How Recruiters and HR Can Work Together

In the business world we have a short list of traditional sources of interdepartmental friction. One of these “hot zones” is the intersection of HR and third-party recruiters, who can easily find themselves at odds.

HR departments often view third-party recruiters as obstacles, while recruiters know that if they can get their best résumés in front of a hiring manager, they’ve got a shot at making a placement. If recruiters are held up by HR bureaucrats whose own need to control the candidate flow overshadows their desire to bring talent in the door, headhunters are sunk. As a result, it’s common to find tension between internal HR people and outside recruiters. Is there a path that allows internal HR and external recruiters to work together for maximum gain?

The Recruiter’s Role

In my experience, the greatest service a third-party search partner provides to the organization, besides the strength of his or her candidate database and relationships, is the intermediary role a search pro performs during offer negotiation. I pride myself on good listening and negotiating skills, but if I’m inside the company, I won’t have the same credibility with a candidate that his ally, the outside recruiter, has.

So it makes sense to let the recruiter handle the delicate job of negotiating between the employer (“our offer is good enough already!”) and the candidate (“they’re dreaming if they think I’ll take this job for that salary”) when the stakes are high. We do it when we buy or sell a house. We know that our trusted Realtor won’t be as emotionally bound up in the negotiation as we very well may be. It’s the same in a high-level offer negotiation process—a place where the middleman can get us more quickly to a handshake and save egos in the process.

As a CEO, managing partner, or division president beginning a high-level search in your organization, it’s critical to sit down with your chosen search partner and your HR chief and work through the common issues that divide these two players. What can easily happen in the absence of such a kickoff meeting is that the search consultant creates a tight one-on-one communication bond with the business leader so that the HR person feels left in the dust.

A Profitable Partnership

Feelings are one thing, but the bigger issue is that without the input of your organization’s Minister of Culture—a/k/a HR chief—your search will be hampered by a lack of a critical perspective. At every stage of the process—initial screening of candidates, the interview process, or the delicate negotiation phase—the quality of the hire you end up with will be affected by the level of participation of your HR chief, the one person most likely to know more than anyone else (including top management) about how things work on the human side of the business.

When I was a corporate HR person, I learned to invite my search partners into the office once every six months or so for a check-in meeting. In this way I learned that partnering with trusted search colleagues is one of the highest-yield moves an HR leader can make. Search pros will tell you things that candidates never would (e.g., “no one will work for Jane Smith any more—she’s a terrible manager”) and will fill you in on the state of the local job market with a level of detail you’d never have time to acquire on your own.

To cultivate a partnership, however, an HR chief has to let go of many an HR leader’s favorite office tool: the presumption of control over the process. The fact is that in a typical, intense, high-level search, the HR chief won’t be the conduit for much or most of the information that is exchanged. If your No. 1 candidate is suddenly presented with a competing offer, your search pro is going to reach whomever he can reach first—whether that’s the HR leader, the CEO, or the CEO’s assistant.

Cooperation is Key

In an effective senior-level search, the time-honored paradigm, “all information passes through HR on its way to the hiring manager,” won’t hold. Communication has to take place instantly, and important decisions may happen on the fly. With a high level of coordination and respect for individual talents, this can work to an employer’s advantage. When hierarchy and bureaucracy creep in, typical responses run along the lines of, “I don’t care what you and our CEO discussed. All new VPs get three weeks vacation, and we’re not budging for this candidate.” And believe it or not, negotiations with candidates can fall apart over things as seemingly small as a week or two of vacation.

HR chiefs and recruiters can be pivotal in one another’s success. As one executive recruiter said to me, “Like most HR people, you chat with candidates maybe one or two hours a day. The rest of the time you work on other things, like executive comp or performance management or employee communications. All I do is cultivate talent and sell your company and my other clients to the talent marketplace. Isn’t that worth my fee?” With the right partner, it is worth the fee—and more

Ref: Liz Ryan / Business Week

HR: No more the 'soft-guys'

It is indeed time for some deep introspection, otherwise, the HR impressions are unlikely to change in any remarkable hurry. And that will be a real tragedy.

Sure, every CEO worth every rupee of his precious sound byte says, “people are my most critical assets”; but beyond that famous lip service, do we really see a genuine long-term commitment to that clichéd phrase? To be brutally honest, the answer is a deafening NO. Which is why the moment that we have even a temporary down-turn, the drawers are suddenly emptied, business forecasts are re-done and the pink slips emerge in a dramatic hurry. Now why would an intelligent professional suddenly drop his supposed “most crucial asset” in such a desperate hurry? The reasons range from short-term focus, an obsession with business numbers, lack of understanding of HR role, down to sheer inability to recognise the human angle. Yet, the principal responsibility for being shafted unceremoniously by the CEO at the slighted pretext lies with the HR professionals themselves. That’s the harsh reality.

