Empowering organisations with a total talent technology: Chris Milligan, CEO, Adepto

What is the true potential of HR and how can technology help us to achieve it?

In this installment of our HRD Tech Founders Q&A series, Chris Milligan, CEO, Adepto, explores how total talent technology is transforming every aspect of the human’s role in business – from recruitment, to internal mobility, to upskilling, and more.

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What is Adepto?

Adepto is a skill-based Total Talent platform providing customers with a single view and access to all the talent available to them, internal and external; past, present and future.

Through Adepto, organisations such as The Queensland Government, Atos, Capita and BDO have reduced their time-to-hire, improved internal mobility and gained access to real-time, accurate skills data. Adepto enables organisations to intelligently match people to opportunities based on their skills and experience and not their employment status, leading to greater agility and better resourcing.

Why was it necessary to create Adepto?

I had the original idea for Adepto whilst I was working as a contractor for a Big 4 firm in Australia. Whilst in that role I realised that they had a blind spot when it came to their external talent, often struggling to keep workers engaged or resource them into the right roles. It’s still the case that business leaders lack knowledge around their entire talent pool, despite 42% of total workforce spend being spent on the external workforce.

Adepto started in 2013 as a contractor marketplace, matching graduates to opportunities. This early idea of a marketplace has since evolved, into what Adepto is today: a skill-based Total Talent platform – enabling organisations to build private networks of talent, and match workers to roles irrelevant of status.

Why is HR technology crucial to the success of a business?

Organisations are increasingly investing in HR tech. With workers now expecting a more consumer-like experience when using enterprise technology and organisations under increasing pressure to stay competitive, businesses are turning to new and innovative solutions on the market.

Forward-thinking business leaders have always actively pursued the best solutions available – now the rest of the industry are starting to catch up. Those organisations who will succeed will be those that dedicate resources to researching and implementing solutions that allow re/ up-skilling at scale, meeting employee expectations and allowing greater agility.

How can an organization most effectively implement new HR technology?

We are seeing new HR tech solutions coming onto the market on a weekly basis. To ensure success when implementing new HR tech, first identify the business problem that you’re trying to solve and then match to solutions that offer the right use case.

It’s also worth engaging with your employees early-on. If they play a role in the early implementation and decision-making of an HR tech solution, you’ll increase buy-in.

What do you think is the biggest challenge affecting organisations today?

All organisations face the challenge of becoming more agile and readily able to respond to market pressures, customer demands, new business and political volatility.

There’s also the impact of automation and Industry 4.0 to consider. Focusing on a Total Talent approach will help, as it gives a complete overview of all the ways to get work done. That might be a permanent employee, a contractor or automation. But to be effective, HR teams must become more data-driven – with the right tools, knowledge and skills to support. HR itself must move into a strategic role, working with the rest of the organisation to address the many challenges posed by automation and Industry 4.0 – to assess the opportunities offered.

Which emerging technologies do you think will transform HR in the future?

HR has a great opportunity to become more strategic – it’s at the cusp of a transformation to become more digital and data-driven. People are the most vital part of all organisations. Tomorrow’s industry leaders will be defined by their talent. People-centric HR tech that empowers workers and helps organisations to utilise all their abilities will be most transformative in the future.

As part of this, HR will realise the need for continuous learning – for themselves and workforces. Leading organisations will be the ones who use their technology to access and engage with all types of talent, and that focus on retaining, training and upskilling their entire talent pool.