities have been digitized, and there has been a corresponding
increase in employee self-service. Its important to remember, however,
that digitization is not the same thing as digital engagement, and that the rise of high
tech solutions doesnt necessitate the loss of a high touch approach to managing an
organizations human assets.
Transforming talent management requires digitization, to be sure, but it also involves
leveraging social and digital technologies in ways that promote and enhance
communication, collaboration, and engagement not just between an employee and
the organization, but between and among employees themselves.

In this post I present some of the ways in which social and digital technologies are
transforming talent management throughout the employee life cycle. Its important to
note that everything I describe is currently possible based on available technology;
however, not all of the practices are fully developed or widespread. In fact, many of
them havent progressed past the idea stage yet. Todays tools and technologies are
much more advanced than the individuals and human systems that could (and should)
employ them. Most organizations are still getting started with their digital
transformation efforts, and the degrees to which theyre leveraging new technologies in
conjunction with their talent management practices vary widely. But the effective
deployment of new technologies is on the radar of all top talent management
professionals, so its just a matter of time before these ideas become realities.

Talent Acquisition
The logical place to start when talking about the impact of social and digital
technologies on talent management is talent acquisition, where the greatest advances
have been made. Anyone who has searched and applied for jobs in the past 10 years is
very familiar with how technology has transformed the application process, which in
most organizations (and virtually all large ones) is now almost completely digitized and
automated. Job boards, like Monster and Career Builder, were early players in the
digitization movement, but they have been struggling to maintain their relevance in the
past five years due to the rise of social platforms like LinkedIn and Twitter (which are
also used for job posting and advertising), as well as career site scraping services like
Simply Hired and Indeed. Both social networking sites and search engines are now used
for candidate searching and sourcing, particularly for hard-to-fill roles with unique
skillsets.
There are other ways in which social and digital technologies are impacting talent
acquisition that may not be as well-known or commonly understood. Social media sites
in particular (such as Facebook, YouTube, and Pinterest) are a great way to promote an
employers brand and offer realistic previews of work life, people and culture in
organizations. Online games and simulations can also be used to get a sense of what
working for an organization would be like, and give organizations themselves an
opportunity to determine if a prospective candidate would be a good cultural fit and
potentially successful.
Some employers are recognizing the value of digital alumni networks or communities to
maintain strong relationships with former employees. One of the primary motivations
for doing this is that the employees may return one day and/or make referrals to or from
their personal and professional networks. Similarly, talent networks enable
organizations to establish and maintain relationships with professionals in key areas like
IT and engineering, even when there isnt a current opportunity to have those folks be a
part of the organization.
Social media has actually transformed every stage of the recruiting process in
significant ways so much so that the traditional recruiting funnel can be recast in
social terms. At the top of the funnel are activities like social advertising (i.e., placing
job ads on social networks like Facebook), social sourcing (i.e., searching for candidates
who meet certain criteria on networks like LinkedIn), and social referrals (i.e., having
current employees share position openings with their online personal and professional
networks). And at the bottom of the funnel is social screening (i.e., reviewing a
candidates public activity in social networks to identify potential hiring risks).

Onboarding
Helping new employees make the transition into their roles and responsibilities, as well
as learning the culture of the organization and how things are done, is another way in
which social and digital technologies can enhance processes and improve the
employment experience for individuals. Anyone who has started a new job in the past
decade is probably familiar with how digitization of various activities, such as payroll set
up and benefits enrollment, has transformed the new hire experience. But there are lots
of other potential applications, some of which have already been implemented, but
most of which will be developed in the years to come. For example, virtual new hire
groups can be formed in an organizations intranet, with chat and/or discussion features
that allow new employees to help each other navigate their initial experiences. The
intranet can also be used to facilitate virtual buddy systems and enable mentors to help
new hires learn how things work around here. And a variety of wikis can focus on the
things that are most important for new employees to learn and know, particularly with
respect to specific policies and procedures.

