According to Cielo, TA and HR leaders are on a roller coaster of change – one that’s not slowing down and full of twists and turns. And it’s their ability to meet these moments head on that’ve helped businesses flourish during trying times.

The COVID-19 pandemic, the war in Ukraine, and rising costs are just a few of the major events that’ve significantly impacted the global economy and many societies in recent years. These challenges thrust talent leaders into the boardroom, taking them center-stage to deliver on business needs and objectives like never before.

“The things we used to worry about – and believed couldn’t be done – are now possible. It requires a different mindset from everyone – HR, TA and business stakeholders,” says a TA leader at a Fortune 50 company.

Talent leaders who’ve worked through these extraordinary ups and downs are well equipped with two valuable traits: agility and determination. Here’s a glimpse at some of the incredible ways HR/TA leaders have adapted to thrive during periods of shocking transformation – so you can better prepare for future shifts:

Disassembling siloes right away

New business demands across industries amid recent events required immediate responses. With no room for long bureaucratic speed bumps, department silos quickly went down to allow for systemic change.

“It was the swift removal of the siloes in decision-making that was key,” notes a TA leader for an insurance company in NA. “To achieve what the business needed to happen overnight, everything had to align. It wasn’t about resources; it was about doing things fundamentally differently – and this translated into process simplifications and automation. Speed in decision-making was also of the essence for workers.”

Returning to recruiting essentials

Companies that’ve seen immense demand during modern change events, like in the healthcare and retail industries, needed to find ways to keep pace. For many, this meant streamlining their recruitment process to accommodate quicker hiring decisions – some suddenly had to switch from a three-week recruitment process to hiring someone in just 24 hours.

Having the right technology in place that works in tandem with the right people remains critical to TA success.

“To deliver against unprecedented need, three things needed to happen: leverage technology, streamline talent acquisition processes, and take a look at legacy policies. And with it being the need of the hour, we had to develop new delivery models at an extraordinary pace that would receive executive sponsorship. The net result was an assessment-led process that delivered volume and speed,” explains a TA leader at a Fortune 50 company.

Getting creative with technology

Having the right technology in place that works in tandem with the right people remains critical to TA success. During recent market challenges and pressing timelines, many talent leaders found creative ways to leverage and deploy their existing tech systems into their new processes to achieve hiring goals.

“TA tech within many organisations was in such a state, with multiple legacy systems – many of which are underutilised. The pandemic taught us how to grab the technology that we needed to fulfil new needs,” observes an APAC TA leader for a global pharmaceutical organisation.

Removing “specialism” walls

In industries that maintained operations through recent change events, it was important to retain the TA team. They were just deployed to critical areas of need rather than their area of specialism, being pulled back to their legacy role when necessary.

“Enterprise organisations within [life sciences] typically had a blended TA solution in place: internal team, outsourced team, contract recruiters, and project recruitment solutions. As such, they had flexibility in terms of how they dealt with sudden change,” explains an APAC TA leader for a medical technology company. “When there was a need to put infrastructure back into place, they had various levers they could pull.”

These experiences have forever altered the mindset of HR and TA professionals who were thrust to the epicenter of these changes. For them, there’s no going back to the way things were. They know what’s possible when legacy siloes are broken down, the organization adopts the necessary agile mindset and they’re entrusted to build something new at extraordinary pace.

They’re prepared for the next major TA transformation. Are you?

Learn more about how HR/TA is evolving and gain valuable insights from leading experts in Cielo’s latest report, “Innovation in flux and the future of HR.”