What is the bottom line mission of a solid, well-founded HR unit in today’s modern, savvy organisations’ people-driven team? How does it really add real tangible value to business results and overall effectiveness, breaking away from the traditional slot of being payroll masters , doling out salary cheques and minding attendance registers, and receiving unending flak for every trivial human failure.

If you do a basic assessment of the profession of Human Resources compared to that of Marketing or Finance (it’s usual competitors) or even General management, you can begin to see that HR has traditionally chosen the quiet corner voluntarily, retreating almost humbly into the backwaters. While Marketing (along with Sales and Distribution etc.) has always prided on being the bread-winners who create the revenue pipe-line, Finance has the perennial positioning of being the cold-hearted systemic function that does hard number-crunching and talks complex ratios. They are seen as more cerebral et al. From time immemorial, the HR guy, on the other hand, has allowed a perception to float and register that they are the 'soft guys'. Just because they end up often dealing with conflict resolution, employee motivation, counseling sessions, and morale building, the rest of HRs contemporaries treat them as the “feel-good” blokes, who occasionally break the monotony of the boardroom. And bring some mild entertainment along.

It is time for HR professionals to reposition their own stereotype image, and as they say, charity begins at home. It is time for some deep introspection, otherwise, the HR impressions are unlikely to change in any remarkable hurry. And that will be a real tragedy. Because the bottom-line is that HR has every reason to believe that they are, in a services economy and consumer-driven markets in particular, one of the key variables for success. If not, probably the most important one.

HR professionals who are able to look at the company business strategy and identify those internal processes and people-practices that need to be newly created or amended to support the business are poised to make a leapfrog. That’s the only way forward. Change management starts with the HR professionals themselves raising their performance bars. Quite simply, because the entire success story gets scripted by how HR gets the right team going. Not just by recruiting right talent, but getting them to stay. And perform. It is a tall order.

Give me one company’s high-sounding lofty vision or mission statements that do not have the people and employee element in it. Or are some companies presumptuous enough to believe that their business success can be achieved without motivated and quality employee effort? The ability to identify the communication and human interventions that need to take place to support business activity with a vibrant and engaged workforce, is today a required competency of HR practitioners. Employee engagement is no longer just a passing buzzword or a fashionable management fad.

Can we even contemplate the impact of the professional uncertainties and personal struggles world-wide amongst several thousands of employees of the Lehman Brothers-Merrill Lynch –AIG bale-outs and virtual bankruptcy? While the investment banker makes a massive mess (after pocketing million-dollar bonuses), it is the HR person who cleans the stacked-up debris. Who does the tough task of severance, settlements and not-so-golden handshakes, an inevitable fall-out.

The soft guy usually becomes the fall-guy. But it is now time for HR to rise. And shine.

Ref: Sheetal Srivastava

Coping with Resignations - HR practices

With the current recession growing in intensity by the day, no one will question an organisation for laying off employees. Another instance when no questions are asked is when employees retire and leave a company. But eyebrows are definitely raised when employees leave on their own accord. Then, an organisation's human resource policies come under the scanner, their managers under the microscope and their recruiters under cloud!

Even when employees leave for personal or 'uncommon' valid reasons, the organisation will face some flak if the number of individuals resigning in a given month or week is large. An organisation can no longer afford to ignore how the job market or job seekers react to mass resignations. Therefore, it is becoming important for organisations to manage resignations in a way that it does not harm their employer brand.

The impact

When an employee resigns, those left behind are affected in different ways. Here are some typical reactions:

• If an employee resigns because of feeling redundant, others begin to question their role in the organisation. This triggers a feeling of job insecurity.
• If an employee resigns before the appraisal results are out, those left behind grow skeptical about HR policies.
• If more than a few top performers leave for personal reasons, their team members feel uneasy about their worth.
• When a senior employee leaves in the middle of an assignment or project, employees grow wary of the top management.
• When a C-level executive leaves all of a sudden, the message sent across the organisation is that all is not well. If such resignations happen in the wake of an economic crisis, retaining employees, especially top performers will become the biggest challenge.
  

Managing the exit

Regardless of how well an employee has been treated or how long he has served, no manager is a mind-reader to forecast when the employee will resign. As long as managers are prepared mentally for this contingency, they will not be caught off-guard. If the news is sudden, a surprised manager can mismanage the employee's exit and those who are left behind.

A great advantage of a resignation is that employees serve a notice period. This gives an organisation time to calm nerves, address apprehensions and most importantly ensure undisrupted functioning. This time period should also give surprised managers time to collect themselves to better manage the exit! However, a better way to manage employee resignations is to be proactive than reactive.