Learning
Learning management is probably the second most advanced area when it comes to
adopting and adapting to new technologies. As with recruiting and other processes, the
initial advances are in the area of digitization, with social software applications evolving
next. One of the obvious digital impacts is the increased use of elearning and online
learning platforms with self-paced study. There are also countless instructional videos on
the web, both free and fee-based, that address a virtually unlimited range of topics. And
we cant forget MOOCs massive, open, online courses which have proliferated in the
past couple of years. Finally, many organizations have also started to leverage tablets
and other mobile devices for learning, as well as using simulations and games to help
employees develop specific skills.
In addition to offering training through a variety of multimedia channels, organizations
are increasingly using a range of digital tools for assessing employees skills. Theyre
also allowing employees to play an enhanced role in identifying their key skill sets and
training needs, and can even have them create their own learning and development
plans. Allowing employees to take a more active role in their own learning and skills
management enables organizations to develop and maintain a more complete and
accurate knowledge and skills database, which in turn enables them to maximize the
value of the workforce in which theyve already invested.
Formal learning management systems and platforms are also beginning to incorporate
social technologies in a variety of ways. Promoting connections and interactions among
participants, as well as with the instructor, can enhance the learning experience both
during and after a course. Creating course-based cohorts that allow people to continue
to interact with each other via a digital community even when their shared learning
experience is face-to-face can promote both knowledge transfer and retention, in
addition to increasing commitment and engagement through interpersonal connections.
Informal learning which is now also referred to as social learning is greatly enhanced
by social technologies as well. In fact, this is probably the greatest opportunity and area
of growth for organizations of all types and sizes. Through private social networks,
intranets and other internal platforms that have incorporated social technology
elements, organizations are better able to facilitate employee learning as they perform
their job duties and complete work activities. Along with the networks themselves,
features like advanced search, identified subject matter experts, digital communities of

practice, wikis and more enable employees to access and learn from colleagues who are
not just next door or down the hall, but even in another city, state or country!
As organizations move forward with leveraging technology to enhance learning
initiatives, it will become increasingly important for them to address issues related to
digital literacy and digital competencies. For the past several decades weve generally
taken what I refer to as an LIY, or Learn It Yourself, approach to digital knowledge and
skills. Although organizations may invest in teaching someone how to use a specific
application related to their job, they make virtually no investment in helping individuals
learn how to use general digital tools like Microsoft Office and even email. Left to their
own devices, most people and I include myself in this group are much less efficient
and effective at using these tools than they could or should be. As our tools get even
more sophisticated, we need the foundational knowledge and skills to be able to use
them well and this foundation should probably be provided via more formal training. In
other words, many people need to be taught how to learn in the Digital Era. If
organizations arent going to provide the formal training workers need to do that, its
probably in an individuals best interests to pursue those kinds of development
opportunities on their own.

Performance Management
Performance management is also being transformed by social and digital technologies.
Going paperless is now a standard in many organizations, but the changes are evolving
beyond that. Specifically, because of more advanced technologies, performance
evaluation doesnt have to be a major bureaucratic process that only gets completed
once or twice a year. Now managers can capture and provide feedback to employees
nearly continuously, so that they always know how theyre doing and where they stand.
This informal feedback can also be directly fed into the formal performance
management process, which can help increase completeness and accuracy and
minimize surprises.
Although most people dont think of performance management as something that can
be fun and energizing, new features like gamification and social recognition are
intended to do just that. There are a variety of software platforms (e.g., YouEarnedIt,
WooBoard, Small Improvements) that digitally leverage game elements and social tools
to enhance an organizations performance, rewards and recognition initiatives. The goal
of these platforms and tools is to increase employee morale and engagement, which in
turn can increase employee citizenship behavior and job performance. What many of
them offer is a social atta girl/atta boy system that enables any employee to provide
thanks or recognition to any other employee who has helped them or someone else in
some way. Employees collect badges and points for the positive impact theyve had on
clients and colleagues, which can be converted into specific rewards. These rewards can
include company-oriented items like extra time off, lunch with the CEO, and branded
swag, as well as valued personal items like dinner and entertainment certificates,
tablets, and high-end cookware. The platforms are very flexible, so organizations can
leverage them in a way that best fits their culture and employee populations.

