Talent Intelligence During the Onboarding Process

It is widely accepted that, in small pockets around the world, the second iteration of the war for talent is well underway. Emerging companies in China, for example, are invading small rural villages in an effort to convert agrarian citizens into knowledge workers, and professional service firms are eagerly grasping at once undesired college new grads.

It would be logical to assume that growth-oriented firms would be devising new methods to uncover hidden sources of talent and fend off poachers from other organizations, but in reality few are. At a time when most organizations should be abandoning the conservative approach of continuous improvement and embracing innovation, too many are still focused on miniscule efficiency gains.

At no time since the final years of the Roman Empire has the world population mimicked its current state. With a huge population of aged workers and a significantly smaller influx of youthful workers, it is well known that something will have to change. Innovation will take place.

The world is full of people who look back and say, "If only I had thought of that," or, "If only I had leveraged that missed opportunity, where would I be today?" It is also full of people who routinely try to reinvent the wheel.

Unfortunately, the recruiting profession seems to be a magnet for these types of people. For years now, thought leaders have been advising organizations to embed formal competitive-intelligence-gathering activities into their onboarding processes, yet few actually have. When a recruiter learns of actions in a competitor, rarely do the managers who could leverage such information hear of it. What is even more disappointing is the lack of talent intelligence gathering that takes place during the onboarding process, and the shear volume of missed opportunities that go unnoticed.

The Problem With Most Onboarding Approaches

Like many programs in human resources, onboarding programs suffer from narrow perspective design. Quite frankly, they are designed by people who truly have no idea what value talent provides or how to maximize the value of that talent.

The most common evidence of this design flaw is the scope and direction of information flow during the onboarding process. In most organizations, information flows only one way, with the exception of benefits enrollment data. Few organizations look at the onboarding process as an opportunity for both parties to exchange in a dialogue where both parties learn something of value.

In short, we add another element to the list of missed opportunities in HR.

The New Perspective

The first week on the job can play a crucial role in motivating and retaining new employees, helping them contribute not only to their own success, but their new employer's as well. Organizations often spend lots of time and money recruiting and wooing new employees, but as soon as they start they turn around and treat them like barely welcome strangers.

In the new perspective, recruiting is viewed as only half of the task of hiring. Orientation is the other, often ignored element.

The new hire's first week on the job is too important to delegate to human resources or to devote to "reading the manual." Managers need to take control of the process of bringing a new employee on board and engage in what we call "talent intelligence gathering." Just like a parent adopting a new child, the role a manager plays during the first week is of critical importance if the value of the new hire is to be maximized.

Talent Intelligence Onboarding Areas

The following is a short list of areas for which managers interested in performance should take responsibility and for which they should make use of intelligence that is gained:

· Accelerating time to productivity. Coming into a new environment can be stressful for even the most adept change seekers. Any delay in providing new hires with the guidance, equipment, and training they need to get started on what they will be held accountable for can slow the time it takes for a new employee to reach a minimum expected level of productivity. Each day of delay can frustrate the employee and may also mean the loss of thousands of dollars in revenue if product development or sales are impacted. During the intelligence-gathering process, managers should engage with the new hire to uncover his or her desired management style, perceptions of company processes (good and bad), and insight about how other organizations may have approached the new hire's role differently.

· Continuous recruiting. Having recently changed teams, the new hire has an innate interest in helping their new team succeed — and that gives both managers and recruiters a perfect opportunity to discover leads for other potential hires. By asking new hires on their first day who else is good at their former firm, managers can easily increase their supply of talent. New hires can also be asked (when appropriate) to directly help in recruiting their former colleagues.

· Competitive intelligence. By asking new hires about the best practices of their last firm, their new managers can gather some new benchmark.

· Setting a manager's expectations. On the first day, it is important for the manager to make sure that the new employee knows the manager's expectations, the departmental goals, and what important contributions the employee can make to the product and the firm.

