talent.brussels, the regional public administration for the Brussels-Capital Region, stands at the forefront of public sector HR innovation. Formed in 2018, one of the organisation’s main objectives is to attract new talent for its partner administrations. talent.brussels serves as a vital link between civil servant candidates and the public sector employers in the Brussels-Capital Region – including Brussels Environment, Urban Brussels and the employment agency Actiris. talent.brussels also supports with recruiting the top managers for Brussels’ nearly 40 administrations.
As a newly founded body in 2018, talent.brusselsfaced challenges in defining a clear financial plan, as well as its communications and services towards its public sector partners. To solve this, the administration drew up a management plan with the core goal of becoming the innovative HR partner for the Brussels region.
When COVID-19 hit, less than two years after talent.brussels was founded, the organisation saw it as an opportunity to drive positive, transformational change. This moment in time offered a chance for talent.brussels to create a new vision, build a fresh organisational structure, and digitalise its processes operations.
As part of this wider transformation strategy, talent.brussels partnered with Cornerstone OnDemand. Leveraging Cornerstone’s MyTalentLink, the organisation overhauled its recruitment services – to the huge benefit of its partners. talent.brussels also recognised the value of lifelong learning in the complex world of the public sector. As such, the organisation also leveraged Cornerstone’s Learning Management solution to prioritise the growth and development of the public sector workforce by investing in comprehensive training programmes relevant to their given administrations. By implementing Cornerstone, talent.brussels also created a core learning platform for the entire Brussels-Capital Region public sector, ensuring that employees are able to continuously develop themselves professionally and advance their career paths.
Thanks to the efforts of this wider transformation initiative, talent.bussels has met all of its strategic objectives to become a customer orientated, innovative, agile organisation that acts as a catalogue of services for other Brussels administrations. Today, talent.brussels recruits, trains, implements HR analytics, rolls out learning, carries out employer branding, and supports the Brussels government in developing HR policies. talent.brussels has experienced significant growth since its inception, expanding from 40 employees in 2019 to 120 in 2024.
talent.brussels’ partnership strategy
talent.brussels serves as the HR partner for all Brussels administrations, and has worked closely with partners over the past few years to build trust and demonstrate value. Through this collaborative approach, they have developed several services that have become crucial for their administrative partners.
The organisation has undergone significant transformation, particularly during the challenges presented by COVID-19. This period served as a catalyst for change, enabling talent.brussels to fully step into its role as the HR hub for the Brussels region. However, their unique position of coordinating HR functions across multiple public administrations in the Brussels-Capital Region presented several complex challenges.
"In the complex and highly regulated environment of public sector HR, it's crucial that talent.brussels has access to cutting-edge solutions that can adapt to our unique needs. We chose Cornerstone because their platform offered the flexibility and scalability we required to manage recruitment and learning across multiple administrations.”
Elise Beyst
HR Director at talent.brussels
Navigating public sector complexities
The first challenge was consolidation. When talent.brussels was founded, there was no HR strategy at a regional level and each administration handled HR in their own way. To gain visibility into the extent of this issue, talent.brussels launched the EneRHgy Project’, which assessed every HR process, tool and module across all of Brussels’ administrations to determine the overall maturity. The findings were concerning; across just 13 administrations there were more than 40 HR tools and modules in use, none of which were connected to one another. The result was that overall maturity was extremely low. This also made viewing even basic HR data, let alone analysing it, extremely challenging – in turn creating barriers to collaboration between administrations. It was nearly impossible to get a holistic view of the public sector workforce and, additionally, the scattered nature of HR tools and platforms led to a high level of unnecessary expenditure across the Brussels region.
The existing recruitment process was also lengthy and inefficient, often taking up to 170 days to complete, which was untenable in the increasingly competitive labour market – particularly as talent.brussels was competing for talent with the private sector. Additionally, a thorough pre-interview assessment process also did not yet exist, meaning that applicants who were underqualified were often not easily filtered out.All of these challenges led to a high candidate dropout rate of 75%. talent.brussels’ goal was to make its partner administrations attractive employers to potential civil servants, and so these were all critical challenges to overcome.
A clear choice for talent.brussels
After talent.brussels discovered that dozens of different HR tools were in use across administrations, it became clear that consolidation, collaboration and cost-cutting were paramount. The organisation needed a single, unified tool that was flexible and quick to implement so that continuity of services could be maintained during COVID. As such, Cornerstone's scalability offered a huge benefit. As talent.brussels rapidly expanded its services it needed a solution that could grow alongside it. Cornerstone's platform offered the flexibility to accommodate this growth without compromising on functionality or user experience.
The modularity offered by Cornerstone's platform was also a key factor in the decision. It allowed talent.brussels to start with recruitment and quickly expand into learning, with the potential to add performance management and skills development in the future. This aligned perfectly with the organisation's vision of creating a comprehensive, integrated HR ecosystem. As Brussels is a bilingual region, operating in both French and Dutch, the language capabilities of the Cornerstone platform also appealed.
