Managing Talent Groups with SAP

HR PASSION. SAP SPECIALISTS.

When managing the acquisition of talent through

internal and external recruiting, and development

of talent into key positions and jobs through

succession planning, talent needs to be managed

and engaged differently based on your specific

processes as well as the needs of the talent that

you are working with. SAP supports internal and

external sourcing and development through the

E-Recruiting and Succession Planning modules.

Succession Planning in the context of SAP

supports the identification of key jobs and positions,

the identification of potential successors,

measurement of potential successor readiness,

and identification of activities needed to make

ready that talent. Though SAP E-Recruiting is

seen as a powerful tool to source applicants

internally and externally, it can do much more;

its integration to SAP HR, analytical support,

and use of functionality such as Talent Groups,

Job Families that are shared with Succession

Planning and Enterprise Performance Management

make it an ideal solution for supporting talent

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Managing Talent Groups sourcing and development. This article will not

focus specifically on the Succession Planning

module, but will focus on techniques within

E-Recruiting and Succession Planning to support

sourcing of talent from within and outside the

organization.

This article is based on the functionality of SAP

E-Recruiting 6.0 and Succession Planning

within ERP2005/ECC6.0. When recruiting

with E-Recruiting, most of applicant tracking

is usually done against a requisition. Within

Succession Planning this would be done against

a Succession Plan, and for talent sourcing and

development that is not against a specific key job

or position, either a Talent Group or Job Family

can be used. You may recognize the names of

some new SAP PD objects here. They will be

Though SAP E-Recrui t ing is seen as a powerful tool to source applicants internally and externally, it can do much more.

defined in the next section. The article is divided

between sourcing for typical recruiting efforts

and identification, development, and sourcing of

internal talent.

This article focuses on the mechanics of sourcing

talent internally and externally. Assessing succession

bench strength and current capabilities/potential

of your workforce versus significant business

risk such as the aging workforce is both critical

and supported through the Talent Development

Specialist role released with ERP2005 (now

known as ERP6.0) Enhancement.Package 1

Though the PD objects mentioned in this article

are all key to workforce analytics, discussion of

the analytics themselves is beyond the scope of

this article.

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The Recruiting Talent Pipeline

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TALENT GROUP

EXTERNAL CANDIDATES

INTERNAL CANDIDATES

TALENT GROUP

TALENT GROUP REQUISITION

EXTERNALAPPLICANTS

INTERNALAPPLICANTS

APPLICATION GROUPS

SOURCED BY RECRUITER

CANDIDATES

APPLICANT APPLIES

APPLICANTS

THE TALENT POOL

The Requisition Sourcing Process

Applications against a specific requisition can

come from a lot of different sources based on

the sourcing need, as well as the needs of the

candidate. Candidates that apply directly may do

so online as a result of seeing a job ad, or they

may send their information to the organization in

paper or electronic form and have it submitted

on their behalf. They may be giving their

information to the organization for the first time;

the candidate may have registered at the organizations

career site or previously applied for a job and

asked to be considered for other openings. The

candidate may have shown up in a search of the

talent pool against the requisition requirements,

and the recruiter may have invited them to apply

for the position. Candidates may have come

from a more generic recruiting effort such as

“XYZ University 2006 Recruiting Drive”, and

some pre-screening activities may have occurred

before moving them to a specific requisition.

are sourced into the talent pool and assigned to

talent groups according to their potential and

communication with talent can be used for faster,

look at how generic recruiting efforts and

unsolicited applications are grouped together

under application groups, before being managed

looking at how candidates apply directly against

requisitions and the different options offered.

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Sourcing the Talent Pool

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TALENT GROUP

EXTERNAL CANDIDATES

INTERNAL CANDIDATES

TALENT GROUP

TALENT GROUP

THE TALENT POOL

SAP HR

NEW HIRE

RECRUITER

CANDIDATE

MANUALENTRY

MANUALENTRY

MANUALENTRY

RESUME PARSER

FAX EMAIL PAPER MAIL

EMPLOYEE

Overview of Talent Groups

We define a talent group as group of candidates

with similar properties or that need to be handed

in a common way. It is up to customers to offer

those candidates specific services. A talent group

is seen as the result of the current company

recruiting strategy and the talent needs of an

organization, so talent groups will change over

time. The assignment to a talent group is not

necessarily a qualitative judgement on the candidate.

