Turn Your Human Resources Department into a Profit Center with Plum

By Amanda Nunez

Blog Home


The role of Human Resources (HR) goes beyond scouting and onboarding talent, or at least it should to increase the department’s value. In today’s competitive job market, it is essential to maximize HR’s role by utilizing tools that help talent managers look within an existing talent pool to address their company’s evolving needs. Instead of HR departments operating solely as a cost-center, Human Resources should help create and save their organizations revenue by becoming profit centers. Plum’s Talent Assessment tool can help talent managers revitalize and evolve to keep up with your industry’s changing landscape.

Traditionally, Human Resources is recognized as a cost-center due to the nature of its work. Its services are seen as essential and without a product, costs are incurred rather than produced. In our current economic climate, it is important to utilize HR’s full capabilities, including in a manner that focuses on generating revenue. HR has the infrastructure to become a profit-center where it can play a key role in a company’s bottom line. With the right strategy, HR can develop practices that produce profit-driven results.

Maximizing Your Talent Pools’ Full Potential

Talent management teams are uniquely positioned to understand a company's broader needs. When employees partake in Plum’s Talent Assessment, hiring managers can gauge a complete scope of what types of skills and leadership qualities your organization’s talent pool possesses. This information is vital when an HR team attempts to fill open roles across a company. With this background accessible to HR, an existing employee qualified for the open position can be considered for promotion or tapped to take on a short-term or long-term project. This could save a company thousands that would otherwise be spent recruiting new talent in a shrinking applicant pool.

With 33% of Americans citing a lack of career growth opportunities as the reason for leaving their employers, creating paths for career advancement will make the difference between companies that see high rates of turnover and companies that retain their staff for longer periods of time. Plum’s assessment tool can be utilized by talent managers to assess if their employees are being utilized to their full potential or if they possess skills needed in an open role within the company.

It is well-recognized that internal recruitment can save a company money while filling a position faster than undergoing an entire recruitment process. Once talent completes this survey, HR can have confidence that an employee's performance will be predictable due to the unbiased nature of the assessment as it evaluates the participants work ethic based solely on their admitted preferences. On top of these added perks, internal mobility is a key component to boosting team morale and inspiring creator retention numbers.

Getting It Wrong Could Harm Your Bottom Line

In an employee’s market, recruiting new talent can cost anywhere from one-half to two times that position’s annual salary. Candidates have more options, which can lead to larger periods of recruitment and lower quality in candidates. Losing valuable team members can also affect the productivity of the remaining team. Employees have cited a lack of professional growth opportunities as a reason for being disengaged on the job.

Utilizing Plum’s assessment tool can help both Human Resources and talent maximize their potential. Talent managers will become aware of a current employee's underutilized skills and elevate them to a position they otherwise would not be considered for, which would improve office morale and incentivize productivity. Hiring from within would also cut down on recruitment costs and encourage employees to remain and grow at the company.

Meanwhile, talent will gain access to a personalized Plum Profile that will equip them with the knowledge they need for career growth, development, and continued success. Talent can also use their profiles to chart a career path that suits their skillset and work ethic. They will be granted insight into what drives and motivates them to perform at an exceptional level. Participants will also learn what activities drain them, which means some aspects of their work could come less naturally to them and present a challenge in their career development.

Utilizing Plum’s Assessment survey can help HR teams monitor productivity, product quality, and the quality of an organization's existing workforce. This is essential for a business to be able to anticipate its future needs and adjust its business model where necessary to be the most profitable. Plum’s survey works in the interest to both talent and talent managers to help both pinpoint how best to drive productivity and produce a team’s best quality product every time.