Friday, November 27, 2015

On hiring people

In this post, we will examine how to manage human capital. Managing talent is typically top of mind for most CEOs (along with operational excellence, innovation etc.) Managing talent involves:

  • Attracting talent
    • Strategy => What positions are required? => What kind of talent is required?
    • How do we go about finding this talent? 
      • Have a plan! Here are a few dimensions to think about:
        • Short-term or long-term (consultant vs employee)
        • Current outstanding projects: what are the gaps?
        • Attrition (depends on industry)
        • Demand forecasting: understand what will be needed, given the strategy and potential changes to strategy.
        • Supply forecasting: understand what is available internally and externally. It might turn our your existing folks have all the needed skills! Human capital management systems help with this. 
      • What are we looking for in talent?
        • Skills
        • Experience
        • Abilities
        • Behaviors
        • Expertise
        • Special requirements (mobility, hours, environmental concerns)
      • Build a recruitment brand (that can attract top talent)
        • What's your value add (vision/mission etc.)?
        • What differentiates you from competition?
        • What are you/want to be known for (values, processes, innovation etc.)? 
        • What's your value add to your employees? 
        • Any other special considerations? 
        • Examples of company brands
          • GE: Creation brand (makes CEOs)
          • Google: Environment brand (good place to work with great people)
          • Walmart: Price brand 
          • Apple: Innovation brand 
          • Tiffany: Prestige brand 
          • Unicef: Legacy brand (leaving the world a better place)
        • Everyone/Everything should be aligned to support this brand
          • Hiring managers 
          • Recruiters
          • Employees
        • Elements of a recruiting plan
          • Who is needed? What positions? 
          • What does the position entail? What needs to be done?
          • How to go about this process? 
            • Recruiters/hiring managers should be able to 
              • Attract talent 
              • Explain things clearly once talent is in
            • Clarity on who the decision maker is
          • Where are we going to find such candidates?
            • Internal
            • External 
              • Recruiters/headhunters/gamification (uberdrive)
            • Create robust pool of diverse candidates
              • Avoid groupthink; happens if we select with our biases
            • Jobs website, other websites (linkedin, university), referrals, campus recruiting, your suppliers
          • When should we find them? What's the timeline? 
  • Selecting talent
    • Testing is good
      • IQ is a good first-order predictor of high performance (research here)
        • But considered to have cultural bias
        • And reluctance in western cultures for these tests
        • Interviews and work samples viewed better  (research here)
    • Ensure positive experience throughout
      • Offsets anxiety caused by testing 
      • When candidates believe selection process is good, they perform good (research here
      • Candidates say good things whether or not they are hired 
    • Behavioral interviewing is next best predictor of high performance after tests
      • Talk for 10min, hear for 50min
      • Ask candidates to describe past experiences
        • Teamwork
        • Creativity
        • Conflicts
        • Failures
        • Learning
      • Such questions should allow us to gauge:
        • Ability
        • Learning agility
        • Aspirations 
        • Engagement in work
        • Emotional intelligence
      • Best done by pairs of people (provides two perspectives on each discussion)
      • Debrief after interview, and have a rating scale
  • On-boarding talent
    • Important avenue to assimilate, impart culture, set a positive tone
    • 4% leave on first day, 22% turnover happens in first 45 days (Josh Bersin @ Deloitte)
    • Assigning a buddy helps
    • Full body on-boarding
      • Welcome gifts, material, people to meet etc.
      • Periodic checkins: day 30, day 90, day 180
  • Retaining talent
  • Letting people go 


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