Integrated Talent Management Solutions:

Integrated Talent Management Solutions:Break Down the Silos, Connect the Dots

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Search for efficiencies and making the business case

Talent management initiatives are essential for organizations looking to maximize the

potential of one of the biggest investments for any business – human capital. Organizations

understand that talent management software, including applicant tracking systems,

performance management, compensation management, succession planning and learning,

can facilitate increased employee productivity and more efficient business processes.

Because they understand the benefit, a majority of companies are poised to purchase a

talent management solution today. According to a recent report by Towers Perrin, nearly two-

thirds (64 percent) of the surveyed companies were going to increase their investment in HR

technology in 2009 (21 percent) or keep their spending at similar levels as the year before

(43 percent).1

As they consider how to spend their money, many are re-evaluating their existing approaches

and don’t like what they see. Past Watson Wyatt research indicated that most companies

weren’t satisfied with their talent management solutions. To see if this was still the case,

HRsmart recently asked HR leaders for their impressions on talent management solutions and

HR solutions. Our research confirmed the previous Watson Wyatt findings – 55 percent said

that the ROI of their talent management solution

has been below expectations and 25 percent

said that they have been unable to measure any

benefit.

With finance departments scrutinizing every

expense, this inability to demonstrate ROI is not

55% said that ROI of their talent

management solution has been below expectations.

25% said they have been unable to measure

any benefit.


1 Shadovitz, David. HR Technology Spend Shows Resiliency. HR Executive Online. June 29, 2009. http://www.hrexecutive.com/HRE/story.jsp?storyId=225889958

sustainable. HR must be able to demonstrate the

return on investment of any talent management

initiative. As many businesses consider making the

switch, they will increasingly turn to an integrated

talent management solution, according to leading

industry analyst Josh Bersin, CEO and President

of Bersin & Associates, an organization of senior

analysts and consultants with extensive experience

in corporate learning, e-learning, performance

management, leadership development, talent

management, and enterprise systems.

“We are reaching a point in this market where ‘integration’ is more important than

‘functionality,’” Bersin wrote. “The days of having one island of software for learning

management, another for performance management, and a third for recruiting, are slowly

going away – most mid-market and an increasing number of large companies are now

heavily leaning toward ‘full suite’ solutions.”2

Bersin’s insights were also confirmed by HRsmart research. The HR leaders we surveyed

believe that integrated talent management solutions offer a larger ROI, more efficiency, a

higher level of customer service, a lower Total Cost of Ownership (TCoO) and an increased

probability of user adoption. This paper will take a closer look at why respondents feel this

way and how they can transition to an integrated solution.

“We are reaching a point in this market where ‘integration’ is more important than ‘functionality,’” Bersin wrote. “The days of having one island of software for learning management, another for performance management, and a third for recruiting, are slowly going away – most mid-market and an increasing number of large companies are now heavily leaning toward ‘full suite’ solutions.”2


2 Bersin, Josh. The Talent Management Software Slump. JoshBersin.com. May 7, 2009. http://joshbersin.com/2009/05/07/the-talent-management-software-slump/

The Value of Integrated Solutions

As talent management software solutions have become more pervasive over the

past decade, two approaches have emerged:

The Best-of-Breed Approach: A business should implement the best individual

software solution to address a specific need, such as recruiting or performance

management, even if that means going with five separate software solutions.

The Integrated Suite Approach: Every aspect of talent management should be

addressed by a single suite of software solutions from the same vendor.

Many organizations opted for the Best-of-Breed Approach as they sought to

address a specific area of need within their organization. At first glance,

this may seem like the best approach: go with the best single product in any

category and you will end up with an exceptional system. In practice, this

doesn’t turn out to be the case.

If you were remodeling your kitchen, you could select the best appliances

regardless of manufacturer and be

satisfied with the results. However,

your refrigerator, your stove and your

dishwasher don’t need to communicate

with one another. Your Applicant Tracking

System, your Performance Management

System, your Compensation System and

your other Talent Management and other


95%believe that a suite of integrated talent

management modules have a high probability of delivering significant process efficiency improvements.

35% believe that non-integrated talent

management solutions can deliver these improvements.

HR systems do. For many organizations, the inability to seamlessly integrate

these solutions is where talent management breaks down.

Hanny Shehadeh, Chief Product Officer for HRsmart, explains: “Several years

ago, a well-known consulting firm was working with a bank in the Northeast, and

implemented a best-of-breed talent management solution. What they found after a

system audit was that they were spending $200,000 a year maintaining adapters,

which would only work until the next update of any single system component.”