Managing the lower rung

Managing team members and mid to lower levels resignations is definitely easier. This however, does not mean that the job can be left to when the employee resigns. Here too, given the possible aftermath of a resignation, managers need to be proactive. In short, regardless of which cadre the employee resigns from, managers must take the following measures:

Knowledge sharing and cross-functional training:

All seniors should be made in-charge of passing on their experience and expertise to their juniors. The whole process should be 'informally' formal to ensure that while employees enjoy the learning experience they also take the initiative seriously. For instance, each team should conduct a meeting each week to hear a senior speak for an hour on a project he just worked on. Additionally, cross-functional exposure is a must to ensure work does not stall. The additional benefits of cross functional training include:

• Work continues when a team member is absent
• Work quality is not affected when a new employee is inducted. Assistance from other members helps the new employee get over teething issues.
  

Keep your eyes open: A manager should always be looking for replacements within a team. He should also have an action plan for dividing an employee's responsibilities in case it takes longer to find a replacement. A smart manager has a list of successors for every role. Even if these successors do not match the job requirements exactly, having an internal person with an aptitude for the task is better than recruiting a new comer.

Exit interview: This interview should be conducted the minute an employee resigns to figure out why he is leaving. This gives an organisation a chance to mend or bend things before others leave for the same reason. For instance, if an employee is leaving for better perks, offering those who are behind a better deal can prevent further resignations.

A manager's smartness in managing resignations has a huge impact on retention. Being caught unawares when practically everyone recruited is a rolling stone will reflect poorly on any organisation.

Ref: TheManageMentor

The New Challenge for Human Resources: Implementing Corporate Social Responsibility

Far too often, the function of the Human Resource department is considered to be essentially an administrative function, handling payroll, processing benefits, recording leave and organizing trainingprogrammes. By and large HR departments have limited connections with the development and implementation of the organizations' business strategies. The HR department could be a key player in most organizations, gathering and disseminating information about talent, helping to develop and implement strategy and developing practices and systems that motivate individual employees to ever-higher levels of performance. Human Resource also have a major and critical role to play in ensuring that the company adopts and effectively implements Corporate Social Responsibility programmes. An enormous opportunity exists for the leaders of HR functions to enhance their departments' roles. One area wherein Human Resources can play a strong and effective role is in the promotion and implementation of Corporate Social Responsibility. HR can manage the CSR plan implementation and monitor its adoption proactively, while documenting its success throughout the company. Human resources technology can help with a Corporate Social Responsibility programme by fostering a culture of social responsibility and sharing and communicating the value of corporate social responsibility toemployees and the community

HR's role in Corporate Social Responsibility should start at the recruitment stage. Today prospective employees are taking a strong look at the social footprints of Companies. Surveys have indicated that fresh employees are willing to work for a socially responsible company even for a lower salary. Recruitment is the process of searching for prospective employees and stimulating them to apply for jobs in the organizations. The aim of an effective recruitment programme should be to attract the best talentfor the job. Companies have to attract as many applicants as possible so that it can hire the best people. Human Resources professionals need to utilize all possible channels to inform potential candidates about their company's CSR programmes Creating a culture of change and responsibility starts with HR. Getting employees, who are already socially conscious, excited about fresh Corporate Social Responsibility initiatives, is a great way to begin. A committed set of employees who infuse enthusiasm for such programs would enable friendly competition and recognition programmes.

Over the past few years, there have been reports about large, trusted companies that have failed employees, shareholders and the public (i.e. Enron, Lehman, etc). These failures have created mistrust inthe corporate world. Employer brands are being eroded and the once sacred trust that employees had with stable pensions, defined benefits and lifelong jobs, are being replaced with pay for performance andadjustment to new learning goals. In such an environment, Corporate Social Responsibility can go a longway in rehabilitating the employer brand with potential new hires and society at large. It can help defeat the image that corporate objectives are rooted in single minded profit at the expense of society and the environment. Social and community connections that are encouraged by employers give employees permission to involve their companies in meaningful ways with the community. Encouraging employees to participate in community projects, blood donation progranmmes, food banks, and fund raising events and so forth. Encouraging Community Relations through the HR team would include implementing reward programmes, charitable contributions and encouraging community involvement and practices. Examples of these programs include sending emails and company newsletters to staff members that highlight employees and managers involved in community relations or creating monthly reward programs to recognize efforts by individuals within the company.

Training and Development programs that explain the connection between the company's core products or services and the society at large, their value to the local community and ways in which employees can getinvolved in appropriate CSR projects would sustain and direct these initiatives. As mentioned above Human Resources are still unaware of its expanding role particularly in the area of promoting corporate responsibility within the organization. There is need for training the HR personnel about the new challenges and prospects available to them.

The success of a company's Corporate Social Responsibility plan is possible through an effective HR Department that has the capability to effectively plan, control and manage the company's social and community goals, achieve efficiency and quality, and improve employee and manager communications.To make their Corporate Social Responsibility programmes effective companies need to empower the HR Department to undertake the responsibility of ensuring the widest possible information spread of the company's social and community programmes. This is the new challenge official of the HR Department face in the future

Ref: Suresh Parmar