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Organizations Developing Own Hiring Models On Talent Analytics: Mercer | Mettl CEO

As talent acquisition budget increases by 34 percent, according to State of Talent Acquisition report (SOTA)- 2019, hiring would press more demand for talent assessments

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In an interview with BW People, Siddhartha Gupta, CEO of Mercer-Mettl talks about a range of topics from talent assessment, changes in hiring patterns and organizations of the future.  

How is the talent assessment market shaping in India? Any recent trends that can be recorded?

Talent assessment market in India continues to define the entire employee lifecycle along 4 key areas. Talent assessments are being used in every phase of the employee lifecycle ranging from sourcing to acquisition to learning & development to create effective leadership. 

Hackathons are now gaining traction as an innovative tool and are being used by more and more companies as a tool for sourcing talent. Companies are using modern tools and techniques for lateral hiring and even redefining their campus hiring strategies. Learning & development strategies are also changing and now focus on creating competency models, understanding the skill gaps and investing in creating effective leadership

As talent acquisition budget increases by 34 percent, according to State of Talent Acquisition report (SOTA)- 2019, hiring would press more demand for talent assessments. 

How challenging do you find a CEO’s job is?

CEO’s job is an exciting but a humbling one. The opportunity to build awesome teams and then challenging ourselves to passionately chase impossible goals is a thrilling experience. 

How have the hiring patterns changed over the years?

Owing to HR being a dynamic digital ecosystem today, a lot of talent acquisition paradigms have transformed. Organizations are developing their own models based on talent resourcing analytics about which channels work best for them, which platforms offer them high potentials and other factors like time and budget arming the HR professionals with critical decision-making capabilities in the process. The use of scientifically validated instruments like personality assessments, psychometrics, and cognitive tests, and behavioral competencies measurements has increased for executives as well as leadership hiring (77 percent for leadership hiring, Leadership Hiring Trends, 2019). It’s a monumental shift in how HR goes about hiring over previous years.  

How is technology changing the sector?

For talent acquisition, technology will be implemented massively by way of assessment centers, behavioral assessments, 360 feedback, online assessment, and gamification. That is partly the reason behind the increase in hiring budgets this year and the trend will continue to rise in the future as well. While technology is still being used to make hiring decisions (88 percent), it still has to find its standing after the hiring process has been completed, which unfortunately depletes. Technology has its least use in onboarding (49 percent) while it’s a factor which decides, in a lot of cases, how well an organization has been able to engage a new hire. Budget, as it seems, is a constraint for most of the organizations in leveraging technology.     

What are your future plans for the Indian market? 

Mercer | Mettl is already the biggest talent assessment organization in the country. With Mercer as a strong strategic partner, Mercer| Mettl aims to be the global market leader with the highest market share in the talent assessment space in the next 3 years. We are aiming to bring India's indigenous product and technology solution suites into global markets while at the same time chasing profitably by planning to grow at breakneck growth pace. 

How can organizations start using workforce data to create a culture of engagement?

Every little employee activity and interaction with a company generates a crucial deal of data that can be leveraged to arrive at important metrics of skills-gaps, motivation, and engagement levels. Processes and systems like predictive analytics, data mining, and artificial neural networks will be able to gauge the likeliness of employees leaving, offer insights about the skill-gaps to be closed to make them stay and engaged, and help create a succession planning program. 

What will define organizations of the future? How will the future of work shape up?

  • The world of work continues to change at speed, and advances in technology will continue to stretch what is possible. In such a scenario, an agile culture remains an important organizational competency. 
  • Where 1 in 5 jobs in their organization will cease to exist, it becomes critical to align work to future value. Organizations will need to redesign jobs by linking present & future competencies. 
  • Talent Acquisition Strategies need to be redefined. Building employer brand to attract talent will become important. 
  • 94 percent of HR teams are investing in technology to improve the employee experience. Curating the work experience will become eminent. Companies will have to make work simple, intuitive, and digitally enabled to help people grow and thrive.
  • The role of HR will change, and HR will be seen as a significant contributor to the business.  

Does humility make for a good leader? How should companies groom future leaders?

Humility is one of the best attributes of being a good leader. To achieve organizational objectives leaders must embrace change. Reverse mentoring is one way that can instigate powerful results for the organization. It can help both parties to understand the finer nuances of each other’s working style. 

Take young talent with the right attitude and aptitude and empower them to make decisions is the key.
 
 


Tags assigned to this article:
talent assessment hiring feedback Future of Work skill gaps

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