Regards,

You see my client takes a very long time in the selection process - interviewing, offer and acceptance and background checks. I often jokingly say that candidates can get through a background check and security clearance for NASA faster than getting hired with my client.

The h.r manager w/o a beat explained something to me that truly knocked my socks off..

We often talk about speed to hire candidates, and all this metrics stuff right? Well here is something to think about —–

this manager made a comment along the lines of - It can get more expensive to fire a poorly selected candidate than to keep the position open for a while whilst making a Strong Selection.. the best selection.

When I think about frivilous lawsuits, cost of turnover, training new employees and all the other costs that come from employment shortage and turnover (lack of better word) I guess what was stated really put’s another perspective on the metrics of Recruiting, employment and H.R

I am always astonished as to
how unfair the process is in evaluating new recruitment staffing companies. In other functions in a corporation companies take their time to evaluate potential suppliers in a more democratic process compared to most HR departments. Money is not the
only deciding factor. This may to some degree explain why the wrong suppliers are chosen and why staffing costs are high. There is very little effort made to seek better service provider(recruiters) who can do the job faster, better and more efficiently. Some people out there will disagree with me on this one. I know of a fairly large staffing agency that was hired for a major Pharmaceutical Company in the States. The Pharmaceutical company greatly benefited by this excessively low staffing fee arrangement provided by this national staffing company who was losing money servicing this company. Guess what? The staffing company eventually laid off its staff and called the deal off. Is this a win?win? Certainly not when you Supplier is losing money. By the way the Pharmaceutical company has a huge turnover rate.

There are several current issues happening right now that are disturbing and can present potential legal issues. There are companies out there hiring unqualified, inexperienced HR professionals as their internal HR. Staff. There are HR staff giving preferential treatment to friends, colleagues and relatives in terms of suppliers rather than talking and attracting Qualified Recruitment Suppliers. A major company fired their Director of HR sometime back because she had a recruitment company
on the side and had profited from the companies database.

There are other issues regarding hiring managers who do not feel that the HR departments are responsive to their needs and there they have to find their own staff. Some of the HR professionals act like government bureaucrates. They are overly preoccupied with compliance of policies and procedures but express little concern in addressing the needs of the frustated manager or director who is stuck doing the jobs of 2 to 3 people and waits 6 months to a year until the job is filled relying on passive job boards. This frustration leads to anger and resentment and eventually people suffer from stress or worse leave. I asked this question to an HR professional and was astounded at the response. She basically said that the company should wait until the best person responds to the job. BOY YOU CAN WAIT A LONG TIME. I worked for a company like this that waited forever for the perfect candidate to show up. The women winded up having a nervous breakdown. TRUE STORY.

Management is very much to blame because although companies state that talent is very important to the company this statement is simply FALSE. What do they care? Afterall they get paid 250 times the rate of the average employee salary? This is a very serious problem as well.

I personally feel that the HR profession is held in very low regard much like sales professionals. Every corporate executive thinks they can replace their sales people, their HR staff with a job board or an E-commerce site. The real issue is that your customers do not want to talk to idiots and neither do potential employees.

The reality is that these critical professions need Individuals with people skills, problem solving skills to get the job done rather than wait for things to happen. They fail to puts these words into action. When a company Kodak refuses to talk to suppliers such as Recruiters you are not only missing out on hiring great people but you also miss out on current trends and events happening in an industry. As you are well aware of Kodak has over the past years had financial problems due to failure to talk to outside suppliers. This is happening in the Pharmaceutical industry.

If a company may not want to even consider a top performer on a contingent basis there is definitely a big RED FLAG. INDIFFERENCE, INCOMPETENCE AND HYPOCRACY. I have spoken to several HR professionals who do say they are not using agencies at this time and in fact Retained Search Firms. I am referring to a food company with a high turnover rate. My question is why?. Does this sound like a company concerned about hiring costs or turnover issues? The answer is DEFINITELY NO.

There if many suppliers who can do the job better, faster and cheaper. The status quo is always easier to deal with then making improvements to existing policies, procedures and existing suppliers relationships.

HR professionals - a majority of them are not proactive and based on the trend that I have discussed a lot of them have very little business experience. You cannot expect this type of person to be effective or proactive who has very little experience. There are certainly exceptions such as IBM and other companies that realize that cannot wait to hire someone 6 months to a year. To my amazement they have hired people outside the technology industry from other industries.

I have to admit that because of this low regard of the HR function there will always be a need for outside recruiters. There is a perception of being undervalued and not critical to the corporation. I am not here to generalize these points but to simply state my personal experiences that in some cases have influenced me to consider the Recruitment Profession as a valuable and needed Profession. The HR industry must take a more proactive view in the profession rather than act like government bureaucrates in order to stay relevant to the dysfunctional corporation

I say ‘Yes, Yes, Yes ? separate your Recruiting functions from your HR department.’

