Top four challenges in Talent Acquisition

Author: Rekha Nair

For all those who sit on the other side of the table other than HR, Talent acquisition is the most mundane, most easy and most taken for granted task.  No one spares a second thought to the Recruitment process in the Company, apart from HR and if you are lucky the Top management once in a while when the bottom line is affected and the Leaders point out to ‘manpower’ issues as the reason behind it. Yes, you heard it right, most of us in HR are aware of this and this is what we deal with every day, but we would rather sweep it under the carpet and not discuss about it, but problems has to be tackled and analyzed if not today then tomorrow , definitely.

As any HR professional who has handled or is handling ‘Talent acquisition’ shall tell you that  though it sounds to be the most simplest of and uncomplicated task, it is actually not so, it is a challenge every day, and the Company and the HR team along with the line managers has to be geared up to meet the challenges.  Some of the most common challenges which any HR manager who handles Talent acquisition shall enumerate are  as given below:-

1)      Quality Manpower : It is amazing, the number of Engineering and professional colleges that we have in our country are close to  6ooo when we put together both, but when we get down to the process of sourcing, screening, selecting, we are all the more amazed at the number of mismatch that we have to deal with.  If we specifically speak about the Campus recruitment, in order to overcome the mismatch, there has to be lot of industry and academia interaction and handholding to enable the colleges to come out with courses or course content which comes up to the needs and expectations of the organizations.

When we talk about lateral entries the biggest challenge is finding the right talent for the right job, your shortlisted, selected candidate might have cleared all the psychometric test, might have cleared all the rounds, all the technical questions must have been answered beautifully, however, when he gets down to working, within a month the Team manager and HR realizes that the whole exercise has been futile as he has everything going on paper but when it comes to delivering it is a big miss. The challenge is to find the right talent, the right attitude for the given job and for this HR fraternity has been struggling and experimenting, but to till date we are yet to come up with a fool proof method.

2)      Stability : This might sound old fashioned and out of league, but this is one of the biggest challenges  for every organization and for every HR Head , and  that is to retain the talent that you have brought in and who seems to be the right fit.  It is again not to be left to the HR department to make sure that once the candidate has joined he stays put for decent amount of time, apart from Induction, being your buddy and point of contact in the initial days.  HR needs all the efforts to be put in by the respective Departments also where he or she joins to make it comfortable and interesting and lucrative in terms of work for the employee to make him want to come back to the office every day.

3)      Transparency :  It is the prime responsibility and in fact should be driven by the Ethic code of every Company that the HR department shall be transparent about the salary, designation, role, responsibilities, rules , regulations, ethics, culture  etc. of the Company and every effort shall be made by the Company to cover all these aspects through the Induction program and the various training programs and sessions that the employee goes through upon his joining.  The HR department should take extra effort to gauge the understanding of the employees , it is a good idea to have ‘on board interview’, similar to the exit interview, after the Induction is over  so that HR is able to address the gaps in understanding of any issue by the employee.  

Transparency is applicable both ways as an employee is entitled to all the information about an organization and its systems and procedures whether it is with regard to compensation & benefits, Learning &Development, Rewards &Recognition similarly an organization is entitled to have correct information about the candidate with regard to his qualification, his past experience, his last salary drawn etc.  Most of the organizations have put checks and balances in place to be sure that the information provided to them is authentic, in spite of that the number of ‘discrepancies’ which are reported by verification consultants to the HR department is alarming, and it is a cause of concern as many candidates give incorrect information about their salaries and qualifications , more over they supplement it with fake certificates and references.

4)      Culture fit   :  Okay, let us assume that we have taken care of all the above, we have got a right fit candidate who has made up his mind to stay with us long term and is totally transparent about his credentials and all is well, but then comes the most important question, in spite of the knowledge and information passed on to him about the organization and his absorbing the same, there are many unwritten rules in the organization which he shall be able  to understand only in due course of time, which may confuse him or take him by surprise or might even make him highly uncomfortable, this usually happens when employees make a move across industries for example when a candidate who has throughout worked in Media industry changes over to the EPC sector , he sees a huge transformation staring at him.  Here HR has to play an important role , this has to be done proactively, taking into consideration this piece of information and then by way of assigning a buddy to him in the department, or putting him under a mentor for sometime or HR itself taking pains to continuously communicate with the employee with the intention of keeping him for good and let not all the efforts go in vain.  Of course, this needs equal cooperation and willingness and a genuine effort from the candidate as well to imbibe the changes and change to grow.

