The Underrated Potential of Private Talent Communities

[ ManpowerGroup ]

Private talent communities offer many of the same benefits as online talent marketplaces while more closely aligning with traditional workforce processes.

They reduce time required to engage workers, worker time to productivity, and recruiting costs by creating a structured way of maintaining contact with and deploying:

Previous contingent workers
Previous freelancers
Alumni and retirees
Top candidates recruited for but not selected for internal positions
Interns
Students
Trainees

Organizations can turn to private talent communities to address seasonal labor fluctuations, projects that require extensive organization-specific knowledge, and unexpected skill gaps in times of economic volatility. Doing so establishes ready access to strategic resources with specialized skills, making scaling your workforce a less-daunting undertaking.

Remaining Connected with Good-Fit Workers

Building a private talent community starts with a technology platform and communication framework for maintaining contact with departing workers and high-potential candidates. Dedicating a team of workforce specialists to such an endeavor will help an organization create a vibrant talent community. It should also help establish the visibility and central management necessary to keep talent flowing into the solution.

Workers see private talent communities as a more engaging alternative to online freelance marketplaces, social networking sites, or job boards. They foster ongoing relationships through open communication channels and an experience that reflects the organization’s brand identity.

These workers have already shown good alignment with the organization’s culture and work strategies. Treating them with greater care after they complete a work engagement reinforces their value to the organization. This personalized approach deepens the workers’ connection with the organization, an important consideration when future work opportunities arise.

The curated nature of a well-managed talent community makes it an optimal first source for new projects. Hiring managers can consider a targeted selection of qualified performers almost immediately, rather than having to rely on workforce suppliers to scour broader talent pools. Further, some key initial screening steps will have already taken place during the worker’s previous interaction with the organization. Finally, many workers in the talent community will possess familiarity with the organization’s culture, structure, and operational practices, greatly reducing time required to acclimate to a new position.

Aligning Your Talent Community with Other Workforce Strategies

You can realize increased value when integrating a private talent community with an existing contingent workforce program. For example, when a hiring manager identifies a workforce need, TAPFIN can search the private talent community for potential candidates before or concurrently with staffing suppliers’ recruiting efforts. These candidates have undergone sourcing and screening specific to the client’s workforce needs, many having previously held positions at the organization. This approach minimizes the time required to find a worker for a position, and it decreases the worker’s time to productivity upon starting the assignment.

An internal network of best-fit candidates also plays an important role in strategic workforce planning, as organizations must increasingly consider all sourcing channels to address talent scarcity. Direct worker sourcing opens up new alternatives for achieving organizational priorities in a dynamic world of work. Accessing top talent instantly and at more competitive costs can be challenging. To help, ManpowerGroup Talent Solutions built WorkMyWay: a Talent Community and a rapidly deployed, agile, cost effective talent sourcing solution that can be deployed in less than a month.