Wednesday, September 26, 2012

Being Recruited vs. Being Sourced


Given a choice, if a person is open to a new assignment, would you agree that they would prefer to be recruited than sourced? Of course a lot depends on what is meant by recruiting and how that is different from sourcing. So, although I am no Wikipedia expert and regardless of how it is currently practiced, recruiting brings to mind an effort by the employer to interest and attract the prospect into joining the employer’s staff.

This description applies to the movie Jerry McGuire, where Tom Cruise played the lead role as a Player’s Agent. In this capacity, one of his responsibilities was to cajole an athlete to sign up with a particular team or a particular agent. Clearly he was recruiting and the athlete felt valuable and that his skills were desirable, at least in the eyes of Tom Cruise.

However, you may recognize that your company’s recruiting efforts are more like sourcing expeditions. Under this premise, the company works to identify who may be qualified for the assignment and then makes an offer that the firm thinks is fair and reasonable. No particular effort is made to show a high level of interest in the candidate and little is shared about how the candidate would benefit from the new job or how valuable the new assignment would be to the employee’s career. Instead, the candidate is burdened with demonstrating to the employer, how they would be of value.

So if it is not clear that the prospect is qualified for the position and the company needs to be convinced by the candidate that they are worthy of an offer, why are we going through the effort of an interview?  An interview that fails to excite the candidate and often leaves them sitting in a chair for hours waiting for someone to free their schedule so that a hurried conversation can be conducted.

Yes it is much better to feel recruited than sourced and I believe it is better for the firm as well.

From Michael Salisbury with the Human Resource Alliance (HRA) at www.hralliance.biz

Next up: Onboarding

Tuesday, September 25, 2012

Qualifications vs. Contributions

I am always intrigued by the effort we give to job descriptions and job requisitions and even descriptions of vacancies. Often the emphasis in creating these documents is on establishing qualifications for the assignment. Now I am not saying that we should not make a diligent effort at concisely and clearly defining qualifications. Heavens, we all know that we could improve in that area.

However, when we are determining what we want in a management and/or executive role we often don’t also give adequate attention to the contributions that we want the person to make. Furthermore we rarely indicate in any advertisement what those contributions should be except in broad generalizations such as, “Must work successfully with other to achieve company objectives”.

I suspect that when we are considering a promotion, a transfer, or a hire in senior positions, there may be some value in pulling out the company’s objectives to see what the line of sight is between this open resource and the organization’s goals. If we fail to do so, the fabric of alignment between the firm’s human capital and its stated focus, will unravel over time. On the other hand, if we actively seek the link between why are we filling this position with what we want to accomplish as an organization, I expect that the chances of finding a candidate who is both qualified and of value will be much greater.

During a future chat we will explore the value and implications of making candidates feel as if they are being recruited for the assignment as opposed to how candidates are treated during the traditional employment selection process.

From Michael Salisbury with the Human Resource Alliance (HRA) at www.hralliance.biz

Friday, September 21, 2012

Performance Reviews

Hello, the topic today is Performance Reviews.

For the most part, the traditional annual performance review is a waste of time and in many cases counter productive. Supervisors either spend hours crafting the right message only to find that their communication falls flat or they rush through the process and make a bad impression on the employee.

In any event, the process is usually time consuming, fails to achieve the desired results, and overall it is an ill concieved management staple. For example, some firms have convoluted the process by stating that the review is only a minor factor in the employee's merit increase. If the quality of the review is only a minor factor, than how can the raise be considred a merit increase?

As an alternative, I have a suggestion:
1. Discontinue the traditional annual reviews and distribute a standard across the board increase with the following exceptions:
a) If the employee deserves less than the across the board increase, create and deliver a review that supports that decision.
b) If the employee deserves more than an across the board increase, create and deliver a review that supports that decision

One other matter. If you plan on following this suggestion, make sure your work force knows what to expect in advance of introducing the new process.

From Michael Salisbury with the Human Resource Alliance (HRA) at www.hralliance.biz

Tuesday, September 18, 2012

Welcome

Hello this is our initial post and we welcome you to the HRA blogging page. In the next few weeks we will be posting information that will educate and inform you on how the HR function can contribute to the success of an organization.

For example, you will learn that there are actually two major HR areas. One is HR adminstration which consists of the traditional HR functions that we all have come to know and love. The other area is how HR can contribute directly to the business so that the organization benefits from a competitive advantage.

As we move forward, most of our communications will be in the form of video blogs. The videos will be designed to answer one or two questions on topics of interest. In some cases there will be a series of video blogs so that the subject is adequatley covered. The plan is to also to present the material in text so that you can capture and use any of the content that may be particularly worthwhile.

Additionally, we encourage members of our audiance to comment on our blogs and adding their views, opinons and suggestions as they see fit. We look forward to having you part of our community and we encourage you to visit the HRA web site at www.hralliance.biz