Future proof your talent strategy

People are your most valuable asset, and therefore firms must focus on optimizing their talent strategies to ensure they onboard effectively, are empowered to do their best work, and are led by data throughout service delivery.

While age is not a factor in defining success, with the average workforce age above 40 years, research suggests the firms that excel find a balance between younger tech-savvy talent and more mature veterans with service delivery experience.

The importance of culture

Firms must focus on ensuring a culture that nurtures and rewards high-performance as well as a data-led culture. Realizing a data-led culture is not just about providing talent with data regarding projects and performance, but about engraining data into performance reviews so that these discussions are led by numbers.

Leading professional services firms prioritize an employee-focused culture as the cornerstone of their success. Culture encompasses the values, beliefs, and behaviors that shape how work is truly accomplished within the organization, as well as rewarded.

A thriving culture integrates both the formal and informal reward systems that reflect how the organization operates in reality—regardless of what the organizational chart, business strategy, or mission statement might convey.

Driving employee excellence with talent strategies

Skilled employees have more employment choice in modern HR landscapes, with remote working and international growth creating opportunities. This makes talent retention more important than ever before, as there is an inverse correlation between voluntary attrition rates and a host of financial, operational, and project KPIs.

All indicators point to a continuing talent shortage in professional services. Research suggests that it now takes nearly 63 days for the average new hire to become productive – well above the previous 5-year average.

This all points to the clear business need for greater talent attraction strategies, as well as retention. For firms to excel they must reimagine their talent strategies and utilize technology in this process with a focus on:

^✓	Building the right infrastructure to support remote employees and preventing burnout.
^✓	Attracting younger, tech-savvy talent with enhanced recruitment strategies that streamline onboarding processes and invest in high-quality training and development—key factors that drive workplace appeal.
^✓	Improving ramp-up times and increasing billable hours by ensuring effective resource utilization aligned to employee skills and project demands, leveraging intelligent resourcing capabilities to match the right people to the right work at the right time.

How technology can contribute to culture and talent strategies

Professional services can boost productivity with technology investment, which has reduced overhead and administrative costs.

Data-driven decision-making is essential to ensure optimization focuses on the right areas—such as leveraging automation to increase productive, billable hours while minimizing non-productive administrative time.

Human Capital Management (HCM) solutions integrate payroll with recruiting and skill-building, providing full visibility into the resource pipeline. These platforms include robust learning management systems, offering employees a centralized system of record to develop skills, manage certifications, and track credentials.

The Talent Management (TM) module enables people managers to access actionable insights for productive one-on-one discussions, set and track objectives, and support employee learning and growth with tools that monitor progress effectively.

Digital tools also facilitate automated and scheduled feedback loops, enabling managers to stay informed about employee concerns, take meaningful action, and measure how feedback impacts engagement and overall satisfaction.

Global workforces can be seamlessly managed through a unified platform like Unit4, which consolidates employee records, including engagement metrics, competency levels, and performance data.