Career Development
As noted earlier, new social technologies, particularly those that allow employees to
create and maintain their own organizational profiles, can enhance an organizations
efforts at helping employees develop themselves as professionals and manage their
careers. With a more complete and accurate skills database and employees who have
better tools and more motivation to engage, organizations are better able to assess the
skills of their workforces and develop more sophisticated approaches to planning,

staffing and career pathing. More effective systems that are better populated with
current and accurate employee data provide a stronger foundation for organizations to
create more reliable and flexible succession plans.
Social and digital technologies also better enable employers to identify high potential
employees by leveraging more data points, applying sophisticated analyses, and
eliminating the biases and errors that can come from human judgment alone.
A company called Fuel 50 has a solution that demonstrates how digital technologies can
facilitate career engagement and planning in organizations. They have taken career
counseling to new levels. With traditional, paper-based approaches, counselors guide
individuals through a series of card sorting exercises to identify their most important
values, aspirations, desires, etc. The resulting card stacks are then fed into a system
and analyzed, and counselors schedule follow-up appointments to discuss the results.
Fuel 50s platform not only digitizes the exercises by using tablets, it enables counselors
to provide feedback and discuss the results and their implications with individuals in
real time. Not only that, the data gets fed into a system that can help an organization
with staffing, career pathing, and succession planning. This is a great example of how
high tech can also be very high touch.

Leadership Development
There are also several ways in which the implementation of social technologies can
enhance an organizations leadership development efforts. Leadership blogs, for
example, can help more junior leaders learn from the philosophies, styles and
experiences of more senior leaders. Leaders at all levels can form virtual support groups
with their peers to discuss specific challenges and opportunities, and can also form
cross-generational and cross-functional mentoring groups. Organizations can further
enhance mentoring efforts by adding more opportunities and channels through which
mentors and protgs can communicate with one another, enhancing the efficiency and
effectiveness of their interactions.
Both within specific tiers and across tiers, leaders can also form groups to share best
practices. And of course junior leaders can access leader wikis and other tools to
develop the knowledge, skills and abilities they need to increase their effectiveness and
be more successful.
Everwise, for example, is building an ementoring platform that uses data and analytics
to create the best possible matches between mentors and protgs, as well as a variety
of software tools (and more analytics) to facilitate the process and ensure it is
meaningful and successful for both parties. They also emphasize their use of real
people in conjunction with technical tools yet another example of the necessary
interplay between high tech and high touch.

Final Thoughts
In addition to transforming talent management, social and digital technologies are
changing the nature of work itself. Those changes have extensive human capital
management implications, ranging from human capital strategy, organizational
structure, and staffing to job design, training and development, performance
management, and compensation. Ill address those changes in a future post. In the
meantime, as always, I welcome your comments and questions.

PS Heres a link to a related article, which I was invited to contribute to the Summer
issue of HRPSs People & Strategy Journal: Managing Human Capital in the Digital
Era.

As organizations and business leaders position themselves for the future, the following five
workplace challenges will continue to change human resources.

1. Evaluating Early Adoption

Truth be told, HR is traditionally not known for early adoption. Case in point: the slow
adoption of social media. Bill Kutik, technology columnist for Human Resource
Executive magazine, explains, HR loves talking about social media, but so far has done
very little with it. Fears emanating from the legal department have stuck HR in its tracks.
While some people will try all of the latest and greatest options, others will want to wait until
platforms have been proven. Being on either extreme could be detrimental. Its important to
evaluate each and sometimes take a chance.
Kutik says, Just like the introduction of all new technology from the telephone, to e-mail,
to the Internet which have all scared HR to death, it will eventually come around.
One early trend Kutik believes is gaining traction is mobile. Every vendor has either
released or is about to release a mobile application for smartphones and soon for the iPad.
While much of it is a nice to have, mobile apps will get most traction in workforce
management the nuts and bolts of time and attendance and absence management
where they perfectly meet the needs of a distributed, mobile workforce.