“Without seamless integration, the value of the solution decreases dramatically,”

Shehadeh said.

Unfortunately, to achieve the full power of a talent management solution, you

must have full integration. In our recent HRsmart survey, respondents clearly

understood the value of integration with 70 percent saying they believe that

integrated solutions offer large ROI. By contrast, only 15 percent said the same

about non-integrated solutions.

Furthermore, 95 percent of survey respondents believe that a suite of integrated

talent management modules have a high probability of delivering significant

process efficiency improvements. However, only 35 percent say non-integrated

products can deliver these improvements.

Businesses that have tried to piece together a Best-of-Breed solution are

beginning to understand the pitfalls. However, awareness is only the first step.


Action is required, but many don’t even know where to begin fixing a broken

process. As one survey respondent explained: “We are seeing a very low ROI

from our performance management tool, but we are not sure we can change it

because we are a global company with 70,000 employees on it.”

Continuing to use a talent management application simply because it would

be difficult to change is simply making a bad situation worse. However, some

failures attributed to the tool should also be blamed on the process, and both

should be scrutinized by an organization considering a change.


What many want is a partner to help them

refine and reimagine their current processes. In

our survey, 80 percent of respondents said that

they plan to re-evaluate and streamline talent

management processes to increase user adoption.

“Reimagining processes is focused on two main

areas: professional service and technology,” said

Shehadeh. “Professional service is true consulting

on the front-end of the process and focuses on where a business is, where they want to be

and how to get there. I call it the now, the wow and the how.”

This approach redefines the level of service that organizations should expect from their

talent management provider. Instead of a reactive approach that is geared around solving

problems, the focus needs to be centered around a more proactive approach.

An integrated approach facilitates this process re - engineering. “Structuring a solution with

all of the elements in one database cuts the work by orders of magnitude,” said Shehadeh.

“When you do the work up front using a unified set of competencies for all modules and

locations, the implementation is more far-reaching, and you end up exploring issues that are

usually only discovered after going live with a single module.”

Survey respondents seem to understand this already. Eighty percent of respondents

believe that vendors delivering an integrated suite of talent management products are

able to deliver a high level of customer service, but only 30 percent believe that a

80%believe that vendors delivering

an integrated suite of talent management products are able to deliver.

30% believe that a talent management solution

made up of different, non-integrated vendors can deliver a high level of customer service.


Redefine your idea of customer service as you reevaluate your current solution

talent management solution made up of different, non-integrated vendors can deliver a

high level of customer service.

As one respondent said, “When you can get a ‘suite’ of products, it’s less expensive than

buying them separately.” Shehadeh confirmed this. “A single suite solution will more than

likely cost less than an organization is paying for any two vendors.” Not only is it easier to

maintain, the efficiencies are myriad.

“You set up the infrastructure once, then use it multiple times,” Shehadeh said. “You don’t

need five different system administrators, you only need one. You don’t need five different

training classes or updates. When you have changes in personnel, you only need to enter

the information in the system once.”


Determining the Total Cost of Ownership

(TCoO) for any talent management solution

can be tricky. Certainly, hard dollar

expenses such as the cost of implementation,

monthly costs or license costs are easy to

determine. What about soft costs, such

as time to adoption, usage and training?

Downtime, poorly integrated solutions and

tools that employees don’t use effectively

also have a cost.

Although attaching a dollar figure to the total

cost may be difficult, survey respondents

clearly believe that TCoO is lower for

integrated solutions than ones that are

not. Seventy-five percent say that the total

cost of ownership for non-integrated talent

management solutions is expensive, versus

only 45 percent who say an integrated talent

management suite is.

One of the most unpredictable variables in

any talent management implementation is

user adoption. Employees must understand

Increasing Employee Adoption

To increase user adoption, you must show employees what’s in it for them. Increasing employee acceptance can be easy if you:

•Make it simple: As one survey respondent said, “Asking employees to use so many different systems means that it’s difficult getting them to master any one system.” An integrated system means there is only a single system to learn with a common methodology underlying the functionality of all systems. Training and employee communication is also essential – 65 percent of survey respondents believe that investing in training can increase adoption and ROI. Explain the rationale for the system, the business benefits and how to use it.

•Allow users to own the process: Forty percent of survey respondents say they are willing to evaluate new vendors and make a switch if necessary. However, before making any change, a committee representing all stakeholders from top executives to end users should be involved in process improvement and technology selection. If employees are involved in the selection and implementation process, they are more likely to embrace it in the adoption process.