When I first started work with my present employer, a small defense contractor, the reason the Corporate Recruiting Office was separate from the HR Department was the vast physical seperation of geographic locations. The previous recruiter didn?t seem to have much HR experience as recruiting experience and the connection to the HR department was not as synergetic as could have been. Since I joined the company with my 14+ years of Human Resources background and experience, I?ve strengthened the synergy between HR and Recruiting because I understand the HR industry, laws, regulations, and requirements in the hiring process.

Yes, managers are ‘?as frustrated with HR as the rest of their company ? the policies, the restrictions, and the myopic thinking?’ because they don?t understand what liabilities a company can incur (thousands of dollars out of the profit margin for fines and legal fees) if the company can?t prove they?ve ?toed the line? in regulatory requirements for recruiting, as well as day-to-day operations. If there is an ADA, EEOC, or OFCCP violation, one ?illegal? activity could result in a fine for the offense that can wipe out the profits for a company for one or more years (especially smaller businesses).

The HR department should provide managers simple explanations of WHY certain steps must be taken, policies must be adhered to, and certain documentation and paperwork (as time consuming as it is) must be accomplished, which should reduce manager’s frustration.

An experienced recruiter with five to ten years of HR management can incorporate their legal HR knowledge in teaming with hiring managers without the managers feeling the are butting heads with the HR office. This could drastically reduce the tension between the HR department and management staff in hiring issues.

As a Recruiting Manager, I have a budget separate from HR, submit weekly metrics, and present monthly statistics to executive management. This has forced me to ‘?think and act like a profit center, not a cost center?’ so I look for the most cost effective methods of recruiting qualified candidates, even if it means daily hours of internet research, struggling through thousands of resumes yearly (by myself), and spending long hours after general business hours posting the jobs on obscure job sites just in case there is one person with a unique skill set who may see it and decide to follow-up.

I also perform head-hunting for external clients with the blessing and a gentle push from my executive managers, which allows me to earn ?credit? against my cost center expenses to improve my ?profits? within my own department. The ROI will prove itself at the end of the first full calendar year I?ve been with the company with my penny-pinching methods that still provide quality candidates to my hiring managers (and external clientele).

Dawn Boyer, Corporate Recruiting Manager
Recruiter@zeltech.com

Should Recruiting become a funtion of marketing?. I suspect not, even through many of the skill sets, learning requirements and possibly supporting technologies may reside there.

To me Recruiting is a stand alone unit, which networks/works along side HR,Marketing and Corporate Communications and ultimatly has as an end client who is the hiring manager.

Recruiters plan,attract,manage and store whilst HR run the hiring piece.

Sound simplistic but I know organisations who are moving towards this model.

It is easy for any HR department to determine to which category it belongs by answering a few questions:

1) Does it follow the 1978 Uniform Guidelines?
2) Does it use structured interview techniques that are based on a professional job analysis?
3) Does it use a multi-trait, multi-method selection and promotion system?
4) Does it validate the use of any and all tests for its own positions?
5) Does it avoid using training tests in hiring?
6) Does it only use tests that adhere to the 1999 Standards for Educational and Psychological Testing?
7) Does it monitor each hiring step for adverse impact and act to minimize it?
8) Has it divided job titles into job families, determined family-appropriate competencies, and use that information to hire, train, and appraise?
9) Has it calculated the cost of low productivity and turnover on a person-by-person basis and acted to minimize it?
10) Has it linked hiring, training and appraisal activities directly to the organizaitional mission?

Any score less than 100% wastes training dollars, hires the wrong people, rejects the right ones, promotes incompetents, increases turnover, encourages litigation, and leads to too many people doing too little work.

Before you say, ‘Piffle!’, experts estimate these errors cost 20% to 50% of base payroll annually.

As I said, HR’s value to an organization is pretty simple; make big money, save big money, or cost big money.

Choose wisely, Grasshopper.

I completely agree that it does all come down to talent (HR, recruiting and otherwise) and the executive team’s willingness to recognize the real value of maximizing the organization’s talent as a whole.

I’m not saying that forming a different department is the answer to all that ails. But I do believe that recruiting often does not get the chance to help leadership understand how human capital provides a competitive advantage because they are seen as the mute half-brother of a department that is often not able to effectively make this case.

In these cases, secession from HR/the formation of a separate department would be a very appealing option.

At the end of the day, if your leadership does not understand how human capital provides competitive advantage, if they do not get talent or do not understand the impact a strong human resources team can bring, it is irrelevant if recruiting branches off or reports up through HR.

What does matter is whether or not you have the right Human Resources or Recruiting Talent. The best understand the business, provide strategic, innovative solutions to complex business issues and have the ability to implement both in the short and long term.

I find it disturbing that the answer to poor HR is to form another department rather than challening the leadership to respond if the HR department is not performing.

Either model can work, neither will work with the poor recruiting or HR talent.