2. Balancing High Tech and High Touch

Being able to recognize the need for a technology solution will be a significant business
advantage. HR will have to evaluate what functions can be automated and still provide
desired levels of service.
Naomi Bloom, managing partner at Bloom & Wallace, a consulting firm specializing in the
application of HR technology, shares how companies are evaluating digital solutions.
Increasingly, HR leaders are starting with the desired business outcome and working
backwards from there to answer questions, rather than starting with the question of what to
automate.
Bloom cited the investment that Kronos has made in going mobile as an example of meeting
a growing need by both the business and its employees. If your business results are driven
by optimized workforce scheduling, as is absolutely the case in most retail businesses, then
you must focus some of your automation investments right there. And since the retail
workforce may be young and used to communicating via their smartphones, youd better
consider delivering most of the transactions and analytics that your employees and even
those first line managers use, directly to their smartphones.
With increasing technologically advanced options, human resources professionals will be
tasked to figure out when processes should be automated, versus when a human face or
voice is the best route.

3. Information Curation
Kutik says it best, We are all desperately in need of a good editor.

HR is experiencing a flood of information. It will be critical to have an effective means of

filtering necessary and relevant information. The new term in the digital space is curation.
While Kutik labels curation an awfully fancy word he does acknowledge the necessity for
picking and choosing among various information sources. Few people remember that
Yahoo began by having human editors read and evaluate sites for their quality and
determining how they would appear in searches. No more. Relying on what our friends link
to on Twitter is not going to solve the problem. Happily, people are working on technologies
to solve the problem.
For recruiters, the ability to sort through loads of information including applications from
various platforms and employment data will be a skill worth honing.

4. Training for Accountability

Many of these challenges come down to being better communicators in order to effectively
leverage the digital space. As such, HR needs to place a priority on management and
leadership training to ensure line managers are able to effectively convey expectations and
outcomes.
Stacey Harris, principal analyst at Bersin & Associates, says development of line-manager
capabilities should be a top priority. Our research found there was a one-to-one correlation
between the effectiveness of an organizations line managers and the overall effectiveness
of its HR function. In simplest terms, as a companys line managers increased their
management capabilities, the effectiveness of the HR function paralleled that upward
progression.
Harris explained that, on the digital front, companies need to partner with providers who
deliver excellent support and service and deep understanding of its audience's needs.
Organizations that offer completely integrated support for line managers are still difficult to
find, but suppliers are making dramatic headway. Companies like Saba have spent
considerable resources integrating social networking that can be used for development and
knowledge transfer, with learning curriculums, performance management tools and
competency maps.
"Organizations such as Triple Creek provide competency-driven mentoring programs over
the web," continued Harris. "Plateau has built on an integrated architecture introducing
integrated and highly-scalable solutions for career development, compensation, pay for

performance, and employee profile management all which are used in line manager
support."

5. Metrics and Measurement

Bloom says, When it comes to metrics, the easiest to do are very rarely the most valuable!
Theres no question that HR needs to create data structures that will deliver information on
business goals not only to help the company understand their workforce, but also to
optimize their talent-related processes.
Bloom notes, The most important metrics for any business investment, including those in
HR technology, are the business outcomes that the investment is intended to achieve. If
were trying to speed up and improve the selection of quality hires, then wed better be
looking at elapsed time to productivity and quality of hire.
Then the challenge, as Harris points out, is most companies dont have a single, accurate
database for storing and accessing relevant HR information. Data that is scattered among

multiple systems and acquired in varied formats can make it difficult for most organizations
to provide a clear picture of their current workforce. Many organizations capture only limited
employee details in master data systems.
Harris noted that SAP has made substantive progress in this area, pulling together data
from the HR and talent management systems then analyzing data with the same analytic
tools used in their other business intelligence platforms. Additionally, SuccessFactors has
similar analytics and planning tools.
While many advances have been made in the human resources digital space, there are still
new developments to look forward to. These advancements will bring greater opportunities
to align human resources with business goals. HR professionals will need to remain aware
of these challenges and develop their own strategies to stay within the path of progress.