Understanding Total Talent: A Comprehensive Guide

In today’s dynamic business environment, organizations must adapt to rapidly changing market demands and technological advancements. One of the critical areas that require a transformative approach is talent management. Traditionally, companies have focused on specific segments of the workforce, such as full-time employees or temporary contractors, without considering the broader spectrum of talent available. The concept of “Total Talent” offers a solution by integrating and collaborating across all forms of talent engagement within an organization. This holistic approach allows businesses to build more robust, flexible, and effective human capital strategies, ultimately driving innovation and growth. This article aims to define and explain the concept of Total Talent, its components, the champions who drive it, and why it is critical for modern businesses.

What is Total Talent?

Total Talent is a strategic approach that integrates all forms of talent engagement within an organization. It encompasses full-time employees, part-time workers, contractors, freelancers, and even outsourced services. By considering all these engagement paths collectively, companies can build more robust, flexible, and effective human capital strategies.

Components of Total Talent

Executive Alignment & Collaboration: Total Talent impacts various areas within an organization and requires representation from HR leaders, procurement leaders, legal teams, business leaders, technology departments, and shared services. These areas must share expectations, strategies, and best practices, and build a collaborative roadmap. This can be achieved through steering committees or cross-team workgroups, ensuring that all relevant stakeholders contribute to the success of the Total Talent strategy.

Shared Data & Intelligence: Each engagement path collects and reflects on specific data and metrics throughout the process. By aggregating, comparing, and correlating this data across all engagement paths, leaders can gain valuable insights that inform workforce planning. Key data points often include time to fill/engage, cost, satisfaction/success rates, utilization volume, and more. Shared data intelligence helps in making informed decisions and optimizing talent strategies.

Integrated Technology: Different engagement paths may require specific technologies. However, it’s crucial to have a collective discussion about how these systems interact, complement, or conflict with each other. By addressing redundancy and streamlining processes, organizations can improve efficiency. Data governance across systems also offers an opportunity to align technology within the Total Talent landscape, ensuring seamless integration and better data management.

Human Capital Strategy: A comprehensive human capital strategy should cover all types of talent engagements. It ensures that the business has the necessary pathways to access the right talent for various needs. This strategy must be adaptive and inclusive, considering the best engagement methods for each specific requirement within the organization.

Common/Shared Services: Some functions are common across different engagement channels and can be elevated beyond silos to be more collaborative and scalable. This can include tasks like resource onboarding or invoice processing and establishing centers of excellence around technology, governance, and data intelligence. Shared services reduce redundancy and foster a more cohesive and efficient talent management system.

Total Talent Champions

HR Leaders: Executive and senior HR leaders play a pivotal role in strategizing and implementing Total Talent approaches. By leveraging high-level strategies in planning and applying them tactically, HR leaders can ensure that the organization is aligned with its talent goals and control that application of Total Talent across the business.

DE&I Advocates: Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DE&I) leaders are essential in ensuring that Total Talent strategies promote better inclusion and representation across all talent supporting the company. They help in creating a more diverse and inclusive workforce, which is vital for innovation and growth and ensuring that the culture of DE&I is represented across all talent types.

Business Leaders: Business leaders are one of the most important stakeholder groups to understand.  Their talent needs and experience throughout the process can determine whether the human capital strategies will be effective.  The voice of this group should be captured through satisfaction surveying and representation in steering committees to give these leaders the right opportunity to influence the Total Talent Strategy.

Functional Leaders:  Functional leaders have important components of the process to represent like finance or legal.  Their considerations and best practices will help to make the Total Talent strategy better.  These leaders can be leveraged by collaborating on training, comparing data sets, educating teams about available options and ensuring that the strategy is implemented smoothly throughout their areas and across the organization.

Why is Total Talent Important?

Implementing a Total Talent approach offers several benefits, including:

• Improved Talent Experience: By integrating various engagement paths, companies can provide a more seamless and satisfying experience for all types of talent.
• Faster Engagement Times: Streamlined processes and shared services reduce the time required to engage new talent.
• Improved Talent Quality: Access to a broader talent pool and a more strategic guide on how to best engage ensures that companies can select the best candidates for each role.
• Efficiency: Elimination of redundant functions and improved data governance lead to more efficient operations.
• Cost Savings: Streamlining processes and reducing redundancy result in significant cost savings. 

How to Get Started to Total Talent

Workshops: Conduct Total Talent workshops to gain a deeper understanding of the Total Talent concept and its implications for your organization.  Invite various stakeholders to share experiences and discuss ways to better collaborate across talent paths.

Steering Committees: Establish steering committees with representatives from all relevant departments.  This committee will help to address all pressing talent influences and craft a Total Talent roadmap to help guide the successful adoption of Total Talent practices.

Roadmap: Develop a detailed roadmap outlining the steps and milestones for adopting a Total Talent strategy.  Envision an ideal talent culture and determine the components and initiatives needed throughout that journey.

Supplier and Technology Vendor Engagement: Engage with suppliers and technology vendors to understand how they can support your Total Talent initiatives.  Look for scalability or overlap of services and technologies. Consider how those components fit into the overall Total Talent roadmap. 

In conclusion, adopting a Total Talent approach is not just a trend but a necessity in today’s competitive business landscape. By understanding and implementing the components of Total Talent, organizations can achieve significant improvements in talent experience, engagement times, talent quality, efficiency, and cost savings. Total Talent Mindset is here to guide you through this transformative journey, ensuring that your organization is well-equipped to leverage the full potential of its human capital.