As detailed  above, the ‘Talent Acquisition’ team whom most of us hardly give a second look unless and until we have to forward a resume under the ‘referral scheme’, is actually strengthening the foundation of the organisation every day and making sure that while all the others concentrate aggressively on the bottom line and profit margin, they are giving their invaluable support in their own quiet and determined way

About Author

Rekha Nair

She holds over 16 years of experience,  primarily in Corporate HR and has handled the entire gamut of HR in a reputed IT company in the Corporate HR Division, for the last 7 plus years working as Chief Manager - HR  of Angelique International Ltd., a reputed EPC company from India. Posses a good experience in Talent Acquisition, Talent Management, R&R, Trainings, Employee Engagement, HR Audits  and HRIS. 

 

 

Probability, People and Profits

Author: Pranay Reddy

Some days ago I asked a friend, “What is your chance of becoming the next top shot entrepreneur running a billion dollar company”. He replied, “Its 1/2, either I’ll become one or else I won’t. Suffice it to say, either he has it in him to be the next Jobs or else he’s destined to bite dust. The point to be highlighted as per him is that, his chances of reaching those heights are as high as 50%, so are the chances to fall in glitch. If the aforesaid, dictum is true then what do you have to say for snowing in Delhi. Well, as expected we have an identical answer, probability of snowing are as likely as 50% i.e. either it snows or it doesn’t. Weird isn’t it? The explanation of the aforementioned paradox is the property of probability, known as chances of an event occurring should be equally likely. This explains for the reason why it doesn’t snow in Delhi, because the chances of such an occurrence are close to zero. Similarly, if we speak of chances of rain in Mumbai during monsoons; because the conditions are so favorable it is as high as 90%.

For the sake of argument, what are the chances, of an aspiring entrepreneur to achieve stardom, now that we know the property of probability of ‘Equally likeliness’?  Let’s apply some basics of mathematics: The chances of you attaining success in you entrepreneurial sojourn is say, m/n, where m is the no. of successful entrepreneurs and n is the total no. of entrepreneurs. But, as we know n>>m, i.e. n is a much larger no. then m the fraction m/n is close to ZERO. Does that mean that chances of your entrepreneurial journey ending up as a success is close to zero? The big and the obvious answer to this question is a big fat NO. But sane people have said and I quote, “Logic seldom lies, and math never”. So the only solution to this problem is to reduce the burgeoning no. n exponentially. 

This calls for some introspection and some sound strategizing. It is indispensable to have an idea, which is unique, robust, ingenious and off course scalable if you’ve to reach heights. If you have such an idea, next step is implementation, and that too you need an ecosystem for your idea to thrive and veritably hard work, will power and dedication as quoted by Legend himself, Milkha Singh. Inspite, of stuffed with truckloads of abovementioned attributes, the trick that entrepreneurs miss are there people.

Irrespective of the domain of your industry viz. services, manufacturing, etc., whatever you create, you do it for people. Gurucharan Das once spoke, the best form of R&D must involve taking in the opinion of your customers, and the best way to do that is to involve your own people. It is the people who create things not machines. Suffice, to say if your workforce is motivated, supported and happy, they are in amicable condition to spell a magic in your venture. Always remember, only humans can think of what humans want, not machines.

So, I cannot guarantee the causal of entrepreneurial Yahoo, but can promise lots of correlations. Apple Inc. who’re committed to their workforce recently overtook Coca Cola, as the most valuable brand, and they did that without incurring any cost in advertising!

Author
Pranay Reddy - PlugHR Pro

Top four outcomes of an Exit Interview!!

Author: Simran Oberoi

 

 

Exit Interviews are usually not perceived as pleasant interactions – some people view it as a venting exercise, some adopt an “advisory” approach of providing solutions to the issues they faced and a lot of people are usually indifferent!

So as an HR practitioner, it can be very frustrating to try and gather data or meaning from these discussions and try to link it to actual root causes for employee attrition. Have you ever thought of making a slightly different sort of list of what you want to achieve out of this discussion from an exiting employee? If yes, you are ahead of most others ! If not, here are some pointers which might help…and here I’d like to use my favorite sentence- this is an indicative list, not an exhaustive one !

 

1.  The most obvious - Reasons for leaving the firm. Of course, employees have a standard response to this that they come prepared with – but the onus is on you to make sure that you ask questions that make the employee give clear and specific answers instead of a whole lot of subjective information on what didn’t work well. Also, employees are hesitant to share negative feedback – whether it is due to the fear of confrontation or lack of belief that the feedback will have any  impact. You have a hugely challenging task of creating a sense of trust in an already-disillusioned employee !

 

2.  HR needs to find some answers, but it also needs to understand the thought process of an exiting employee…So probe sensitively about how the individual arrived at the decision to leave the firm. This will help you reach the core of the actual issue and manage attrition in a more focused manner.

