Hiring and recruiting is an area of concentration that typically is discussed soley in numerical terms, such as “How many jobs do we need to fill?”, “How soon will the hiring be completed?”, “What will the cost of the hiring be?” However, research from global workforce surveys shows clearly that recruitment decisions are most often driven by strategic considerations.
The decisions made about who to hire are the foundation of workplace and organisational performance, culture, and long-term growth in measurable ways, as highlighted by the LinkedIn Global Talent Trends Survey which states that on average it takes approximately 44 days to fill one position. The data indicates that there has been increasing pressure on organisations to fill positions faster while maintaining the quality of their hire, but the research also points out that filling positions quickly without ensuring alignment between the role(s) and the organisation often produces poor outcomes, especially for roles requiring collaboration and leadership.
The belief that hiring quickly is indicative of a good hire has long been a misconception in human resources around the world, although often referenced by human resource professionals, as evidenced by statistics published by the U.S. Department of Labor which state that if an employer makes a poor hiring decision, they could lose as much as 30 percent of the employee’s first-year earnings.
In addition, an overwhelming 75 percent of employers surveyed by CareerBuilder acknowledge making a poor hiring decision with effects such as decreased productivity and negative team attitudes. High rates of turnover early in an employee’s tenure only further strengthen the case against this flawed thinking.
The Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) conducted a survey showing that nearly one-third of newly hired employees leave the company before reaching their first anniversary due to unmet expectations, confusion about what their job will require, or a general lack of alignment between the company culture and their needs and values. The resignation of most new hires does not stem solely from a lack of adequate technical skills; it is more often a result of a conflict between behavioural characteristics and the work environment.
To effectively recruit, it is crucial to understand the position you are hiring for well beyond the job description. Although it may be easier to evaluate hard/technical skills, surveys consistently show how much value attitudes and core values add to an employee’s ability and willingness to remain with a company for an extended period. According to the LinkedIn Workplace Culture Report, those employees who align with the organization’s values are much more likely to remain engaged and committed to the company than those who do not align; if this alignment is missing, even high-performing employees struggle to stay engaged with their work.
Staffing, with a strategic lens, is not a one-time hiring activity, but rather part of an organization’s workforce planning process and an ongoing activity. Based on Deloitte Global Human Capital Trends Report data, organizations that implement proactive workforce planning are better positioned to meet future organizational demands than those organizations that hire reactively. It gives organizations the foresight to adapt to changes in their marketplace and the future evolution of the required skills.
The impact that recruiting has on current teams is another area of recruiting that too often gets overlooked. An often underestimated aspect of recruiting is its impact on existing teams.
Team engagement and performance are strongly influenced by effective team leadership and peer alignment, according to Research conducted by Gallup. Hiring someone with credentials that do not fit the culture of a team will lead to decreased employee engagement, and will lead to a dilution of the team dynamics, and increased workload on managers rather than on employees who do not meet expectations. The research also reveals that consistency in the method used for recruiting and staffing, are important in determining overall success.
Structured interviews, as well as standardised evaluation criteria, as studied by Harvard Business Review, are considerably more predictive of job performance than are intuition driven or unstructured hiring practices. Although instincts have some merit, it is evident from the studies that evidence based decision making combined with formally established assessment frameworks produce the best results in the end.
Recruiting and Staffing ultimately focus on building capabilities for an organisation, as well as ensuring that the organisation has the right people in place to drive success into the future. From the results of numerous workforce studies and surveys, a consistent conclusion can be drawn that organisations that maintain a thoughtful and longer term outlook on all aspects of their talent decisions create a strong culture, enhance retention and build a financially sound and sustainable business for future growth.