· Understanding the employee's expectations. It is equally important for the manager to find out what expectations the new employee has in the areas of training, promotion, and preferred management and communication styles.

Conclusion

Innovation is an activity without boundaries, so there truly are no limits as to what opportunities can be created and leveraged during the onboarding process. But organizations must abandon the useless activities that most onboarding programs consist of, and instead embrace programs that immediate create value for both parties.

Gone are the days when an organization could afford to wait six months or longer for a new hire to become productive, or when they could pay recruiters to spend months researching potential hires when the information could have been mined in a matter of hours from existing employees. Take advantage of the opportunities before you to map the competitive landscape, using the expatriates you have just recruited. A war is underway, and you need to adopt warrior-like approaches.

Ref: Dr. John Sullivan and Master Burnett.

HRM Effectiveness Audit

The HRM Effectiveness Audit: A Tool for Managing Accountability in HRM

Definition:

HR Audit means the systematic verification of job analysis and design, recruitment and selection, orientation and placement, training and development, performance appraisal and job evaluation, employee and executive remuneration, motivation and morale, participative management, communication, welfare and social security, safety and health, industrial relations, trade unionism, and disputes and their resolution. HR audit is very much useful to achieve the organizational goal and also is a vital tool which helps to assess the effectiveness of HR functions of an organization.

Scope of Audit:

Generally, no one can measure the attitude of human being and also their problems are not confined to the HR department alone. So it is very much broad in nature. It covers the following HR areas:

. Audit of all the HR function.
. Audit of managerial compliance of personnel policies, procedures and legal provisions.
. Audit of corporate strategy regarding HR planning, staffing, IRs, remuneration and other HR activities.
. Audit of the HR climate on employee motivation, morale and job satisfaction.

Benefits of HR Audit:

It provides the various benefits to the organization. These are:

. It helps to find out the proper contribution of the HR department towards the organization.
. Development of the professional image of the HR department of the organization.
. Reduce the HR cost.
. Motivation of the HR personnel.
. Find out the problems and solve them smoothly.
. Provides timely legal requirement.
. Sound Performance Appraisal Systems.
. Systematic job analysis.
. Smooth adoption of the changing mindset.

Approaches to HR Audit:

There are five approaches for the purpose of evaluation of HR in any organization:

. Comparative approach
. Outside authority
. Statistical
. Compliance approach and
. Management By Objectives(MBO)

Conclusion:

The auditors always prepare and submit an audit report to authority of the organization, which may be clean or qualified. The clean report indicates the appreciative of the department's function, but the latter one represents the gaps in performance and therefore contains remarks and remedial measures. HR Audit is very much helpful to face the challenges and to increase the potentiality of the HR personnel in the organization.

References:
William.B.Werther and Keith Davis, Human Resource Management and Personnel Management, 5th edition, McGraw-hill, 1996.
K. Aswathappa, Human Resource Management and Personnel Management, 4th edition, McGraw-hill, 2006.

HR as an Arbitrator

Human Resources is exactly it says: resources for humans – within the workplace! Its main objective is to meet the organizational needs of the company it represents and the needs of the people hired by that company. In short, it is the hub of the organization serving as a liaison between all concerned. Depending on the size of the company, the HR Department might be called Personnel with a manageable workforce that can be handled by a personnel manager and a small staff. For larger, more complex organizations with hundreds of departments and divisions, the task is much more demanding, taking on a life of its own. Some companies have more than one HR Department - Corporate and Union. For example, a food service industry might have a Corporate HR Department that oversees “white collared” employees and an HR Department that oversees the “blue collar” workforce with an emphasis on labor relations. The organization will, thus, institute these two HR Departments to manage the unique needs of both union and non-union employees.

Organizational Development:

To ensure its success, a company must establish a hierarchal reporting system. The funnel of responsibility is critical to the efficiency of a smoothly operating business entity in which there is a clearly defined understanding of who is responsible for what. They provide consultation to a company's management team to identify what the company's core business and culture is about, and proceeds to plan and map the company's organizational infrastructure to support those needs.

