WHAT DO YOU CALL OUR EMPLOYMENT STRATEGY?
(or Is It Time To Fire Your Director Of Employment ?)
Imagine the head of the function that has one of the most strategic impacts
on the business (Employment) not even having a business strategy. Go ahead
and ask them "What is the name of our employment strategy?". Ask several
non-HR managers the same question "Do you know what our corporate
employment strategy is?" 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 time to give a name to 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.
WHAT IS A GREAT EMPLOYMENT STRATEGY
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
1) Aligned with the business strategy
2) Is communicated and understood by all and
3) There must be a corresponding set of metrics to see if the strategy is
meeting it's goals!
LIST OF POSSIBLE STRATEGIES FOR THE EMPLOYMENT FUNCTION
The Range of Possible Employment Strategies (Or where do we put our focus,
resources and priorities) include:
1. 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.
2. 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.
3. Targeted Hiring - Selecting certain jobs as key jobs and putting a
disproportionate percentage of resources to fill these positions.
4. 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).
5. 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.
6. 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".
7. 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
8. 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
9. 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.
10. 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
11. 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.
12. 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.
13. 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.
14. 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.
15. Pygmalion Approach - Recruit and Hire Average Candidates and then train
and develop them because training and development can make stars out of
almost anyone.
16. 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 "whitewater thinkers"
17. 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.
18. Intrasourcing - Assumes that the rapid movement of talent (proactively
)within the corporation are at least as important as external sourcing.
19. 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.
20. Virtual Workforce - 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.
21. 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.
22. 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?
23. 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.
24. 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?
25. 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.
26. 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?
27. 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 MISCELLANEOUS CHOICES/ DECISIONS IN EMPLOYMENT
28. Involve everyone in the "finding" process through employee referrals or
rely on central HR to do the sourcing.
29. Electronic (scanning, screening and distribution of resumes) Vs paper
based employment systems (speed Vs costs)
30. Select candidates solely based on selection (test) performance or with
added factors considered (diversity)
31. Cost per hire or speed of hire is more or less important than the
quality of hire
32. Make hiring decisions is an individual Vs a team decision
33. Reject former employees that quit as disloyal Vs viewing them as
"strayed family" members returning to the flock.
34. Attract candidates with intangible factors (image, culture) Vs tangible
points (sign on and starting salary incentives)
35. Staff employment with headhunter types Vs the standard recruiter types.
36. Hire permanent recruiters Vs contract recruiters (or a mix)
37. Recruit for all jobs or farm out our exec level jobs to search firms
38. Recruiters find and "drop" candidates after their hire date or stay
involved with candidates after hire to increase retention
39. Make it easy to apply for a position to increase the size of the
applicant pool or create hurdles to applying to discourage excess or
unqualified applicants
40. Measure and reward HR staff for all important aspects of employment
(customer service, response time, quality of hire) or measure only filled /
open reqs
41. Have a centralized Recruiting/ Shared services function Vs using on
site recruiters
42. Place own ads or rely on an hr ad agency
43. Have remote recruiting. & selection capabilities or have face to face
hiring only
44. 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 any "bad apples"
due to the difficulty in firing employees.
45. Other _______
Dr John Sullivan 3/1998
Dr. John Sullivan
johns@sfsu.edu
Head and Professor of Human Resource Management
College Of Business
San Francisco State University