 

3. Try to also collect the positives , the optimistic thoughts from such interviews even if those seem rare to come by – Perhaps names of supportive managers/peers, high potential team members and so on. Agreed that this could be very subjective and perception driven, but then so are a whole lot of other things related with people ! This information will come in handy to anticipate where your strength lies and how to anticipate any exits of key employees.

 

4.  Collect feedback for HR too – so the exit interview should allow the employee to share his or her thoughts on how and when the HR’s involvement could have helped prevent the exit. This also covers getting the employee’s thoughts on what interventions make sense to them and what didn’t have any impact on their motivation/engagement levels.

About Author
Simran Oberoi
Sr. Knowledge Partner - SHRM India

She has over a decade of experience primarily in HR advisory services in the areas of Rewards (Benchmarking, Strategy, Job Mapping, Measurement), covering APAC, South Asia and the US), Long Term Incentives engagements, Organization Restructuring, Capacity Building, Competency Frameworks and Talent Development.  

She has published several articles on different HR areas, with leading HR journals such as People Matters, Human Capital, Business Manager – HR magazine and industry magazines such as Oil Asia. She regularly contributes the SHRM perspective across print and electronic newspapers.

 

Performance Management process... is it so difficult?

Author: Samruddhi Mulye

I’d wonder why few things in HR are treated differently from the rest.... so like generating payroll or organising an event for HR is ‘by-the-way’... Performance #Appraisals become a very serious job. It draws complete focus and attention from all the employees and to a large extent the company’s management as well. We’d think why getting people perform is at times so difficult or also an employee to deliver set targets does not garner complete focus and determination.  After all appraisal in true sense is the result of all the hard-work...something that gets tabulated in a matrix... that brackets your performance into terms like – ‘outstanding’, ‘very good’, ‘average’ & ‘poor’. So what makes appraisals so important and special – it’s the money that gets tagged along with it that makes #appraisals so important. The struggle is to get highest hike. Why is an ‘MBA program’ into an elite or premier I institute or some training program for ‘technological advancement’ or a ‘holiday – with – family’ and may be an opportunity to work in ‘different geography or build an enterprise for the company in an unchartered territory’ not that important or does not seem to be a great reward for an employee! There is money involved in this as well. The organisation is investing in the employee, working towards building a leader in you.

There is only one answer to this – it is the ‘culture’ that we have shaped. It is extensively focused on direct monetary rewards because we have chosen to shape it that way. .. we have failed in making employees see the bigger picture and a better tomorrow.

So here’s something I went through. This is year 2003 [I was about four years in #HR career by then]... and not getting into specifics of company name, industry or employee details... but just the crux and my learnings from this incident. Typical ‘Open Performance Appraisal’ system. With KRA’s that were set last year... you guessed it right, not reviewed through the year!  So, here’s the outcome first... the #appraisal letters are handed over to a set of employees [there were unions prevalent that time].  The increments given to these people were less compared to some other employees, probably the lowest in the grid. So even if we’d say that compensation related information should not be shared [else management will take strict action...!] – the discussion is bound to happen. Some happy expression... some sad.

Therefore the obvious questions from these people were ‘why such a low increment?’  The management anticipated some questions but the force with which it came was not anticipated. The increments were decided with no definite data points and rationale so again the answers to ‘why’ weren’t readily available.  The responses from the management were vague. Event / circumstances specific answers were given. For which there were counter reactions from the employees. In all the entire exercise was unplanned and the process made its flaws and fissures visible to all. All the increment letters given were retracted. Fresh letters issued with obviously different figures and then much expected phenomenal attrition. The Management cuts a sorry figure.

So, in all a simple exercise turned out to be a night mare of sorts for the organisation. While, many years have gone by... things have changed and improved for better but some basic learnings.. we never seem to memorise and practice about Performance Management... though I carry them with me wherever I go and whoever I meet to explain... it isn’t a success always but it is my strong conviction that – Performance can be managed only through culture and only Culture can drive performance. You do not need an HRIS or process with a manual to achieve a flawless PMS [although must say technology does simply and organise life for everybody]. Only know and understand your objective, your goal on a broader and organisational level. The fractions to achieve the bigger picture will fall in to place steadily [which set targets right in beginning]. Secondly.... know your people; gauge their emotions... see their problems. Increments are obviously not based on these but it only helps you creating a different perspective of non-performance. Lastly, keep it simple... stay connected with your people, talk to them often. Communicate your vision, ideas. Let them respond. Keep talking to them about their performance. What you like about them and what you feel needs improvement. Let them know. 

Rest the mechanical steps will fall in place automatically...! Let the culture be performance driven and let performance talk about your organization's culture to the world outside.


Author

Samruddhi Mulye
PlugHR Pro