Employee Recruitment and Selection Process:

There are many steps to recruiting and selecting qualified employees. First, a department head must inform the HR manager of an opening in their department. Then the HR manager must obtain the job description to formulate a Job Description Sheet for publication either internally, publicly, or both. Then HR must field the (many) responses to that job announcement to weed out the qualified from the unqualified applicants. Once that is completed, the interview process must be coordinated. They prepare the job description, contact the newspaper, run the ad, field the calls, compile a list of potential candidates, submit that list to the department's hiring manager for approval and selection, contact the chosen candidates to set up preliminary interviews, and interview the candidates! Although most interviews are with the hiring manager or their associates, not all applicants get to meet with the department's hiring manager right away. It is not uncommon for a company to filter out those who fail to impress the HR manager first. For those select few who make it through, the HR manager schedules interviews between the department's hiring manager and potential candidates, and follows up with the hiring process to establish the new hire with the company. Employee Training & Development: As a company and the requirements of a position evolve, a company needs to take certain measures to ensure a highly skilled workforce is in place. The Human Resources Department oversees the skills development of company's workforce, acting as an in-house training center to coordinate training programs either on-site, off-site, or in the field. This might include on-going company training, outside training seminars, or even college, in which case an employee will receive tuition reimbursement upon earning a passing grade.

Employee Compensation Benefits:

This covers salaries, bonuses, vacation pay, sick leave pay, Workers' Compensation, and insurance policies such as medical, dental, life, and 401k. The Human Resources Department is responsible for developing and administering a benefits compensation system that serves as an incentive to ensure the recruitment and retention of top talent that will stay on with the company. When an employee is hired, the company's Benefits Coordinator is required to meet with employees one-on-one or in small group settings to explain their benefits package. This often requires an employee to make an informed decision and to provide their signature for processing purposes.

Employee Relations:

With the increased rise in unethical practices and misbehaviors taking place in today's workplace such as age, gender, race, and religion discrimination and sexual harassment, there needs to be mandatory compliance with governing rules and regulations to ensure fair treatment of employees. In short, employees need to know they have a place to turn when a supervisor abuses his or her authority in anyway. Whether corporate or union, the HR Department will get involved to act as arbitrator and liaison between legal entities, regulatory agencies such as Human Rights, supervisors (who might be falsely accused), and employees to properly address and resolve the issue at hand.

Policy Formulation:

Regardless of the organization's size, company policies and procedures must be established to ensure order in the workplace. These policies and procedures are put in place to provide each employee with an understanding of what is expected of them. Similarly, these policies and procedural guidelines will assist hiring managers in evaluating their employee's performance. These policies can be established company-wide or used to define each department's function. It is Human Resource's responsibility to collaborate with department managers on the formulation of these policies and regulations to ensure a cohesive organization. A common practice is the development and implementation of an Employee Procedure Manual or Employee Handbook that is either distributed to each employee at the time of hire or a master copy allocated one to a department.

The Human Resources Information Systems keeps track of the vast amount of data, a human resources department must have a good HRIS in place to automate many functions such as planning and tracking costs, monitoring and evaluating productivity levels, and the storing and processing of employee records such as payroll, benefits, and personnel files. It is very important that you, the job seeker, understand how the HR function works – specifically in the area of candidate recruitment. If you are considering a career in human resources, you can choose to become a Generalist or a Specialist. Whether a job seeker or an HR professional, research a company well before applying for a position.

Strategic Human Resource Management

In today’s intensely competitive and global marketplace, maintaining a competitive advantage by becoming a low cost leader or a differentiator puts a heavy premium on having a highly committed or competent workforce. Competitive advantage lies not just in differentiating a product or service or in becoming the low cost leader but in also being able to tap the company’s special skills or core competencies and rapidly respond to customer’s needs and competitor’s moves. In other words competitive advantage lies in management’s ability to consolidate corporate-wide technologies and production skills into competencies that empower individual businesses to adapt quickly to changing opportunities.

