So far, we have covered how employer collaboratives do the following:
- Determine critical business functions and jobs and major talent challenges in building talent pipelines (Strategy 1).
- Identify projected job openings (Strategy 2).
- Identify hiring requirements for filling those jobs (Strategy 3).
Producing this information provides granular data that employers can use to close their skills gaps. It also helps build trust among employer collaborative members and proves that they can work together to produce actionable results.
However, while Strategies 2–3 are critical to determining demand, we now need to introduce supply into our data collection process. Every collaborative must answer the following critical questions:
- Where have we traditionally found talent for new hires? For upskilling opportunities?
- Do we have the necessary supply of talent internally or from external providers to meet our projected demand?
- What is the current and potential capacity of our internal and external pipelines to meet our workforce needs now and into the future?
- What are other potential sources of talent—both internal and external—that can help us meet our workforce needs, including increasing diversity?
- What are the size and characteristics of the overall talent pool within our geographic area, including those populations that could be prioritized for diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives?
Whereas previous strategies concentrated on how to focus and communicate demand, with Strategy 4 we can now do an in-depth analysis of current and potential talent supply. Consistent with the TPM framework and approach, this strategy encourages employers to use their own data to improve talent sourcing strategies. What is more, it gives you myriad tools as well as basic and advanced methodologies to gather and analyze the data in a manner that produces new and important insights on how your collaborative is currently sourcing talent and where they could potentially source talent from in the future.
Specifically, Strategy 4 shows how back mapping enables you to identify current and prospective sources of talent, whether internal or external. It also demonstrates how that information can be used to engage in talent flow analysis, a method used to analyze how effective your collaborative is at sourcing talent from feeder jobs (i.e., job-to-job flow analysis) and/or current providers (i.e., those providers identified through back mapping) and potential providers. From there you can combine data produced from Strategy 2 (i.e., demand planning) to execute a supply-demand analysis specific to your collaborative and its talent pipeline needs. Last, through talent pool analysis your collaborative can use data from government agencies and other data providers to analyze the size and characteristics (e.g., demographics) of both the current workforce and learner populations served by their current providers, compared to the size and characteristics of the working-age population—the number of people ages 18 to 64 who are residing in the chosen geographic area. This talent pool analysis can include opportunity populations—those who traditionally experience barriers to employment—and identify which sources collaborative members can work with to develop a more equitable pipeline.
Strategy 4 encourages employer collaboratives to compile and share information with their providers to promote a shared understanding of where they are in developing a talent pipeline capable of addressing employer needs now and in the future.
Strategy 4 Learning Objectives
- Describe the role of back mapping, talent flow analysis, supply-demand analysis, and talent pool analysis in Talent Pipeline Management® (TPM) and how these analyses differ from traditional approaches to analyzing supply.
- Identify the internal sources of talent and the tiers and roles of external talent providers within a talent provider network.
- Conduct back mapping, talent flow analysis, supply-demand analysis, and talent pool analysis using employer data and other data sources.
- Create tables, graphics, and other visualization tools that help map internal and external talent sourcing networks.