•Create a meaningful outcome: “Did the needle move in performance? Did somebody’s rating go up as a result? Were quotas met or exceeded?” asked Shehadeh. “The user needs to understand what they are getting out of the process. They need to be able to connect their effort to tangible business results.”

•Focus on continuous improvement: Things change so quickly in business today with technology advances, new business needs and economic changes can mean significant changes from quarter to quarter. Is your organization and its technology agile enough to respond? “Every single HRsmart user has a direct connection to product management,” said Shehadeh. “We are able to take this information and roll out changes with our weekly updates.”


Integration Reduces Total Cost of Ownership (TCoO)

Above all, an integrated talent management solution makes it easier for organizations to tear

down the silos that isolate information. Unifying this information can facilitate HR functions

that cross over several aspects of talent management. “Some processes don’t lend themselves

to a single module, like offboarding,” said Shehadeh. “Offboarding is not really a single

event. It touches on recruiting, performance, just about every possible module in a talent

management suite. That’s the advantage of a single talent management suite. Some of the

highest value HR functions require an entire suite to function seamlessly.”

The value of talent management isn’t just about automating business processes, it’s

about improving them. Integrated talent management breaks down silos of information

and seamlessly connects the intelligence dots across all HR processes.

For an example of how unifying this data can improve business performance, consider the

recruiting function. The metrics that most organizations cite for success of their applicant

tracking systems (ATS) are the ones easiest to capture within that single module: time-to-fill,

time-to-hire and cost-per -hire. However, the most important metric – quality of hire – is less

frequently cited, if at all. “That’s because it takes longer to measure and requires access

to different data silos,” said Shehadeh. “The true measure of quality of hire comes from

performance management and goal achievement, years after the hire. Without an integrated

solution, this information is difficult, if not impossible, to capture.”


Discover the Power of an Integrated Solution

If HR wants to get a seat at the table, they need to learn to speak the language of

business, and that language is focused on bottom-line results. A comprehensive,

holistic approach to talent management needs to focus on the financial benefit to

the organization. “If you can say that you saved $2 million last year because you

increased retention, the CEO will listen,” said Shehadeh.

An organization that is experiencing poor or invisible ROI from any part of a Best-of-Breed

solution must explore the difference an integrated single-suite solution can make. To get

started assessing and implementing the appropriate integrated talent management solution

for your organization, consider these recommendations:

Know where it hurts: Most organizations are reluctant to change unless there is a

significant business pain. Whether the need is increased employee productivity, acquiring

top talent, implementing pay for performance, implementing e - Learning or establishing a

succession plan, identify your organization’s greatest need, but remember that your solution

must be holistic and not confined to that one area.

Understand what it is costing you: An existing tool that is not delivering a positive

ROI is costing your organization money. What is the opportunity cost of an

e-Learning system that is not integrated with a Performance Management system?

What is the value of increased productivity because you are able to connect

available learning programs to employee development goals and skill gaps? Also,

consider the economies of scale of purchasing an integrated solution. “A single suite

solution will more than likely cost less than an organization is paying for any two

vendors,” said Shehadeh.


Engage stakeholders: As mentioned in the sidebar of the previous section, allowing end

users to own the process increases the probability that they will embrace the final result.

Bringing together HR, IT and business unit leaders and end users increases the likelihood of

separating must-have functionality from the nice-to-have, but less essential, functionality. This

group should be armed with a budget up - front so they can qualify or disqualify a product

before they get too deep into the evaluation process.

Consider the global impact: Talent Management must be a global effort. It’s one thing

to deploy in a single country, but it’s another to do it worldwide because of language,

compliance and support issues. If your organization needs French language support, there

is a difference between Québécois French and Parisian French. Any organization with

global talent management needs must identify a solution that has the ability to integrate

different cultures into one corporate family.

Think about the future: Beginning with the end in mind can help an organization identify

and select the appropriate software solution. However, a business should also have an eye

on the future – what are the business needs three to five years in the future? The work you

put in on the front could pay off with huge time and cost savings down the road.


About HRsmart

HRsmart provides the fully-integrated Talent Management Application suite, including applicant tracking, performance management, learning management, career development and succession planning on a single unified platform. HRsmart helps organizations of all sizes attract, identify, develop, motivate and retain top performers. HRsmart is headquartered in Richardson, Texas, and has operations in the United States, Europe, Canada, Latin America, South Africa, Australia, Singapore and the Middle East. Learn more at www.HRsmart.com.

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