For 2026, our data confirms that there is a gap between HR strategy and employee experience that continues to widen. The role of HR professionals continues to evolve as organizations look for stronger ways to support their people and business goals. While HR teams still manage essential day-to-day operations, they are also playing a larger role in shaping employee experience, improving retention and building sustainable talent strategies. This can be stressful for HR leaders who are navigating the gap between employer confidence and employees’ understanding of the benefits and resources available to them.
Below, our Talent Solutions team has answered some common questions about talent solutions that HR and people leaders may be asking.
What is talent acquisition?
Talent acquisition is the strategic process of identifying, attracting and retaining top talent for your organization. This means ensuring that, as a company, you are hiring individuals who help uplift your company and advance its goals. Talent acquisition can have a significant impact on your organization.
When effective, talent solutions recruiting support connects your HR and hiring team with executive search, retained search, contingent sourcing, employer branding and recruiting process consulting. With this strategic approach, hiring teams can close hard-to-fill roles faster, more effectively compete for top candidates, improve offer acceptance rates and reduce turnover after hire.
NFP clients see an average 30% reduction in time-to-hire and 25% reduction in recruitment costs. Our team offers a broad range of tailored talent solutions that can be implemented based on what your company is looking for.
For example, the recruiter-on-demand service allows for your own talent acquisition professional to become integrated within your team and offer in-house resources that are flexible and cost-effective.
Or if your goal is to save your HR team time, another option is fully outsourced recruitment (RPO). This becomes an extension of your HR team to help your company get the best talent. The benefits include strategic advantages, scalability and cost savings.
Whichever route you take, our Talent Solutions team can help you incorporate and leverage emerging technology to your advantage. NFP consultants work with people leaders to create successful, long-term, cost-effective programs that can enhance your hiring process.
What is employee onboarding?
Employee onboarding is the structured process that integrates new hires into your organization. Onboarding can shape how employees view the company and help them understand their role, connect with their team and set them up for success.
A major factor that can make or break a new job is the guidance included in onboarding. As a company, you want to ensure that your new hires feel comfortable when they first arrive. NFP’s experts find that 31% of employees say they are not getting the support they need, which nearly one-third of a company's workforce. NFP can help you take steps to lower that percentage with our ongoing engagement and onboarding experience, ensuring your new hires are well prepared for their roles from the outset.
Our Talent Solutions team was created to help employees from hiring to retirement. Our team consists of experts who help deliver solutions that create positive employee experiences and drive HR and business performance. With our hands-on guidance and specialized expertise, our mission is to help empower your organization and drive business success.
How is onboarding related to employee retention?
Onboarding for new hires creates increased retention early on if done correctly. It helps them prepare and feel connected and supported. When new hires understand their role, feel included and have the resources they need, they are more likely to stay engaged.
Our Talent Solutions team’s materials connect retention challenges with broader people strategies, including recruiting, onboarding, employee relations, engagement and HR operations.
When companies ignore or otherwise don’t engage the skills of their employees, confidence in work drops. A lack of confidence can lead to a lack of productivity or burnout. Widespread burnout and decreased productivity can shift a company’s morale and its production.
It is important that employees see a path forward and that employers build retention by finding those untapped skills. NFP helps identify these challenges to turn them into business opportunities. Our Corporate Benefits and Wellbeing teams align retention strategies with employee needs.
What is recruitment process outsourcing?
Recruitment process outsourcing (RPO) is when an organization transfers all or some of their recruitment to an external provider that operates as an extension of the company’s HR team.
In short, RPO services help your company find the best talent and harness job profiling and onboarding procedures, freeing up your HR team to focus their talents elsewhere. RPOs help leverage expertise to find the best talent for your company. This service allows your company to gain that competitive edge through recruitment, adjust your capabilities, and reduce costs created by external staffing and overhead associated with in-house recruiting teams.
It can be difficult to stand out as a company from your competitors. There are many strategic elements that can negatively impact your company if there is no specialist support involved. This could include competitors beating you to top talent, the wrong people being hired, reinvesting in rehiring and training, and productivity being disrupted in the absence of long-term hires.
Our specialists understand the recruitment landscape and help ensure a seamless and empathetic approach for your organization. Our team takes the time to learn about your business, understand your goals and then connect you with the right recruitment solutions for you and your people. By partnering with NFP’s Talent Solutions team, you can gain the competitive edge, reduce costs and improve productivity by hiring the right people and adjusting your recruitment capabilities.
What are HR operations?
HR operations are responsible for the day-to-day administrative and logistical functions that support the entire employee lifecycle. In short, your company runs on the success of the HR team. They are essential to meeting your business’s strategic goals. HR operations are the daily systems, processes and support that help organizations manage their people effectively. This can include but is not limited to benefits administration, onboarding, policy development, leave management, performance management, HR technology and payroll support.
When set up for success, your HR operations team can be the key to aligning human capital with overarching company goals. Our Talent Solutions team helps create that environment for success, tailoring it to your business, culture and goals.
Our team can identify your areas of improvement and evaluate your current HR functions. Our services include:
- End-to-end employee lifecycle expertise.
- HR outsourcing to support key people and compliance functions.
- Strategic and operational HR consulting solutions.
- HR program, policy and process development.
- Government contracting and workforce compliance expertise.
