What’s Driving the Growing Interest in Talent Management in Ireland?

by Ian Dowd, Marketing Director Ireland, NGA Human Resources

Over the last 24 months there has been a significant increase in the number of organisations in Ireland, both public and particularly private sector industries, going out to market for talent management solutions.

We know that the Irish economy has outperformed its EU partners for the second year running so we would have expected a return to the kind of IT spending that was in place before the crash of 2009 across all sectors. But it’s not simply business as usual. The demand for talent management solutions over the last two years is significantly higher than their pre-recession levels.

There are two main drivers fuelling this growth in the public sector. Firstly, embargoes on recruitment in the big traditional employers such as the Health Service Executive and the Garda have now been relaxed. The second key reason is that there is a new focus on performance management along with rewarding public sector bodies in Ireland who deliver efficient services while the opposite applies for poor performers.

In the private sector it is mainly the ICT and Pharmaceutical industries with their EU headquarters in Ireland who have been busy buying new talent management solutions over the last two years. These industries are struggling to find enough quality Irish candidates to fill new job positions and so are hiring from the EU and beyond where quality online talent solutions have been a big help.

The traditional cost and time barriers to implementing talent solutions has improved dramatically through cloud based solutions and outsourcing. Each of these approaches takes the pressure off the internal HR and IT resources of companies to implement and integrate a new solution into their existing systems. The ‘pay as you grow’ model also allows for quicker investment payback and better cash flow for those availing of these new services.

In order to fill these many new public and private sector jobs, employers have realised that they need better HR tools for quickly selecting and retaining high quality new recruits who will add significant value back to the organisation over many years. Investing in HR systems to better support the initial targeting of the right candidates who have both the educational certification and the cultural fit to grow their career with the organisation makes better sense than ever.

In this area, the talent management tools most in demand for career pathing are Recruitment & Performance Management in the short and medium term while Learning and Succession planning is focused on the longer play. The truth is that employees who are engaged in planning their future with you are more likely to remain with you.

The flip side is also true. If another downturn was to visit these shores talent management tools help organisations make better decisions around who they can afford to make redundant and those key people who they need to retain. Evidently, HR analytics has become an incredibly valuable strategic tool.

About NGA Human Resources
NGA Human Resources is a global leader in helping organisations transform their business-critical HR operations to deliver more effective and efficient people-critical services. We help our clients become better employers through smarter, more streamlined business processes — to save money, manage employee life cycles, and support globally connected, agile organisations. This is how NGA makes HR work.
What sets us apart is The NGA Advantage. It’s a combination of deep HR experience and insight, advanced technology platforms and applications, and a global portfolio of flexible service delivery options.
Founded in 1969, NGA has over 44 years of experience in the IT industry. As a recognised global HR services leader, we have offices in 35 countries on five continents, supporting customers in more than 100 countries.
More information:
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