Talent groups are static; this means talent groups

are not be derived for candidates dynamically.

This will be more or less a manual action

performed by a person and not an automatic

assignment. A candidate can belong to multiple

talent groups at the same time and is not aware

of her or his assignment.

The talent groups can be created, changed and

deleted depending on the needs of the recruiting

strategy. Each talent group has an owner who has

the authorization to control all administrative

aspects of the talent group. Recruiters need

authorization for a specific talent group in order

to assign and reassign a candidate to a talent

group or view the assignment. Talent groups can

be used to search in the talent pool and address

the corresponding candidates via various Talent

Relationship Management activities.

Talent groups are a very generic tool for the purpose

of segmenting the candidates into different

groups. Customers can create any kind of talent

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groups based on their needs. Different companies

will use the concept of talent groups in different

ways. The examples below show what kind

of talent groups can be created, what purpose

they can serve. In theory we could imagine a

company that wants to use all of the examples

simultaneously.

Recruiters and Succession Planners can use

membership of a talent group as search criteria

(e.g. include candidates with an engineering

degree that belong to the “high potentials” group.

This can be done when finding candidates for a

requisition, for succession planning, or for general

TRM activities. They can only search based

Alumni Status4

Career Aspirations5

Application Integrity6

1 Skill Pools

Experience Level2

Performance Level3

ta lent groupssort

on talent groups where they are a support team

will list which talent groups they belong to, but it

will only show the recruiter the talent groups that

he or she is a support team member on.

1. Identify Talent Groups by Skill Pools

Company A identifies talent groups with its skill

pools. These are pools of people with certain

skills (e.g. IT, legal, and oil exploration). Each

skill pool has an own skill pool manager who

is responsible of making sure there are enough

people in his or her skill pool.

2. Identify Talent Groups by Experience Level

Company B may want to use talent group

reflecting experience level. Currently, the career

page divides applicants over three broad groups:

trainees, graduates, experienced professionals,

each with their own set of questions. Behind the

screens different recruiters deal with different

groups of applicants.

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3. Identify Talent Groups by Performance Level Company C wants to use the talent pool for

career and succession planning in that it wants

to earmark certain candidates as short listed for

position types A, B, C, etc. A variant of this is

to distinguish “performers”, “top performers”

and “high potentials”. Career managers actively

attempt to further the careers of certain groups

of candidates. The authorization concept is very

important in talent groups, as managers and

recruiters should not necessarily see who is being

considered for high potential talent groups.

4. Identify Talent Group by Former Employee Status Company D would like to define a dedicated

talent group to keep in touch with its former

employees. Dedicated events are organized for

the alumni. Special questionnaires are used to

collect information from the alumni.

5. Identify Talent Groups by Career Aspirations

Company E wants to use the talent group to

attract people interested in certain functions

(e.g., management, administrative). Talent group

questionnaires are used to gather additional

information about the candidate, based on the job

area they are interested in.

6. Identify Talent Groups by Level of Application Completeness

Company F wants to clean up the talent pool

and sees talent groups as an ideal instrument

to keep the talent pool up to date and small.

Example talent groups here are “Those who did

not maintain their profile in the last 6 months”,

and “Mickey Mouse” registrations. All these

candidates are marked and a responsible recruiter

sends correspondence to such candidates. He

finally creates an activity “Marked to be

deleted”. Such candidates are then picked up by

the administrator and deleted from the system.

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Talent Group Creation

Creating a Talent Group is similar to creating a

requisition. It contains:

• A responsible person

• A support team which controls who can see both the talent group and which candidates are assigned to that talent group

• Attachments – An example would be a document outlining the handling of high potentials

• Data overview

The Talent Group can be used by anybody on the

support team, but can only be created using the

administrator role. If a recruiter needs to create

talent groups, then the standard recruiter

authorizations and start page can be changed to

enable this.

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Overview of Application Groups

Application groups are similar to requisitions

in that applicant activities and statuses can be

tracked against application groups. Application

groups are designed for funneling unsolicited

applicants for a similar type of job, without

actually hiring against a particular requisition or

position. An example of “funneling” would be

processing any applicants from a college career

fair using an application group. Once the best

area of employment is found for the applicants,

then they can be moved to specific requisitions.

