1. Strategic Vision
The feature and value of a product company, its core mission and task, is customer satisfaction, their engagement, and loyalty to the brand, naturally through the products produced by the company. Thus, the overarching goal of the company can be described in two parts:
- Product Quality;
- Quality of feedback and change management, in working with feedback from clients/users.
From this, it follows that the primary task of the recruiting department is the qualitative search, selection, and attraction of A players. The foundational supports for these tasks should be: regulated and documented policies and procedures; constant monitoring and implementation of innovations.
On the other hand, we must remember that an organization exists only when it is profitable. Therefore, it is important to seek the right balance, bearing in mind that an unreasonable pursuit of any extreme always has its downside:
- The downside of an excessively innovative approach. A 'laboratory-company' that does not generate income but instead continuously incurs losses.
- Bureaucracy. On one hand, a rigid organizational structure cannot be competitive in today’s dynamic market.
On the other hand, if we view bureaucracy through the lens of overly strict job descriptions, it deprives employees of the ability to think critically and creatively, leading to a degradation of their capabilities for autonomy as well as their ability to make extra efforts. In cases where the job description not only serves as a strict manager, literally controlling every step of the employee, but also restricts their functionality to monotonous and one-dimensional tasks that require the work of only one type of neural networks, the second type of these networks is systematically suppressed.
Excess bureaucracy in candidate selection processes results in A players accepting offers from other companies, leading us to lose time, profit, and competitive capability.
Yes, of course, we can say that we can find other A players, for example, those who are not actively looking. And we will certainly be able to acquire them. However, this is not always the case (see the A players section below).
- A players. Unfortunately, we have to consider the margin of error that we may not always be able to acquire a superstar for our team. The reasons may be completely beyond our control: the candidate may be extremely loyal to their current organization, they may not resonate with the specifics of our company, they could be catastrophically above budget, or they may have worked at their current organization for too short a time to consider new offers.
And we shouldn't forget to ask ourselves the obvious question: do we even need an A player? Will we be able to retain a Rock Star in a rapidly evolving and incredibly competitive market, given the current maturity stage of the company, its financial position, and the existing benefits package?
2. Goals
Goal #1 Increase the quality and relevance of applicants attracted
Goal #2 Ensure the right balance between quality/relevance and speed/quantity (both in attracting candidates and the efficiency of processes)
Goal #3 Optimize existing processes to make them more flexible
Every company should pursue all three goals without exception. The question is only which of them are more prioritized at each stage of the company's maturity, or how strongly each correlates with the specifics of the company's activities/product specifics. Unfortunately, there is no methodology that can surgically isolate an individual process from the diverse array and assess its impact on overall results when multiple processes are implemented simultaneously and in parallel to each other.
Therefore, if your recruitment department is in its infancy, please use logic – don't overwhelm it with a plethora of procedures and operations right away. A factory machine that requires only two pedals looks absurd with a hundred-page manual. Likewise, a department of two people working on a single vacancy per month doesn't need a hundred instructions. A large number of instructions are only necessary when it's time to establish order.
Here’s what’s truly important to focus on when creating a new department: it’s reporting and statistics. You can't accurately intuit the state of your organization. Instruments are required for that. Your department is a fully-fledged living organism. To measure its temperature, you need to utilize a system of metrics. In order to manage changes in the future, you will also need a system of metrics. (For guidance on selecting metrics, read my article: "How to Set Up a Recruitment Team Motivation System").
Preliminary Results:
- Use common sense and logic – don't saturate the department with unnecessary processes.
- Be able to measure what you produce.
- Start small. Implement everything step by step. This way, it’s much easier to assess the significance of each new element.
3. Change Management
Suppose we followed the logic described in the second point. This means we have:
a) several established basic processes in the department;
b) a system of metrics measuring the effectiveness of these basic processes as a whole, depending on priorities for main goals No. 1, No. 2, No. 3.
As our volumes grow, we find the need for more significant organization, and we gradually add new processes. The recommended frequency for gradual addition is no more than one new process per quarter. Three months is the minimum duration after which we can discuss a somewhat stable dependency while looking at the changes in metric states. Usually, even with rapid growth, companies do not require a more dynamic implementation of new processes. Otherwise, it leads to risks, as it becomes impossible to track the effectiveness of everything new. This inevitably leads to chaos.
Measurements
Often, managers assess changes very superficially. For example, considering that the main goal of the recruiting department is to attract an increasing number of candidates, they evaluate the value of each new process solely through this one metric. But this is a very narrow perspective. Let’s take a look at examples of our previously stated goals:
- Goal #1 – Quality and relevance of the recruited candidates cannot be assessed solely by a quantitative measure of closed vacancies. In this case, one of the metrics that should be prioritized is the Number of candidates who passed their probation period.
- Goal #2 – Here, we indeed need to focus on the metric of Total number of hired candidates, but at the same time, compare it with the quality metric from the previous point, looking for the kind of balance that your company needs.
- Goal #3 – This is a very complex point and an example of a goal where superficial measurement is extremely risky, as it may unrealistically reflect the essence of what is happening. In this case, it would be useful to evaluate metrics from the previous two points while analyzing the level of process optimization, but also, to complete the picture, measure, for instance, Hiring Managers 360 as an indicator of the flexibility/usability/clarity of existing processes.
4. Conclusions
The formula seems quite simple:
P1 + P2 = 1,
Where: P1 and P2 are the existing basic processes;
1 – our current measurable result.
Then, with the implementation of a new process, calculating its contribution will be effortless:
P1+P2+P3=1
P3 = any deviation from 1 that has manifested
In fact, the problem lies in two things: haste and chaos. In our rush to accomplish as much as possible and achieve the highest results, we tend to fail. This is because it is impossible to calculate the new without giving it time to manifest. This inability to calculate leads to chaos, which in turn results in a blind person searching for a way out of the forest. Once you embark on this path, you are unlikely to notice even the simplest things. There will probably be no talk of calculations at all.
Therefore, before you begin implementing something significant, invest time to analyze everything now, in advance. Otherwise, you will waste much more time in the future.
Source: habr.com
