6 Unseen Benefits Of Using Talent Intelligence In The Workplace

Ravi Tandra -

Talent intelligence is like a referee in a basketball game; if they’re doing their job in the right way, you won’t even notice that they’re there. However, if they’re doing a bad job, you will focus on every single thing (mistake) they make. And if you don’t use talent intelligence in your workplace, that’s like playing a game without a referee— it’s bound to end up as a disaster. 

That’s why, in this article, we’ll go over the unseen benefits of using talent intelligence in the workplace and why it can be so impactful to your company’s bottom line. But first, let’s define talent intelligence. 

What’s talent intelligence? 

Talent intelligence is the process by which a company collects, analyzes, and uses various internal and external data to enhance recruitment efforts, improve employee development, optimize workforce planning, increase talent retention, and drive diversity and inclusion. 

With talent intelligence, you can prepare your entire organization for future market trends and ensure it thrives under various internal and external (market) conditions.

With that in mind, let’s see what talent intelligence can concretely do for your business. 

6 Unseen Benefits Of Using Talent Intelligence 

Talent intelligence has many benefits, but the following five usually go unnoticed. However, they’re vital to any organization out there. All of the following benefits are gained by using data to help make informed discussions:

1. Recruiter-hiring manage discussions (intake meeting)

Talent intelligence can really benefit both sides of the intake meeting— the recruiter and the hiring manager. Having the data about your talent pool while making a recruiting plan is extremely beneficial. 

When both the recruiter and the hiring manager can come to the intake meeting prepared with data about the talent pool, then they can have a productive meeting. What good is it if the hiring manager demands 50 candidates with the terms that 50% of them need to be female candidates if the entire talent pool consists of 2% women? 

However, with the data to back up both the recruiter and the hiring manager, the intake meeting becomes an effective planning tool. 

2. Time to fill

Did you know that the Society of Human Resource Management (SHRM) reported that it takes an average of 42 days to fill an open role? However, that’s the average number across the entire workforce. What happens when you have a specific role that only a handful of people can fill? Well, that’s when you encounter a problem or projecting how long it would take to fill the open role.

When you have the necessary data about your talent pool, then you can plan out an accurate time-to-fill for the open roles. There’s a massive difference in time-to-fill if you have over 100,000 candidates who would fit the open role and only 50 candidates who would do so. 

Knowing your talent pool inside out and understanding how many people could potentially fill the job in your organization will give you a more accurate time-to-fill number. 

3. Compensation and benefits

With talent intelligence, you can analyze the compensation packages (on publicly available compensation reports)  that candidates would get for similar roles in other companies. That way, when you’re hiring a candidate for a role and are trying to determine their compensation plan, you would know approximately how much to offer to the candidates based on what your competitors and other companies are offering for the same role. 

Netflix’s entire compensation structure follows this exact model— they offer their candidates compensation that’s the top for their personal market. So if you’re a customer service rep, you’ll get paid the top price for what a customer service rep can make in the economy. 

You don’t have to follow Netflix’s example, but you need to be aware of what other companies (and your competitors) are offering to candidates if you want to attract the best candidates. If you can’t match the pay offer, try to add other benefits such as work-from-home that would attract candidates.

4. Prepares for the skills gap

With talent intelligence, you won’t be left out of the market when it comes to preparing your company for the future. Talent intelligence helps you understand your employee’s skills and where their gaps lie and analyzes the skills in the market that’ll help you find the right candidate. 

Which skills are limiting your talent pool? This is crucial information that will help you craft job ads and job descriptions to attract the desired candidates. If you’re looking for a programmer who needs to know C++, maybe the limiting factor in your talent pool is Ruby on Rails skills that these programmers don’t have. Understanding that factor can expand your talent tenfold. 

Not having this information will prolong your talent search, increase time-to-fill, expand costs, and provide inefficiencies in the process. 

Talent intelligence can help you predict the future skills gap, but it can also prepare your workforce for the upcoming educational and technological advancements. And one of the most important advancements will be regarding educational trends, especially requiring a degree for a specific job. 

Some companies like IBM, Okta, Dell, and Accenture have already started to hire people without a college degree, relying solely on their skills. 

Educational trends can take the market by storm and you’ll have to adapt to them if you want to thrive in the market. Not only is the technology different (using Coursera, Udemy, or LinkedIn Courses), but the way talent learns new things has changed over the years. Gone are the days of endless presentations during a yearly company retreat; Today’s employees use microlearning, YouTube, and focused coaching to learn new skills. 

Talent intelligence helps you notice these emerging trends, starting from the universities that broaden their major or course selection to the number of self-educated people who use certain technologies/programs. 

6. Building a talent strategy

Last but not least, talent intelligence helps you build a talent strategy. There are several reasons why this is important and here’s just one of them. 

If you’re looking to open an office in a new location, you want to know how that location functions. By that, you want to know which markers are essential to hit to open an office successfully. Having an understanding of the talent pool in that area, its diversity, the education, skills, and experience are just some of the parameters you would need to know to ensure you make informed (and successful) talent decisions. 

This can help your organization stay on top of your competition and execute the strategic plans effectively. 

Conclusion

Talent intelligence is a crucial asset for any company aiming to thrive in today's market. Numerous pitfalls, from tech disruption to the rise of Gen AI, can challenge a business. However, you can adapt to any market conditions by investing in talent intelligence. 

If you need assistance implementing it in your organization, we invite you to book a live demo with one of our experts, who will guide you through the process and demonstrate how the ProvenBase platform can address these issues.