In a growing number of organizations human resources are now viewed as a source of competitive advantage. There is greater recognition that distinctive competencies are obtained through highly developed employee skills, distinctive organizational cultures, management processes and systems. This is in contrast to the traditional emphasis on transferable resources such as equipment. Increasingly it is being recognized that competitive advantage can be obtained with a high quality workforce that enables organizations to compete on the basis of market responsiveness, product and service quality, differentiated products and technological innovation.

Strategic human resource management has been defined as ‘ the linking of human resources with strategic goals and objectives in order to improve business performance and develop organizational culture that foster innovation and flexibility ‘. Strategic HR means accepting the HR function as a strategic partner in the formulation of the company’s strategies as well as in the implementation of those strategies through HR activities such as recruiting, selecting, training and rewarding personnel. Whereas strategic HR recognizes HR’s partnership role in the strategizing process, the term HR Strategies refers to specific HR courses of action the company plans to pursue to achieve it’s aims.

HR management can play a role in environmental scanning i.e. identifying and analyzing external opportunities and threats that may be crucial to the company’s success. Similarly HR management is in a unique position to supply competitive intelligence that may be useful in the strategic planning process. HR also participates in the strategy formulation process by supplying information regarding the company’s internal strengths and weaknesses. The strengths and weaknesses of a company’s human resources can have a determining effect on the viability of the firm’s strategic options.

By design the perspective demands that HR managers become strategic partners in business operations playing prospective roles rather than being passive administrators reacting to the requirements of other business functions. Strategic HR managers need a change in their mindset from seeing themselves as relationship managers to resource managers knowing how to utilize the full potential of their human resources.

The new breed of HR managers need to understand and know how to measure the monetary impact of their actions, so as to be able to demonstrate the value added contributions of their functions. HR professionals become strategic partners when they participate in the process of defining business strategy, when they ask questions that move strategy to action and when they design HR practices that align with the business strategy. By fulfilling this role, HR professionals increase the capacity of a business to execute its strategies.

The primary actions of the strategic human resource manager translate business strategies into HR priorities. In any business setting, whether corporate, functional, business unit or product line a strategy exists either explicitly in the formal process or document or implicitly through a shared agenda on priorities. As strategic partners, HR professionals should be to identify the HR practices that make the strategy happen. The process of identifying these HR priorities is called organizational diagnosis, a process through which an organization is audited to determine its strengths and weaknesses.

Translating business strategies into HR practices helps a business in three ways. First, the business can adapt to change because the time from the conception to the execution of a strategy is shortened. Second, the business can better meet customer demands because its customer service strategies have been translated into specific policies and practices. Third, the business can achieve financial performance through its more effective execution of strategy.

In brief, a strategic perspective of HRM that requires simultaneous consideration of both external (business strategy) and internal (consistency) requirement leads to superior performance of the firm. This performance advantage is achieved by:

. Marshalling resources that support the business strategy and implementing the chosen strategy, efficiently and effectively.

. Utilizing the full potential of the human resources to the firm’s advantage.

. Leveraging other resources such as physical assets and capital to complement and augment the human resources based advantage.

Recent Trends in Recruitment

The following trends are being seen in recruitment:

· OUTSOURCING

In India, the HR processes are being outsourced from more than a decade now. A company may draw required personnel from outsourcing firms. The outsourcing firms help the organisation by the initial screening of the candidates according to the needs of the organisation and creating a suitable pool of talent for the final selection by the organisation. Outsourcing firms develop their human resource pool by employing people for them and make available personnel to various companies as per their needs. In turn, the outsourcing firms or the intermediaries charge the organisations for their services.

