Is it time to Fire your Director of Employment?
by Dr John Sullivan - Professor and Head of HR Mgmt at
SF State Univ.
Imagine the head of the function that has one of the most strategic impacts on the
business (Employment) not even having (or communicating) a business strategy. Go
ahead and ask them "What is the name of our employment strategy?" Ask several non-HR managers the same question and if (when) you get blank looks--read on.
Now I know directors of employment as "soooo" busy "hiring people" they say they
don't have time to develop a written employment plan but at least they should have a name for their "strategy" and it should be communicated to all.
I've studied/ worked with dozens of employment functions and I've compiled a list
of some corporate wide strategies that companies should consider. The strategies
need to fit the environment of the company, if they are to be successful. Of course, these strategies can be broken up and used in multiple combinations.
It is no longer acceptable for an Employment function just to be reactive to open
requisitions and being satisfied with putting "butts in chairs." They need to have a
strategy that's:
Aligned with the business strategy
Is communicated and understood by all and There must be a corresponding set of metrics to see if the strategy is meeting it's
goals!
Possible Strategies for the Employment Function - The Range of Possible Employment Strategies (or where do we put our focus, resources and priorities) include:
Hire The Best And Brightest - Variations include:
Hiring "Brain Horsepower" - selecting individuals with intellectual capabilities
clearly above that of others in order to build up a companies Intellectual Capital.
Hire Talent - Find talented people and find a position for them.
Top 10% from the "top" schools - Using university admissions and grading assessments to identify candidates.
Fresh College Hires - A related strategy assumes that recent grads are "better" with
new ideas and "energy" that experienced workers don't have.
Hire "fresh" brains or "entry level" brains.
Cost per Hire ("Butts in Chairs") - Selecting "average" employees to fill slots which
pay below the midpoint and have a low cost per hire.
Assumes most employees are pretty much the same and that we need to hire low cost employees in order to be competitive.
Targeted Hiring - Selecting certain jobs as key jobs and putting a disproportionate
percentage of resources to fill these positions.
Competency Based Selection - Targeting individuals based on their broad competencies that go across many jobs and may also look at future needs (as
opposed to hiring individuals with an eye only on the skills currently needed for
one job).
Experience Based Selection - Recruiting and selection based on the number of years of experience they have in this or related jobs (or our industry). The
assumption is that more years is better as long as salary caps aren't exceeded. The
quality of the experience needs to be assessed if this strategy is to be successful.
Company Based Hiring - Assumes if you want to be the best you must hire people that have worked for companies we want to be like. This might include a "raiding
strategy."
Hire Too Many And Wash Out The Failures - Assumes errors will be made in the selection process and only on the job experience can cull out those not able to do
the job.
Temporary to Permanent Hire - Related to the preceding item where recruitment is done by others (contracting firms and temp agencies) and on the job
performance determines who we hire on as a long term employee.
Buy/ Merge with Firms for Talent Acquisition - You can hire "intact" talent relatively
fast through the acquisition of proven talent in other firms. You might also get
customers and patents as an added benefit.
Outsourcing - Admitting the function is not strategic (or at least the initial phases)
and hiring others to do part or all of it for you.
Hiring for Fit - Assuming that most skills can be taught but "fit" to the organizations/
teams values are the most important selection criteria. A related approach is hiring
for "attitude" and training for skills.
Promote Only / Hire at the bottom - This approach assumes our company is unique and that knowing our culture is essential for success. Outside hires must be at entry
level because they must work their way up to succeed. In order for this strategy to
be successful there must be strong internal placement and employee development programs. There are diversity issues related to this strategy.
Recruitment is everything - This strategy assumes that you can't hire great people
from a mixed candidate pool. Resources are focused on recruiting only the best. The actual selection process is less important if only stars are recruited.
Recruiting Ads/ Web Must Be A WOW vs Recruiting Ads Provide Information - Techies and others in our target audience judges a firm (fun, creative, technology
based) and our products based on how exciting our recruitment efforts are. The traditional approach views these ads only as information providers.
Pygmalion Approach - Recruit and Hire Average Candidates and then train and develop them because training and development can make stars out of almost
anyone.
Agility Hiring - Emphasizes hiring individuals that can "multi-task" and rapidly shift
from job to job is the most important thing in a world of rapid change. Hiring "white water thinkers."
