So you got the job to centralize your company’s recruiting. Now what?
Congratulations! You’ve just been tasked to move your company from a decentralized recruitment process to a centralized one. So, what’s going through your mind? I suppose that depends on your expertise.
Do you ever wonder if the person who hired that fortunate professional – YOU! – (let’s call you “The Centralizer”) even knew what qualifications you needed? Let’s assume you are THE person to do it. What’s your budget? You forgot to ask? Too bad! Unfortunately, you’re probably not in the minority on that one. Next question: What are the organizational considerations of the shift you are about to make happen? Rest assured the person that dictates your budget probably knows very little about recruiting and even less about institutionalizing a new, centralized process and its organizational implications. So what are the chances of you getting a realistic budget so you can grow the organization to be a big success? Regardless of your responsibilities always make sure, before you accept a challenge with considerable budgetary and organizational consequences, to stack the deck in your favor.
Here are a few “nuggets” to contemplate, before and/or after you accept the challenge of centralizing your company’s recruiting process:
Drivers – What’s really driving the change? If it’s only to “save money,” we’re probably barking up the wrong tree. A distorted perception from the start, leads to headaches down the road.
Paradigm shift – There is so much more to building a “talent acquisition” engine than the actual transaction of filling vacant positions with warm bodies. The sooner we embrace that notion, the sooner we’ll stop comparing apples to oranges (i.e., the sooner we’ll realize that X thousand $ per hire does not represent the entire picture, especially when comparing one solution to the next). (Watch for a future blog on this topic!)
Budget: What is it really? – I think it’s safe to say that whatever great thing you are about to make happen will impact far more than just HR; it will affect the entire organization. You have a much more critical job than for what you are being given credit. So, if you are impacting, for example, the Sales VP’s ability to carry a hefty sales budget and he/she’s been spending money on Billy Bob (the “agency”) to fill those sales roles…Hey, wait a minute, did you say SPEND? That’s right. HR isn’t the only department with a budget to spend money on finding talent. So when we say “budget,” let’s really dig deep and find out where ALL the recruiting money is being spent. What about inefficiencies in whatever old processes are causing your Sales VP to be too involved in recruitment. How much is that worth? You get the point.
Think the whole thing through - When moving from a decentralized to centralized model, take inventory of what needs to happen (not just in your recruiting world, but with your internal clients, and everything else necessary to support the change). “Decentralized” often spells “we do what we want and how we want it, and I like Billy Bob, because I’ve used him for a million years”. Now multiply that by 100 and try to tell me you don’t have more on your plate than the actual recruiting production. Okay, so you already know that. Now what are the required functional roles to build and run the new and improved process? It takes more than being a recruiter extraordinaire. Think about it. You have to assess the business needs, organizational capabilities, design a comprehensive process and how it interfaces with the hiring managers or BU’s; then there is change management, technology implementation (one that allows you to use your processes, not dictates what process you should use (see the article on “technology” at http://www.q4b.com/about/news/automaterecruitprocess.pdf), project management, reporting and metrics, and countless meetings. Additionally, you can worry about finding, training, and retaining your recruiting team and their production. In my world, I know of no one man or woman who can simultaneously fulfill the role of a technologist, recruiting leader, process expert, management consultant, project manager, change management expert, recruiting trainer, etc.
Don’t drop the “production” ball – While all this is going on, I know you didn’t forget about the fire that’s burning. If you’re busy trying to assess and design, make sure you have a good interim solution in place. Don’t expect the “agencies” to stop cold turkey, unless you have a killer production solution (internal or external) to take its place.
To in-source or outsource, that is the question – There’s no one right answer. One thing’s for sure, you have your hands full. Of course, the big wigs have to be supportive of the fundamental approach. Some executives view BTO (Business Transformation Outsourcing) as a way they operate their business and gain strategic advantages over the competitors. Others see the opposite. Whether you in-source or outsource will largely depend on the fundamental philosophy of your company. Use that as a cue! For the “nay-sayers,” you can still pull in someone from the outside to help you throughout the process, in essence augmenting any activities of which your “recruiting” organization is not capable. This way you can still gain the advantage of capitalizing on the expertise of all those functions you need to fulfill without signing on a large permanent staff.
There are so many things to consider and I welcome comments from anyone that has recently been through a decentralized-to-centralized recruiting experience.
Happy assessing, designing, implementing and operating world-class recruiting solutions!
Nick Tubach, Founder, President and CEO
