Job Requisitions are passé

In almost every company, I have encountered the ubiquitous Job Requisition. In most cases this requisition is a form that the hiring manager or someone in human resources completes to obtain permission to begin the recruiting process. This document often reflects salary information that is supposedly confidential but becomes public when the requisition is mishandled and ends up in the hands of the wrong employee. Additionally, once the recruitment process is activated, it often becomes apparent that the approved salary is not high enough so another approval process is put in motion to raise the wages that the employer is willing to pay for that position.

I won’t belabor you on how ineffective and inefficient the job requisition is since if you use one, you already know. However, I am prepared to suggest a series of alternatives that will not only free the organization from this burdensome process but will significantly improve the hiring process.

First of all, when most firms conduct their annual budgeting ritual, the firm’s headcount, both current and future employees are accounted for. This includes both positions and salaries. Therefore, it should be easy to extrapolate the expected vacancies from the budget document. Additionally, using past trends as a guideline the HR function should be able to predict the level of turnover for the most common positions within the company. This combination of information should give good guidance on what positions will need to be filled in the upcoming year. Using only this data as a forecast, the hiring managers should immediately begin recruiting to fill these positions with no need to activate a requisition. Additionally, if the company is really interested in acquiring talent to fill their vacancies, then it should not matter if that talent is discovered and hired in January at the begining of the year, or in December at the end of the year, as long as the headcount does not exceed the budget projected for that year.

If a position becomes available that was not considered in the budget or in the turnover calculations, the hiring manager should still feel free to initiate a search. However, at the same time the hiring manger should inform the manager of their plans. Once informed, if the manager does not veto filling the vacancy, the hiring manager continues to pursue qualified candidates rather than the old way of doing nothing, until the requisition was approved.

The advantages of this approach include:

1.      Sourcing can begin early in the year and as a result the recruiting activities can better managed without the pressure to fill an empty seat

2.      With more recruiting time invested in the process the greater are the chances that the more qualified candidates become available

3.      The process supports delegation and conveys trust in the hiring manager and the support supplied by the HR department

4.      The senior manager maintains their veto power and can suspend or cancel the recruiting assessment anytime they wish, especially if the process requires their approval before an offer is extended.

5.      Over time, the headcount forecast and the budgeting process becomes more and more accurate and beneficial to the organization  

6.      This process opens the door to the possibility of a rolling 12 month employment forecast that enables management to develop a workforceplan which can add productivity and efficiency to the firm

7.      Most importantly this suggested approach eliminates a bureaucratic requirement that was designed to enforce unreasonable controls upon the staffing process and managers are relieved from the burden of an undesirable and outdated business practice.

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