Attraction and Recruitment

Short People Management Articles

Attraction and Recruitment 

We have already established that all organisations desiring of success and longevity should have a People Plan. This plan could be derived from your business plan; be your business plan or determines your business plan depending on your approach and school of thought on people management.  

The three approaches to people planning

    

Business plan      People Plan	Business Plan         People Plans	People Plan     Business Plan
Business plan is superior to people plan and the people plan is for delivering the outcomes of the business plan	Business plan is the same as people plan and usually are in the same document	People plan determines the business plans. This approach is particularly useful where people are the organisation’s source of competitive advantage.

Business plan is superior to people plan and the people plan is for delivering the outcomes of the business plan Business plan is the same as people plan and usually are in the same document People plan determines the business plans. This approach is particularly useful where people are the organisation’s source of competitive advantage.

Each of these approaches could be right depending on the organisation, industry and other contextual information. However, the most important thing is that you have a people plan that is based on quality analysis of information and research.  One part of this plan should be your tactical plans for attracting and recruiting the appropriate talent for your industry. Take note that I used the phrase ‘appropriate talent’. Others may use best, but in any case, what is important is that your tactical plan fits you industry, organisation and competitive strategy.

Attracting and recruiting

Once your People Plan has defined your prime objectives clearly, think through how you can achieve these objectives and write them down. Your objective as set out in your people plan may be to increase profitability by 25% through increasing staff capability across the organisation. Ensure that your objectives are defined in measurable way so you are forced to define your actions more clearly.

Your attraction plan answers this simple question: what do we need to do to achieve our objectives? There are many ways that organization can attract and recruit; but which of these ways will affect profitability by 25% margin with an agreed time? When GE had a corporate objective of being either number one or number two in all of its markets, it had to develop a complimentary plan which would be different from other organisations looking for pure profitability. GE’s focus was on market share and it hoped that profitability will follow. Organisations that seek out pure profits will definitely have different tactical plans.

As in the first organisation with 25% profitability target, the attraction and recruitment plan will rely on:

• Cheap attraction method

• Lower levels of qualifications

• Lower levels of experience and remuneration

Such a recruitment method has to allow for reduction in cost. The organisations will usually use an internal recruitment team for this purpose; design an easy to use template that reduces administrative burden and cause some of the assessments to be completed online for ease of automation and cost reduction. In extreme case, some even use software to do the sifting. Such organisations may set up permanent recruitment desk, webpage and so forth as they understand the impact of such strategy on labor turn over. It may have further implication for upstream HR activities such as learning and development (we will consider this when we get there in a subsequent article)

Example of attraction and recruitment plan for cost reduction and profitability seeking organisations

Overall

• Internal recruitment

• Simple application and assessment process

Attraction

• Attraction through team member recommendations, 

• Permanent internet page, 

• Banner on company webpage, and 

• Occasional adverts in print media when vacancies are higher

Assessment

• Online short assessment usually on attitude than competence

• Automated and administered electronically

• Interview used to confirm the assessment

Consideration 

• Training requirement will be high for such strategy

• Labour turnover will be high

• Time for learning the job should be reduced to allow employee to be able to deliver as soon as they start.

• Job specialization becomes a must 

• Jobs must be broken down into smaller units for ease of training and specialization  

These and other impacts of such strategy can lead to lack of job satisfaction, engagement and a viscous cycle of labour turn over. However, as far as managers understand the impact of the decisions they make, these can be mitigated for.

On the other hand, an organisation that seeking to be either the first or with the first in all of its markets or offering a product /service where it competitive advantage comes from it people needs to have a different attraction and recruitment strategy.

In such organisation, the main source of competitive advantage comes from the people. Such an organisation cannot afford to have people troop in and out of its doors for obvious reasons. Organisational knowledge lost through the resignation of an employee cannot be over emphasised. 

The attraction and recruitment strategy of such firm will and should be different. Such organisation should be looking to recruit the best talent across the industry, attracting known high performers and best potentials from various sources.

 

Overall

• Develop detail competencies for success in the industry

• Understand the personality as well as the attitudinal traits for success through research and analysis

• Provide a mix of Internal and external recruitment procedures. The initial search can be sub-contracted out to professional recruiters to increase the number of applicants. Part of the assessment such as the psychometric and aptitude test can also be sub-contracted to occupational psychologist qualified and able to complete them professionally. However, the external experts should be supervised and at no point should they make the final decision on recruitment. Internal staff should take all these assessment results into account and interview applicants for their fits and competency before making the decision

• Application and assessment process are usually complex with several stages 

Attraction

• Attraction through team member recommendation, 

• Job specific advert on the careers page of company website, 

• Banner on company webpage, and 

• Adverts in print media 

• Headhunting and executive search team

• Industry and professional journals

• Professional recruiters

Assessment

• Various levels of assessments testing competency, aptitude and personality

• Administered electronically and also in person

• Could be several stage  of interviews

Consideration 

• The applicant who usually succeeds after such process requires little training apart from organisation specific skills

• Implications for upstream HR activities should be increased responsibility, further development, appropriate remunerations, engagement and so forth

• Employee recruitment cost increases, but if they are retained and deliver on the value promised, then that will more than make up for the increased recruitment cost.

What I have given here are examples of the two extreme situations. What may be appropriate for an organisation could be a combination of certain aspects. What is important is that the decisions and choices you make should be appropriate for your organisations, based on research and analysis.

The final part of any plan is to have your measures, determine the base line figures, implement, review and amend in a cycle. Please see the diagram below.