Problem Solvers/ Winners - Assumes that successful people succeed at almost everything they do and that past success at solving complex problems is the best
indicator of future success.
Intrasourcing - Assumes that the rapid movement of talent (proactively) within thecorporation are at least as important as external sourcing.
Employer of Choice - By developing an image as "the" great place to work we can attract the best people and that the best people will attract other great people.
Virtual Work force - A strategy that focuses on hiring a large percentage (usually
over 50%) of our needed talent as off site contractors and temps. The basic premise is that you can plug in and unplug talent in certain areas of business. Most
work is done off site. The fact that the "virtual" staff does not have to come in to
our office and that they are continually challenged by constantly shifting employers
excites workers to the point where we can attract talent that we could not get if
they had to work on-site or full time.
Target The Unemployed vs People That Are Good In Their Job - Is our target recruiting audience unemployed people (those that have been rejected, laid off or
fired) and people that are unhappy in their job (and are thus looking) OR are we
seeking the very best that are not active job seekers and don't look at want ads
etc.
HR is Responsible for Hiring vs The Line Manager Is Responsible - Who should own
the hiring process HR or Managers? Who is responsible for finding the best? Do we
weaken our managers by doing "their" job for them?
They Find Us vs We Find Them - Traditional strategies focus on the premise that applicants are strangers and they need to apply to us in order to be considered.
Another approach assumes in order to identify the very best we must find/ capture
the names of the best on our own. And over time, build a relationship with them so that they become "friends." The premise is that hiring people we have known
over time gets us a higher acceptance rate among superstars and stretching out the
screening process results in less "bad" hires and retention problems.
A Continuous Recruiting Process Or Just When We Have Open Requisitions - Are there always a sufficient number of good hires in the market or do we need to
keep a constant, proactive look out for great candidates and hire the "best athlete"
even when we have no current openings?
Recruit and Select Based On What They Will Do in The Future VS What They Did in The Past - Traditional selection tools (resumes, behavioral interviews and
references) focus on past behaviors. In a rapidly changing world assessing and hiring talent on their ability to solve future problems may have a greater impact on
our competitiveness.
US Only vs Global Searches - Is the best talent to be found in the U.S. or do we
need to find talent where ever it lives? Are U.S. recruiting and selection tools
sufficient in the International Business Environment?
Employment's Speed of Change Must Mirror That Of Our Product vs A Status Quo Approach. - Must overhead functions evolve slowly to save costs or must
employment obsolete it's own products and tools at the same rate of all other business systems if we are to beat the competition.
Other Choices / Decisions in Employment
Involve everyone in the "finding" process through employee referrals or rely on central HR.
Make it easy to apply to increase the pool or create hurdles to applying to discourage excess applicants
Electronic or paper based employment systems (speed vs costs).
Select candidates solely based on selection (test) performance or with added factors considered (diversity).
Cost per hire/ speed of hire is more or less important than the quality of hire.
Make hiring decisions an individual vs a team decision.
Reject former employees that quit as disloyal vs viewing them as "strayed family"
members returning to the flock.
Attract candidates with intangible factors (image, culture) vs tangible points (sign
on and starting salary incentives).
Recruit with professional recruiters or with our employees that volunteer.
Staff employment with headhunter types vs the standard recruiter types.
Hire permanent recruiters vs contract recruiters (or a mix).
Recruit for all jobs or farm out our exec level jobs.
Recruiters find and "drop" candidates after hire or stay involved with candidates
after hire to increase retention.
Measure and reward all important aspects of employment (customer service, response time, quality of hire) or measure only filled / open
reqs.
Have a centralized Recruiting/ Shared services function vs using generalists on site.
Place own ads or rely on an HR ad agency.
Operate employment as a standard overhead function or as a key competitive advantage
Have remote recruiting. & selection capabilities or have face to face hiring only.
Employment must relax it's rules so that out of the box thinkers will not be screened out using inside the box recruiting and screening tools. Compared to the
strategy that employment must screen out the bad apples due to the difficulty in
firing employees.
--------------------
Dr John Sullivan
Professor and Head of Human Resource Management at San Francisco State
University (JohnS@sfsu.edu)
Numerous articles by Dr Sullivan can be found at http://go.ourworld.nu/gately/sullivan.htm
Articles exclusively on recruiting can be found at http://www.erexchange.com/ere3/search.asp?SearchID=ARTCL&USERID=429912132
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