Advantages of outsourcing are:

1. Company need not plan for human resources much in advance.
2. Value creation, operational flexibility and competitive advantage
3. turning the management's focus to strategic level processes of HRM
4. Company is free from salary negotiations, weeding the unsuitable resumes/candidates.
5. Company can save a lot of its resources and time

POACHING/RAIDING

“Buying talent” (rather than developing it) is the latest mantra being followed by the organisations today. Poaching means employing a competent and experienced person already working with another reputed company in the same or different industry; the organisation might be a competitor in the industry. A company can attract talent from another firm by offering attractive pay packages and other terms and conditions, better than the current employer of the candidate. But it is seen as an unethical practice and not openly talked about. Indian software and the retail sector are the sectors facing the most severe brunt of poaching today. It has become a challenge for human resource managers to face and tackle poaching, as it weakens the competitive strength of the firm.

E-RECRUITMENT

Many big organizations use Internet as a source of recruitment. E- recruitment is the use of technology to assist the recruitment process. They advertise job vacancies through worldwide web. The job seekers send their applications or curriculum vitae i.e. CV through e mail using the Internet. Alternatively job seekers place their CV’s in worldwide web, which can be drawn by prospective employees depending upon their requirements.

Advantages of recruitment are:

Low cost.
No intermediaries
Reduction in time for recruitment.
Recruitment of right type of people.
Efficiency of recruitment process.

Key Steps to an effective recruitment process

.
Is there a need to recruit?

. The need for any recruitment activities should be evaluations in the context to the business overall resource requirements;

. This should include both short, mid and long term plans and requirements for your business and consider both likely resource level requirements (numbers of staff) and business skill requirements (capability of staff) in order to best decide first if recruitment is required at all, and if so what skills and experience you need to bring into the business.

Carefully defining the vacancy pays dividends
. Start with a description of the job - its responsibilities and deliverables;
. the necessary skills, experience and competencies required by the job holder to fulfill the required responsibilities;
. Plus the ideal qualities to be a successful contribution to the business.

Creating a talent pool by attracting the right candidates

. Think carefully about your internal sources of candidates: seek candidates from inside the business via internal job boards, succession plans etc; identify staff for whom it would be a sensible career development move;

. Think about the different sources of external sources of candidates: Advertise the vacancy (online or print); your internet career page; search generalist and specialist job boards; speak to the local job centre; encourage existing employees to make contacts for you; make contact with universities and colleges; use a recruitment agency or head hunter;

Focus on collecting all relevant information on candidates

Collect the information necessary to make a selection decision

. Applications form;
. CVs;
. Interview data (including behavioral interviews);
. psychometrics;
. references.

Create a short list and then arrange interviews and other selection processes

. Review applications and short list;
. your shortlist down to a small number for interview;
. Consider telephone interviews as an effective way to screen applicants;

Making the decision to appoint

. Consider relative importance of the different requirements before trying to evaluate the candidates so that you do not get caught up in the moment;
. When judging the importance of a shortfall in the candidate think about what can be learned as opposed to what comes more naturally or key competencies;
. Consider both the risks and the benefits of appointing a particular candidate;
. Make simple notes of your decisions in terms of why you selected and why you did not select � these will not only help you remember but can be useful for giving feedback;
. Agree terms and conditions of employment;
. Make the offer.

Giving feedback

This needs to be considered for three groups:

. successful candidates;
. unsuccessful internal candidates;
. unsuccessful external candidates.

Producing an induction plan

This is a critical step and should include both induction and early development needs. It can make the difference between a successful hire and an unsuccessful one.

. the new recruit quickly getting up to speed and making a valued contribution;
. reducing the disruption to the work of the other members of the team;
. ensuring a safe working environment;
. demonstration to the new recruit that they are valued;
. increasing your ability to keep the employee.

