Evaluate HR technology to fit your talent management processes- Valutrics

While there are several very good standalone talent management applications on the marketplace, there is an increasing trend to purchase a suite of integrated talent management applications as opposed to a collection of independent applications that are later cobbled together.

This trend of adopting a talent management suite is occurring because certain talent management processes are typically closely tied to other processes. For example, compensation management often leverages performance management data, and recruiting is often tied to the onboarding process of a newly hired employee. With standalone applications, businesses lose the ability to have end-to-end processes that operate across the pillars of talent management. Although, in some — but not all – cases, it is possible to replicate data between systems, this isn’t always going to have the desired effect. An organization might be able to replicate a list of courses from its learning management system to its career development planning system; however, employees may not be able to have learning courses added to their development plan or be able to go directly to the course in the learning management system.

Other benefits of standalone systems are user experience and branding. Having a consistent look and feel across talent management applications is going to enhance usability, adoption and an organization’s internal branding.

While talent management software suites are often the direction that organizations lean towards, bear in mind that no vendor is superior in all of the pillars of talent management. However, some vendors’ suites do excel against other suites, and picking a suite that is a leader could be advantageous. That said, if the leading suites are weak in areas that are important to a business, it should consider a set of standalone applications or select one or two and add a suite to cover the remaining processes.