Like a requisition, an application group has a

responsible support team. This support team may

use the application group to decide which

unsolicited applicants should be forwarded to

which requisitions.

One key difference between application groups

and requisitions, is that applicants apply to a

requisition through the job postings. Application

groups do not have job postings, but can be

applied directly against using a url that can be either

emailed to potential applicants or embedded as a

career page link such as “Engineering Students

Apply Here”.

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Application Group Creation

Application groups must be created from the administrator start page. Support team members can be

added, a process template can be assigned, and so on. The Talent Group can be used by anybody

on the support team, but can only be created using the administrator role. If a recruiter

needs to create talent groups, then the standard recruiter authorizations and start page can

be changed to enable this.

The main difference in creating an application

group is that no postings can be created. The final

step in creating an application group is creating a

publication. You enter a reference code, and the

system will automatically generate a URL that

applicants can use to apply. This URL can then

be embedded in a career page using a link such

as “Peoplesoft sales people apply here”.h

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Talent Groups vs. Application Groups

Talent Groups

Are intended for managing groups of candidates

(not applicants)

Allow you to create activities for talent outside the context of a

requisition

Can be used as a way of funneling candidates to a specific

requisitions

Not intended for the final hiring process

Are not used in hiring metrics

Membership is based on talent group support team member manually adding a candidate

Authorizations restrict recruiters

talent group assignments (recruiter can only see they are on

support team)

Membership is not known by the candidate

Does not have an application process

Does not have candidate statuses (in standard)

Membership can be used as search criteria for recruiter

Candidates can be removed from a talent group

Applications Groups

Are intended for managing groups of applicants when you do not know which, if any, requisi-tion they would fit against. (e.g. unsolicited applications, college

grads, etc.)

Allow you to create activities for talent outside the context of a

requisition but within application group context.

Can be used as a way of funneling candidates to specific

requisitions.

Can be used for hiring (can hire from application group)

May be used in hiring metrics

Membership is based on candi-date actively opting into application

group (submitting resume) or recruiter manually assigning

candidate to application group

Recruiters can see all of a

requisition assignments

Membership is known by the candidate if they applied

Has an application process (customizable application wizard)

Has applicant statuses

Application group assignment cannot be used as search criteria

by a recruiter

Applicants cannot be removed from an application

Requisitions

Are intended for specific recruiting efforts where the job

details are known

Allow you only to create activities against the requisition

Used to recruit against a specific requisition

Intended for the hiring process

Are used in hiring metrics

Membership is based on candi-date actively opting into application

group (submitting resume) or recruiter manually assigning

candidate to application group

Recruiters can see all of a

requisition assignments

Membership is known by the candidate if they applied for a job

Has an application process (customizable application wizard)

Has applicant statuses

Requisition assignment cannot be used as search criteria by a

recruiter

Applicants cannot be removed from a requisition due to need to

audit

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Talent Groups and Application Groups as Pipelines

You can embed links to application groups

you interested in a career at the ABC Company?

Submit your resume according to where you

would like to work:

• ABC Worldwide

• ABC EMEA

• ABC APAC

When the candidate clicks on the link they are

taken to an application wizard tailored to that

region (application group), e.g. specific questionnaires

according to where they would like to work.

The recruiter can then access the members of the

application group and process them accordingly

(see screenshot below)a

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Below is the list of assignments. You see that you

have different filter criteria at the top for looking

at the assignments as well as the possibility to

perform ranking on application group members

(by questionnaire, using your own weighted

search criteria, etc). You can perform activities

also search for other people to add to the talent

group. You can sort all the columns in the hit list

and filter the hit list by entering search strings in

the first row.can be changed to enable this.

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You can then drill into a candidate and see all

activities performed and planned for him or her

on this application group. If you want to see all

activities performed on this candidate in general,

you can see this by looking at the candidate

overview (clicking on the hyperlink of the

e

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Talent Groups

People are assigned to Talent Groups manually (search and assignment).

