 | | | | | Click HERE to view our current openings. | | | | | Contact one of our creative staffing experts. |
Best Practices in Managing Contingent Workers
American Staffing Association
|
|
|
Developing a Hiring Strategy, Part 1
The Assessment—What You Need and How to Get It | back to tip sheets
The decision to hire a new employee is one of the biggest investments a company can make. And yet it is usually the one that is given the least amount of time and attention. A bad hiring decision can cost companies thousands of dollars, along with time, momentum . . . even morale. You can choose to simply refill the open slot and run the risk of repeating past mistakes, or you can use the hiring process as an opportunity to “take inventory”—to give your department a much-needed “checkup” that will improve the overall health and direction of your organization.
Hiring failure-;six major causes:
- Poor understanding of job function and responsibilities;
- Poor definition of job related objectives;
- Poor communication with candidates regarding expectations;
- Poor culture, personality match;
- Inadequate initial screening, including poor reference checking; and
- Overselling of company, career, and income potential.
But this doesn’t have to be your story. With the right game plan in place, you can make the hiring process a strategic boost for your company.
An Assessment “Game Plan”
To determine what you are looking for in a candidate, what your staffing objective is, how you will recruit, and what kind of budget you have to work with, you need to create an orderly, common-sense approach to evaluating what you need and how to get it. As any athlete will tell you, a winning performance is measured by the effort exerted before the event. The extra sweat you put into addressing these issues now will greatly impact future hiring success.
1. Define the Position.
Defining the job is essential to recruiting and screening talent. The goals and objectives outlined in the Position Description will allow you to evaluate talent effectively and to communicate clearly and precisely what the candidate’s job expectations will be. Being clear and forthright with candidates regarding their responsibilities, and how their success will be measured, is an integral part of any hiring strategy. (For a more detailed discussion, see The Position Description.)
2. Know Your Company and Department.
Be sure you have a clear idea of what the company and department are about, their primary business objectives, the work culture, the performance expectations, etc., so you can effectively evaluate talent for placement within these boundaries. What is the company's mission statement? How do employees interact? What are the relationships among departments, employees, and clients? You might also consider the current weaknesses and strengths of the department. Did the opening evolve out of department growth, or was it part of a pattern of turnovers that indicates a more serious internal problem? The answers to these questions will impact your overall hiring strategy.
3. Define Your Timeframe.
What is the absolute latest date the new hire should be on board? What is the ideal start date? You will need to allot time for recruiting, evaluating, and hiring. The length of this process will affect your recruiting options and how much manpower and money you will need to accomplish your goals. You should also recognize that a new hire is not going to be at peak performance the first day of the job. You’ll need to account for acclimation and training time. The new hire also may need to give several weeks notice to his or her previous employer. All of these time factors must be considered during the planning process.
4. Develop a Plan to Use Your Budget.
In most cases, a hiring manager is provided with a budget especially allocated to hiring new talent. Considering the opportunity cost of the unfilled position may help give you perspective on the depth of resources to allocate to a particular search. Within these budget parameters, it is important to determine what the outreach strategy is going to be, the related costs and the anticipated Return On Investment (ROI).
Determine where and how you will get the most out of every budget dollar spent. Are your expectations realistic? List all of your options, such as the HR department, outside recruiters, affiliations, peers, etc., and develop a marketing plan that considers ways to communicate effectively to all of these resources.
Other recruitment opportunities to consider:
- industry related events (networking events, conferences, targeted job fairs)
- print and web advertising
- corporate web site
- human resources department
- open house
- educational institutions
- head hunters or search firms
- temporary staffing (especially temp-to-hire options)
- referrals
- recruit from competitors
Once you have researched the cost and the potential ROI of these resources, you can determine the path you will pursue. The extraordinary cost of recruiting is an important reminder not to make “knee-jerk” or emotional hiring decisions.
5. Assess Your Hiring Options.
When reviewing the position requirements, it is always a good idea to look internally first. More than one company has been known to spend thousands of dollars on recruitment, only to be told by an expensive head hunter agency that what they were looking for had been right under their noses all along. A current staff member who can be promoted to the new opening can provide much value to an organization: knowledge assets; current and past performance; work momentum and consistency; loyalty; and more. It might also be possible to re-arrange tasks that are performed by your existing staff, allowing you to bring in a weaker or stronger person based on the reorganization strategy. Depending on your budget and what the long-range goals and objectives of the company and/or department are, it also may be more cost-efficient to hire contract or temporary help.
6. Determine Additional Resources.
Hiring talent is not a one-person operation. It requires deployment of resources across the organization that can be quite costly. You may need to tap into human capital in other ways. For instance, you may need
- Internal staff: to create the position description, research recruitment options, write and design advertising, screen and interview prospects, etc.
- Training materials: you don’t want to wait until an employee is on board to determine if you need these. Are there training materials already developed? Who will train and monitor the new person?
- HR management: Take the time to educate your Human Resources department on the expectations of the position, and give them concrete hiring guidelines, as they will be the ones managing the hiring process.
Although it takes a lot of preparation before the actual hiring process begins, it is well worth it. The hiring process—from the time a position opens to the time it is filled—will be expensive. The cost of a bad hire (lost productivity, advertising, wages, etc.) can be considerably more.
back to tip sheets
|
|
