If people are a company’s greatest asset, why does the talent system still feel fragmented?

Most organisations say that people are their greatest asset.

And in my experience, they usually mean it.

Yet the systems designed to attract, assess, onboard, and retain those people often feel disconnected. Not broken in a dramatic sense, but fragmented in ways that quietly create friction, confusion, and lost opportunity.

This isn’t a critique. It’s an observation shaped over more than twenty years of working closely with hiring managers, leadership teams, and candidates across complex, global environments.

What I’ve seen consistently is this:
Good intent doesn’t always translate into good outcomes, not because people don’t care, but because talent is rarely designed as a connected whole.

Recruitment isn’t the problem; isolation is

Recruitment often carries the weight of this frustration. When things don’t work, it’s easy to point to hiring as the issue.

But recruitment is usually just where fragmentation becomes visible.

The experience of talent starts long before a vacancy is approved and continues long after an offer is accepted. How organisations communicate, how clearly expectations are set, how onboarding is handled, how early experiences are supported, all of these shape whether a hire succeeds or struggles.

When recruitment sits in isolation from these stages, even the best search process can feel transactional. Candidates feel like inventory. Hiring managers feel rushed. Outcomes feel inconsistent.

What changes when talent is seen as a system

Over time, my own work evolved in response to this reality.

Recruitment remains the entry point, it’s where alignment begins and where representation matters deeply. But lasting outcomes depend on how well recruitment connects to the wider talent experience: communication, onboarding, early integration, development, and ongoing engagement.

When these elements are considered together, something shifts:

• expectations are clearer

• decisions feel more confident

• candidate experience improves naturally

• retention becomes more predictable

• trust builds on all sides

This doesn’t require grand transformation programmes. It requires intention, continuity, and experienced judgement applied consistently.

Why clarity matters now

As businesses become more complex, globally connected, and people-dependent, fragmentation carries a higher cost. Not just financially, but culturally.

Treating talent as a living system, rather than a series of transactions, creates calmer processes, stronger alignment, and better long-term outcomes for both organisations and people.

That thinking now sits at the centre of how I approach this work.

Recruitment is still essential. But it works best when it’s part of something more connected, considered, and human.