When it came to learning specifically, talent.brussels needed a platform that offered a level of interoperability to break down silos between different administrations. Cornerstone also made it possible for administrations to create transferable learning for everyone.
Furthermore, Cornerstone's expertise in supporting large organisations in highly regulated environments was a significant plus. The platform's ability to be customised to meet the unique rules and constraints of the public sector was essential for talent.brussels.
Lastly, one of talent.brussels goals was – and still is – to create a link between learning, performance and skills so that individual colleagues can develop their own career paths, an incredibly unique ambition for a public sector organisation to have. The diversity of Cornerstone’s suite caters to this ambition, which helped talent.brussels make the decision of beginning the partnership.
Taking a phased approach
talent.brussels adopted a phased approach to implementing Cornerstone's solutions. The organisation began by launching 'MyTalentRecruitment', at first with just the administrations for whom it was mandatory. The tool was then also made available for other administrations to use, with 13 administrations now using MyTalentRecruitment across Brussels.
Following the success of the recruitment module, talent.brussels expanded its use of Cornerstone to include the Learning Management System (LMS) – implementing MyTalentLearning. talent.brussels worked in four waves to onboard administrations, and is now operational in 14 administrations. Throughout the implementation process, talent.brussels invested significant effort in change management, working to convince partners to transition from existing platforms to the new Cornerstone system. The organisation developed compelling business cases, demonstrating how administrations could save money and improve efficiencies by adopting the centralised tool. The Brussels government has now also mandated that, by 2025, MyTalentLearning will be mandatory for all Brussels administrations.
Finally, talent.brussels is in the process of implementing Cornerstone’s performance module, which is currently in pilot and forecast to be operation before the end of the year. In 2025, talent.brussels will begin waves of rolling out of this module to the other administrations.
“Innovation and adaptability are key to talent.brussels' mission of creating a dynamic, skilled public sector workforce. Cornerstone's platform has equipped our employees and partner administrations with the tools they need to succeed in an ever-changing environment. We've been able to streamline our operations, offer personalised learning journeys, and lay the groundwork for skills-based development and internal mobility. As we continue to expand our use of Cornerstone's solutions, we're excited about the potential to further transform public sector HR, making the Brussels-Capital Region an employer of choice in an increasingly competitive job market."
Jessica Delbecq
Career Center Director at talent.brussels
Transforming recruitment
The implementation of Cornerstone's platform, as part of its broader strategy for change, has helped to transform how talent.brussels operates and serves the Brussels-Capital Region's public sector. The organisation has made significant strides in enhancing recruitment efficiency, expanding learning opportunities, and fostering collaboration across various administrative bodies.
One of the most striking improvements has been in the recruitment process. talent.brussels has dramatically reduced the time-to-hire, cutting the recruitment procedure from 170 days to just 60 days. This efficiency gain has been crucial in helping the public sector compete for talent in an increasingly competitive job market. The MyTalentRecruitment system, now used by 30 administrations, has processed over 850 recruitment procedures with 15,000 candidates in how long. Moreover, with a more thorough vetting process now in place, the candidate drop-out rate has decreased drastically, from 75% to 25%. Today, the organisation works with 14 partners and has 16 more administrations in the process of being onboarded.
Re-energising learning and development
In terms of learning and development, talent.brussels has made remarkable progress. In 2019, the organisationoffered just dozens of learnings for its partners. Today, across 14 administrations, more than 4,000 employees are using MyTalentLearning and have access to more than 2,500 learnings and 300 e-learnings – a huge gap to have closed.
The impact on inter-administrative collaboration has been equally significant. With 14 different administrations now using MyTalentLearning, there is now unprecedented sharing of resources and insights across the public sector. This has not only improved operational efficiency but has also helped to foster a culture of continuous learning and development across the entire Brussels-Capital Region. All partners can now buy and develop learnings, and then share these learnings with other administrations – creating a level of interchangeability that had previously not existed.
talent.brussels' holistic transformation has touched thousands of public sector employees and has resulted in a more cohesive and well-trained workforce. The organisation has successfully created a system where every employee can access the training they need at the right time, while also providing administrators with the tools to track and optimise these learning journeys.
From a financial perspective, the consolidation of HR tools into Cornerstone's unified platform has yielded substantial cost savings. talent.brussels has also been able to reorientate HR staff, ensuring they still have a place within the organisation amidst cuts.
Looking to the future
talent.brussels has also laid the groundwork for future innovations in public sector HR management. The organisation is now positioned to implement skills-based development and enhance internal mobility across the region's public bodies. This forward-thinking approach is crucial in ensuring that the public sector remains an attractive employer in the long term.
As talent.brussels continues to expand its use of Cornerstone's solutions, it is well-positioned to tackle future challenges and opportunities in public sector HR management. The partnership has not only solved immediate problems but has also set the stage for ongoing innovation and improvement in service delivery to the citizens of the Brussels-Capital Region.
