"It depends on having the right people on board" - we hear that all the time on the industry. People often quote Jack Welsh of GE and how made HR an executive priority. However what most people overlook is that Welsh also critically understood that he had to get the best Recruiters and HR professionals on board.
Every country a new GE business entered, they would go out to find the best Compensation & Benefits person in the field. Cisco's approach to get great results was to make every employee think like a recruiter, and to contribute to the company recruiting efforts.
How do you get a sales man to focus on the kind of sales that are good for the firm, and not only what's best for his/her pocket? It's very hard, especially in large organisations, however there are three obvious things that most firms do:
1. Talk endlessly about the company mission, strategic direction etc
2. Incentives - top sales people are linked to company performance, often with KPI's, and these affect their own earnings potential.
3. Hire the right people into the role
Here's my point. The above simply does not happen in the Recruitment Department, well all too rarely anyhow.
90% of the time, business unit Recruiters are only concerned with their own workload and making things as easy as possible
for themselves. They have little care or understanding of corporate recruiting objectives, and often counter what is for the good of the company.
I'm talking about simple things such as sharing talented CV's, recording recruiting costs, or submitting evaluation sheets so that colleagues can see interview notes in the future. Imagine the reaction of a CFO if he found out that an accountant was not declaring cost of sales -- the auditors would go crazy, it could even affect share price if it was deemed to have hidden information on performance.
This practice has to change in order for national employers to become successful recruiters. I believe that it is this attitude that is driving (and hindering at the same time) the move to Centralised recruitment departments.
It is a bit of a Catch 22. Large employers need to be able to report and measure their recruiting activities in order to improve, and they need individual recruiters across the organisation to use centralised tools to help improve recruiting on an enterprise-wide or strategic level. Again though it's often those same individual recruiters who have no genuine interest in 'Group' views or goals for recruiting.
Therefore to ensure and meet quality targets, there seems to be no choice but to centralise recruiting, or at least manage recruiters against SLA/KPI's. Certainly I think corporate recruiters should be rewarded against their performance (as you do for Agencies), and the performance of the company on a whole.
Technology of course makes all this possible and easier to measure, but that isn't really the point of my rant here. I just continue to be amazed by recruiters in large organisations who has such a myopic vision, little ambition, and no consideration towards corporate objectives. More troublesome is that this is allowed to take place without complaint.
Executives in the Middle East, until now, have preferred to ignore that their business leaders often don't want to work with internal recruitment functions, and would rather pay through the nose for external support when hiring. Now though with unprecedented growth, escalating hiring costs, high turnover and limited talent supply; the tides may be about to change and we may see CEO's taken a keen interest in 'Corporate Recruitment Performance.
Above is an example of a cost analysis report that an HR Director now runs every quarter and discusses with the Board of one of my clients in Kuwait. This only started in 2006.
It's drill down report so if they see anything that looks incorrect, they can mine down into fine details and work out exactly where the recruitment budgets are going and if they're getting value for money. In this Telco client at least we have seen a mindset change in the recruitment department now that they know the CFO are analysing their activities.
Long may it continue I say, as it seems to be finally driving a quality and corporate consciousness into recruitment, which was sadly lacking before.
Every country a new GE business entered, they would go out to find the best Compensation & Benefits person in the field. Cisco's approach to get great results was to make every employee think like a recruiter, and to contribute to the company recruiting efforts.
How do you get a sales man to focus on the kind of sales that are good for the firm, and not only what's best for his/her pocket? It's very hard, especially in large organisations, however there are three obvious things that most firms do:
1. Talk endlessly about the company mission, strategic direction etc
2. Incentives - top sales people are linked to company performance, often with KPI's, and these affect their own earnings potential.
3. Hire the right people into the role
Here's my point. The above simply does not happen in the Recruitment Department, well all too rarely anyhow.
90% of the time, business unit Recruiters are only concerned with their own workload and making things as easy as possible
for themselves. They have little care or understanding of corporate recruiting objectives, and often counter what is for the good of the company.
I'm talking about simple things such as sharing talented CV's, recording recruiting costs, or submitting evaluation sheets so that colleagues can see interview notes in the future. Imagine the reaction of a CFO if he found out that an accountant was not declaring cost of sales -- the auditors would go crazy, it could even affect share price if it was deemed to have hidden information on performance.
This practice has to change in order for national employers to become successful recruiters. I believe that it is this attitude that is driving (and hindering at the same time) the move to Centralised recruitment departments.
It is a bit of a Catch 22. Large employers need to be able to report and measure their recruiting activities in order to improve, and they need individual recruiters across the organisation to use centralised tools to help improve recruiting on an enterprise-wide or strategic level. Again though it's often those same individual recruiters who have no genuine interest in 'Group' views or goals for recruiting.
Therefore to ensure and meet quality targets, there seems to be no choice but to centralise recruiting, or at least manage recruiters against SLA/KPI's. Certainly I think corporate recruiters should be rewarded against their performance (as you do for Agencies), and the performance of the company on a whole.
Technology of course makes all this possible and easier to measure, but that isn't really the point of my rant here. I just continue to be amazed by recruiters in large organisations who has such a myopic vision, little ambition, and no consideration towards corporate objectives. More troublesome is that this is allowed to take place without complaint.
Executives in the Middle East, until now, have preferred to ignore that their business leaders often don't want to work with internal recruitment functions, and would rather pay through the nose for external support when hiring. Now though with unprecedented growth, escalating hiring costs, high turnover and limited talent supply; the tides may be about to change and we may see CEO's taken a keen interest in 'Corporate Recruitment Performance.
Above is an example of a cost analysis report that an HR Director now runs every quarter and discusses with the Board of one of my clients in Kuwait. This only started in 2006.
It's drill down report so if they see anything that looks incorrect, they can mine down into fine details and work out exactly where the recruitment budgets are going and if they're getting value for money. In this Telco client at least we have seen a mindset change in the recruitment department now that they know the CFO are analysing their activities.
Long may it continue I say, as it seems to be finally driving a quality and corporate consciousness into recruitment, which was sadly lacking before.
