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.
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