Above is an example of three talent groups

this user has authorization for. You can see by

their names that they are intended for different

purposes. The first one, “Obsolete Candidates”

is intended for cleaning up the talent pool, e.g.

collecting candidates that should be removed

from the talent pool for some reason, such as

in a long time. The second one “US East Coast

Engineering Students” is intended for marketing

and/or funneling college candidates. The third

one “HiPos: Development (West)” is intended

for succession planning purposes. All three uses

are covered by the flexible talent group concept.

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The screenshot above shows what the screen

looks like when you drill into the talent group

assignments. You see that you have different

filter criteria at the top for looking at the assignments

as well as the possibility to perform ranking on

talent group members by questionnaire.

From the candidate list you can perform activities

(individual or mass), view the candidate over-

the assignment to the talent group (remove from

the talent group). You can also search for other

people to add to the talent group. You can sort all

the columns in the hit list and filter the hit list by

entering search strings in the first row.

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The above screenshot shows you all the activities

carried out on a specific individual on this talent

group. If you want to see all activities performed

on this candidate in general, you can see this by

looking at the candidate overview (clicking on

You will only see activities on talent groups for

which you have authorization.

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Internal Identification and Development of Talent

Identifying employees (or external candidates)

as having current capabilities or potential for

a certain role within the organization is key to

developing and retaining talented people; It can

mitigate the risk of lost business opportunities

and restrictions to organizational growth due to

talent constraints.

Those responsible for talent development must

be able to signify capabilities and potential of an

individual both at the macro level of which jobs

they are best suited, and to the micro level of

individual competencies. This can be done using

the Talent Development Specialist role, and the

employee can also enter competencies using

Employee Self Service (ESS). Assignment of

candidates to Talent Groups can also be achieved

from within E-Recruiting.

The ability to identify those that can fill future

organizational gaps and search on current and

future capabilities has to be embedded into both

the recruiting and succession planning process. It

is now possible to search for candidates based on

Job Family assignment (though only for employees)

and Talent Group assignments (everyone).

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Conclusion

The use of a Talent Pool has expanded in scope

beyond E-Recruiting into Succession Planning

and Talent Development. It has taken on a critical

role within workforce analytics and understand

organization capabilities, potential, and how

demographics will impact the bottom line

In order to capitalize on the rich new functionality,

boundaries between Succession Planning and

E-Recruiting, and which modules are best suited

critical to understand the different talent hooks

to tie candidates to: talent group, job family,

application group, requisition. They all have an

impact on how internal and external candidates

can be handled, as well as what kind of analytics

is available.

The wider the SAP talent management footprint

in your organization, the more benefit you will

receive from reusable data, functionality, and

analytics. Succession Planning heavily reuses the

functionality, integration and data model of

E-Recruiting. The reuse of other talent management

data such as learning history within E-Recruit-

ing and Succession Planning will increase the

ROI that can be gained from the SAP Talent

Management platform.

A stable SAP ERP release based on ERP6.0, with

new functionality being released through non-

disruptive Enhancement Packages thru 2010 will

ensure the solution will be a stable one that you

will be able to receive additional functionality

from at your own speed.

About the Author

Mark Ingram leads the Talent Management Practice at Aspire HR. Prior to joining Aspire HR,

Mark was an SAP Product Manager responsible for SAP E-Recruiting strategy, product defini-

tion, and rollout for SAP Labs LLC. Mark is a co-author of HR-XML industry consortiums

Staffing Exchange Protocol. Mr. Ingram has been with SAP in the United States since 1998 and

has been intricately involved in the SAP Solution Management Practice.

Mark moved to the US to work at SAP Labs in California where he extended his payroll de-

velopment experience working on the US and Canadian versions of SAP Payroll. Prior to his role in

the US, he spent several years with SAP AG in Germany where he was responsible for developing the

British Payroll version of mySAP(TM) ERP HCM. Mark holds a Bachelor of Science in International

Business and Information Technology from University of Teesside, UK.

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Copyright

© 2008, Aspire HR Inc. All Rights Reserved.

No part of this publication may be copied, or used in any form or by any means, without the express written permission of Aspire HR.

Contacting Aspire HR

Aspire HR

2701 N. Dallas Pkwy. Tel. 214.880.0099 Suite 420 Fax. 214.880.9914 Plano, Texas, 75093 Web. www.aspirehr.com