How TA Can Work Better Across Functions in Banking and Insurance

For banks and insurers, hiring decisions increasingly reach beyond talent acquisition. A role may need budget approval from finance, technical input from technology, supplier support from procurement and a view on whether the capability should be hired, developed internally or sourced another way. TA still owns recruitment delivery, but it can add more value when market insight is brought into those wider decisions before a role reaches the market.

Why hiring decisions now cut across more functions

Regulatory change, technology programmes and cost pressure are shaping workforce demand across banking and insurance.

Technology may define the capability. Finance may determine where headcount can sit. Procurement may oversee the contingent labour or supplier arrangements. TA brings the external market perspective: how limited the talent pool is for the required skill, candidate expectations and the realistic timeline when a role can be hired.

Problems can arise when those decisions happen separately. A role may be scoped before the budget is clear, or a supplier strategy agreed without a full view of the talent market. The opportunity is not necessarily to restructure these functions, but to help them share information earlier.

Where the disconnect can show up in banking

With TA’s newly mandated responsibility in mind, the function is at a crossroads with very different futures - a function that empowers business agility while gatekeeping quality and compliance, or one that simply exists to rubber-stamp without added direction or value.

The misalignment between TA and adjacent functions tends to surface in a small number of recurring patterns.

The banks managing this best are not necessarily restructuring their organisations or compromising on each function’s specific considerations. In most cases, they are building better operating rhythms between functions that already exist.
 

Where the disconnect can show up in insurance

Compared to their banking counterparts, the insurance industry faces many of the same structural tensions, but the nature of the talent market and the shape of the business create some distinct friction points of their own.

What this means for TA leaders

A cross-functional model does not require TA to own every workforce decision. It does require the function to understand enough about the wider business to contribute before those decisions are fixed.

As Kristian Warner, Head of Recruitment, APAC and Head of Global Recruitment Operations at GSK, puts it in our TA evolution e-guide: “The recruiter role has become less transactional and more strategic.”

That shift asks more of TA leaders. Market knowledge remains important, but so does the ability to understand business priorities, challenge assumptions constructively and explain what talent conditions mean for cost, timing and delivery.

Dionne Atwill, Founder & CEO of ExecTASocial, makes a similar point: “If you want to be a strategic partner, you have to understand the business inside out – not just TA. That means knowing the numbers, the market, and the levers that drive growth.”

For some organisations, internal teams will have the capacity to build this way of working themselves. Others may need additional delivery support while TA leaders spend more time with finance, procurement, technology and programme teams. An RPO or Project RPO model can provide that extra capacity while keeping internal TA leadership close to the decisions that matter.
 

Including the right teams into the conversation earlier

A useful starting point is to look at a small number of critical or recurring roles and ask where decisions tend to slow down. Was the role fully scoped before TA saw it? Was budget agreed? Were supplier or location options considered early enough?

Those questions can reveal where a different operating rhythm would help, without adding unnecessary governance.

If you’re reviewing how talent acquisition connects with the functions that shape workforce decisions in your organisation, speak with our talent solutions experts. We can explore where stronger coordination or additional delivery support could make sense for your business.