And finally, you need to review the recruitment process

. A review of the process itself should be undertaken - this will lead to process improvement and greater efficiency;
. A review of the hiring decision should also be undertaken - this will lead to greater recruitment effectiveness;
. The recruiters corner on HireScores.com gives some great feedback to employers on what to do and what not to do when recruiting..

Employee Referral Schemes

Employee referral scheme pertaining to recruitment depends upon the nature of industry. Some of the industries which are more man power intensive always fall short of man power. Under these circumstances HR department always remain under pressure for recruitment and retainment of employees. Employees referral scheme plays a big role in this context. It has both positive and negative impacts on the organisation. Negative impacts can never be eliminated but yes these can be minimised for further consolidation of scheme. Some points need to be taken care of, while preparing the employee refrral program:-

1. Policy should be meant for a particular category of employees. This will help in maintaining the professionalism in the company.

2. Employees must be made aware of the parameters expected by the company from new recruit.

3. Monetary benefits can be shared with the employee whose recommendations helped organisation to finalise management in selecting the candidate.

4. These monetary benefits can be shared in number of stages e.g 15% of cost of hiring may be paid to concerned employee on joining of new employee. Another 25 % after completion of one month of service by new joined and balance after the completion of three months of service or after confirmation of employee in to services of company.

5. The reasons behind the above is that the recommending employee will help the new joined in apprising the culture of organisation thus reducing the settle down time.

6. Back ground of the new selection can be verified from the present employee.

7. The recommended employee should have minimum two years of service in the organisation.

8. Employees who have been issued warning letter or chargesheeted in the past should be barred from entering the scheme.

9. Not more than two recommendations should be accepted through one employee during a year. This number may depend upon requirement and present strength of organisation.

10. Negative impacts like unionism may enter into the organisation. Unity among the known are more as compared to independent. Psychometric impacts on known cases are more effective and may result in frustration and demoralisation.

Importance of Human Resource Metrics

The processes of recruitment and selection are not as easy as they may seem. Any person who works for the human resource department of any company can certainly attest to this. This is because there is no definitive means of distinguishing which of the applicants for a particular position would be efficient on the job from the ones who would not be as efficient. If there were some sort of definitive system of discerning such, maybe companies all over the world would not experience such high turnover rates! This is why human resource departments of companies worldwide recognize the need to come up with human resource metrics, or HR metrics.

The term HR metrics, when you put it as simply as possible, refer to guidelines. These guidelines are measurable and are used by companies to come up with cost-effective strategies that are primarily aimed at the ensuring high-end performance of the workforce. The operative concept in HR metrics is employee assessment. Unless you have years and years of recruitment and selection under your belt, it is actually quite hard to assess the efficiency of an applicant right off the bat. Without the proper training entailed in being a recruitment specialist, it is close to impossible to assess applicants accurately. There are even times when even the most experienced HR specialist would have problems going about with accurate assessment for this!

This is precisely why HR metrics are very much needed by any personnel working for the HR department of a company. With the proper HR metrics system, the HR department of the company can determine which of the applicants would be worth investing on.

Gathering and creating a system of human resource metrics for any company is something that can be done easily; that is, as long as you have the proper guidelines to back you up. The most important thing here is to gather information about the employees. However, not all pieces of information would be used in developing human resource metrics at all. Weeding out the reliable pieces of information from those which are not is the ideal here. But then, at what figure should the gathering of human resource metrics be pegged? The recommended figure by the lot of recruitment specialists and experts here is actually pegged at ten. With this figure, you will actually come up with an effective system of assessing your company's workforce.

Another important thing to remember in the process of developing human resource metrics is that all aspects of the business should be considered. To name a few of these business aspects, these would be recruiting and retention, employee engagement, manager satisfaction, and the productivity of the workforce. There are other aspects and factors to consider, of course. But the underlying concept in ensuring the efficiency of the human resource metrics a company would use is actually very simple: the company should be very goal-oriented. When a company knows what it wants to achieve, then distinguishing the aspects to be retained from the ones to let go would be certainly easier.