At last week’s ERE (Electronic Recruiting Exchange) Expo in Hollywood Beach, FL., I was asked what the difference is between TAS and TMS and whether there really was any difference.
Well for starters, everybody has a different definition of what a Talent Management System (TMS) actually is. HRchitect’s definition includes everything that is in the entire life-cycle of an employee from pre-hire to post-hire. That definition does include Talent Acquisition Systems (TAS) as a subset of TMS. So what is the industry’s accepted line in the sand between the TAS modules and the TMS modules?
It’s also important to define what Integrated Talent Management (ITM) is as part of this short discussion. ITM is a comprehensive approach to maximizing workforce engagement, performance and productivity by deploying integrated processes and enabling technologies. Talent Management Suites (TMS) deliver two or more functional areas in a (presumably) integrated manner.
TAS as a component of TMS actually goes further and includes everything related to the hiring process from attracting, sourcing, assessing, tracking, hiring and onboarding but not the talent development and management of the employee from there – the place where Talent Management Systems take over. In our opinion, both support the overall approach of ITM where the ITM vendors will often (but not always) cover TAS as a part of a broader suite of functions.
There are many linkages between ITM functions that will improve workforce effectiveness but we will save that discussion for another time.
Solving a piece of the puzzle…
Matt Lafata, HRchitect
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Tiffany Appleby