1. Strategic vision
A feature and value of a product company, its main mission and task, is customer satisfaction, their involvement, and brand loyalty. Naturally, through a product manufactured by the company. Thus, the global goal of the company can be described in two parts:
- Product quality;
- Feedback quality and change management, in working with feedback from customers / users.
From this it follows that the main task of the recruiting department is the quality search, selection and attraction of A players. The basic pillars of these tasks should be considered: regulated and described policies and procedures; continuous monitoring and innovation.
On the other hand, we must remember that an organization exists only when it is profitable. In this regard, it is important to find the right balance, not forgetting that the unreasonable pursuit of any extreme manifestation always has its opposite side:
- The flip side of an overly innovative approach. "Laboratory company", which does not produce income, but rather, brings permanent losses.
- Bureaucracy. On the one hand, the inert structure of the organization cannot be competitive in the current market dynamics.
On the other hand, if we consider the bureaucracy in too strict a description of the job descriptions, it deprives the employee of the ability to think critically, creatively, there is a degradation of his ability to autonomy, as well as his ability to perform beyond effort. In cases where the job description not only performs the role of a strict manager, controlling, literally, every step of the employee, but also limits its functionality to homogeneous and unidirectional tasks that require only one type of neural network, the second type of these networks is systematically inhibited.
Surplus in the bureaucracy of the selection process leads to the fact that A players accept an offer from another company, and we lose time, profit and competitive ability.
Yes, of course we can say that we can find other A players, for example, who are not in active search. And we certainly will be able to get them. Yes, only this is not always the case (see paragraph A players below).
- A players. Unfortunately, we must take into account the error that we will not always be able to get a superstar in our team. The reasons may absolutely not depend on us: the candidate may be super loyal to the current organization, he may not resonate with the specifics of our company, be disastrously above the budget, work in the current organization for too short a period of time to consider new proposals ...
And do not forget to ask yourself the obvious question: do we really need A player? Can we keep Rock Star in a dynamically developing and incredibly competitive market, with the current stage of maturity of the company, its financial situation, and the existing benefits package today?
2. Objectives
Goal №1 Increase the quality and relevance of the candidates involved
Goal №2 To ensure the right balance between quality / relevance and speed / quantity (both attracting candidates and the efficiency of processes)
Goal №3 Optimize existing processes, make them more flexible
Any company should pursue all three goals without exception. The only question is which of them are more priority at each stage of the maturity of companies, or how much each of them correlates with the specifics of the company / product specifics. Unfortunately, there is no technique with which you can surgically isolate a single process from a variety, and evaluate its effect on the overall result, in cases where many processes are implemented simultaneously and parallel to each other.
Therefore, if your recruiting department is at the embryo stage, please use logic - do not saturate it with a huge number of procedures and operations immediately. A factory machine that needs only two pedals to work, looks ridiculous with a hundred pages of operating instructions. So a two-person department working a month on one job does not need a hundred instructions. A large number of instructions are needed only where it is time to organize.
Here is what, indeed, it is important to pay attention to when creating a new department: these are reporting and statistics. You cannot accurately intuitively evaluate the state of your body. This requires appliances. So your department is a full-fledged living organism. In order to measure its temperature you need to use a system of metrics. In order to manage changes in the future, you will also need a metric system. (How to determine metrics correctly, read in my article: “How to set up a recruitment team motivation system”).
Preliminary Results :
- Be guided by common sense and logic - do not bother the department with unnecessary processes.
- Be able to measure what you produce.
- Start small. Implement everything in stages. Thus, it is much easier to appreciate the weight of each new element.
3. Change Management
Suppose we followed the logic described in the second paragraph. So we have:
a) several implemented core processes in the department;
b) a system of metrics measuring the effectiveness of these basic processes in the complex, depending on the priorities for the main goals No. 1, No. 2, No. 3.
When with the growth of volumes we need a more meaningful streamlining, we gradually add new processes. The recommended gradual addition rate is no more than one new process per quarter. 3 months, this is the minimum period after which you can talk about, at least for some time, constant dependence, looking at changes in the state of metrics. Usually, even at fast growth rates, companies do not need a more dynamic implementation of new processes. Otherwise, it will be associated with risks. Since it becomes impossible to track the effectiveness of everything new. And this inevitably leads to chaos.
Measurements
Often, managers very superficially evaluate changes. Considering, for example, that the main goal of the recruiting department is to attract an increasing number of candidates, they measure the value of each new process through the prism of this single indicator. But, after all, this is a very narrow viewing angle. Let's look at examples of our goals above:
- Goal No. 1 - the quality and relevance of the candidates involved can in no way be evaluated using the quantitative indicator of closed vacancies. In this case, one of the metrics that you need to pay attention to first of all will be the number of candidates who have passed the probationary period.
- Goal number 2 - here we really need to turn our attention to the metric of the total number of hired candidates, but at the same time, compare it with the quality metric from the previous paragraph, looking for the kind of balance that your company needs.
- Goal 3 is a very complex point and an example of that goal when the surface dimension is extremely dangerous, as it can unrealistically reflect the essence of what is happening. Because, in this case, it would not only be useful for us to evaluate the metrics from the previous two points, analyzing the level of process optimization, but for the sake of completeness, measure, for example, Hiring Managers 360, as an indicator of the plasticity / convenience / understandability of existing processes.
4. Conclusions
The formula would seem to be very simple:
P1 + P2 = 1,
Where: 1 and 2 - existing basic processes;
1 is our current measured result.
Then, with the introduction of the new process, it will not be difficult to calculate its contribution:
P1 + P2 + P3 = 1
P3 = any manifest deviation from 1
In fact, the problem lies in two things: in a hurry and in chaos. Trying to have time to do as much as possible and achieve the highest possible results, we ultimately fail. Because it is impossible to calculate a new one, not giving him time to prove himself. This impossibility in calculations leads to chaos, which in turn leads to a state of a blind man seeking a way out of the forest. Getting on this path, you are unlikely to be able to notice even basic things. Most likely, there will no longer be any calculations.
Therefore, before you start implementing something meaningful, invest time in analyzing everything now, in advance. Otherwise, you will miss a lot more time in the future.