Running Effective TA Strategy Workshops: A Practical Guide

Many TA leaders are planning their annual strategy workshops. Having facilitated dozens of these workshops and ATC sessions, I’ve learnt how to get the most when creating meaningful engagement and alignment and setting actionable outcomes that create impact.

The Objectives of the Workshop

Clarity of objectives is essential. The big questions you want answered are always key to these strategy workshops. Less is better; I feel some TA Leaders are over-ambitious in tackling these questions. Ideally, 2-3 big questions are what you want to truly focus the team and set your strategy.

Looking at these 10 questions, these may be:

1. Talent Landscape & Market Position- How does our value proposition in our key sectors resonate with the market?
2. AI & Technology Integration: What is our AI strategy, and how can we use AI to improve the business and remain competitive?
3. Operating Model & Delivery – how do we measure and demonstrate our value?
4. Business Partnership & Influence: How effectively are we partnering with the business, and are we viewed as strategic business partners?
5. Team Capability & Development – what capabilities does our TA team need, and how do we build a future-ready TA function?
6. Skills & Internal Mobility – how do we build a skills-first organisation and make internal mobility a competitive advantage?
7. Talent Advisory – how do we transform from Talent Acquisition and add more business value?
8. Change & Risk Management – What are our key risks and blockers, and how are we addressing them?
9. Cost and Investment: Given the economic climate, how can we optimise our investment in talent acquisition to achieve a tangible ROI?
10. Culture & Diversity – how are we driving diversity outcomes

Understanding Your Team’s Starting Point

For me, before diving into workshop activities, it’s essential to establish a clear baseline of your team’s capabilities so you understand capabilities, including potential productivity.

The TCS Insights assessment framework achieves this and provides valuable data-driven insights across three key dimensions:

• Traits: Core characteristics like empathy, creativity, and curiosity
• Competencies: Essential skills such as analytics, influencing, and strategic thinking
• Skills: Technical abilities, including candidate care, marketing, and sourcing

By having team members complete the TCS assessment before the workshop, you gain the following:

1. Objective measurement of team capabilities
2. Understanding of collective strengths and development areas
3. Individual insights for targeted improvement
4. Data to inform strategic priorities and resource allocation

The Fundamentals

First up, nail down these basics:

• Timing: One complete day minimum, two days if tackling major strategic shifts
• Location: Strongly consider offsite – the mental break from the office helps shift thinking from operational to strategic
• Facilitation: A professional facilitator with industry knowledge is recommended
• Participants:
  • Core TA team (with pre-completed TCS assessments)
  • Key hiring managers (morning session only)
  • HR business partners
  • Recruitment technology partners
  • External TA strategists who can challenge thinking

Leveraging Team Insights

The TCS assessment reveals your team’s capability across crucial areas like:

• Market Intelligence (understanding talent landscapes)
• Strategic Thinking (long-term planning capability)
• Influencing (stakeholder management strength)
• Candidate Care (quality of experience delivery)

Use these insights to:

1. Assign workshop roles based on strengths
2. Form balanced breakout groups
3. Identify mentoring opportunities
4. Target-specific development needs
5. Inform strategic priorities

Aligning with Business Objectives

Understanding and aligning with key organisational objectives is critical for any TA strategy workshop. Your team’s efforts must directly support broader business goals, whether expanding into new markets, driving innovation, or improving operational efficiency. This alignment ensures that TA isn’t just filling roles but actively contributing to business success.

The A2A (Aligned to Achieve) framework provides a structured approach to creating this alignment. Through interactive exercises, teams map their activities to specific business outcomes, identify potential blockers, and develop clear action plans. This process helps everyone understand what they’re doing and why it matters to the organisation’s success.

Core Workshop Activities

I recommend using structured exercises to make the workshops interactive and ensure optimum participation. Outlined below are some that I have used in the past.

• Aligned to Achieve: For gaining alignment with business, setting strategy, identifying blockers, and gaining buy-in
• Question Ladder Exercise: Structured questioning technique to deeply explore TA challenges
• Journey Mapping: Look at stakeholder journeys through key stages of the Talent Process
• Capability Planning: Use TCS insights to map current vs. needed capabilities
• Knowledge Wall Creation: Capture and organise collective insights

Making It Interactive

Keep the energy high with:

• Regular movement between exercises
• Mixed small group formations based on complementary capabilities
• Quick energiser activities between sessions
• Plenty of visual documentation
• Regular reflection moments

Post-Workshop Success

The real work starts after the workshop. Plan for:

• One-page strategy summary to share with stakeholders
• Weekly stand-ups on key initiatives
• Quarterly deep dives on progress
• Regular pulse checks on team engagement
• Follow-up TCS assessments to measure improvement

Top Tips

1. Have participants complete TCS assessments 2-3 weeks before the workshop
2. Share anonymised team-level insights during foundation setting
3. Use individual reports for personal development planning
4. Create balanced working groups based on capability profiles
5. Focus improvement initiatives on identified gap areas
6. Schedule regular reassessments to track progress

Using TCS Insights and Aligned to Achieve for Strategic Planning

The assessment data particularly helps inform:

1. Aligned to Achieve enables you to position your Talent Acquisition Function at the most critical and relevant business objectives.  This means that TA is “on purpose”.
2. Talent Advisory Maturity: Where does your team sit on the progression from operational to strategic?
3. Capability Gaps: What skills need development to achieve strategic goals?
4. Team Structure: How to organise roles based on individual strengths
5. Development Priorities: Which areas will deliver maximum impact?
6. Resource Allocation: Where to invest in training and tools

Remember, this is your chance to align your team on what matters most. Combining objective assessment data and collaborative workshop activities creates a powerful foundation for strategic planning and execution.