Co-operators

Corey Shaw

While there certainly is no shortage of differing opinions in the talent market, I believe there is consensus for most organizations on successful hiring outcomes. We all want great candidate and leader experiences that enable companies to hire diverse, engaged, retained and productive people...toss in hiring people with trajectory to grow in the organization and you have your perfect hire.  The big question is how does this magical formula consistently happen? 

I’ve never been much of a golfer; to me, it’s a nice walk outside with friends and my astronomically high scores tend to reflect that! However, many years ago, a leader told me that strategy and execution are like a golf swing: A good plan (strategy) is akin to the back swing– this is where you need to ensure you put in place the foundation– a clear picture of where you want the ball to go. The forward motion represents the execution phase of the golf swing.  It is here that so many things can go wrong; a bird tweets and you lift your jaw, you shift your hips, your hands open up, and so on. Next thing you know, the ball is not where you meant it to go at all! In my case it would often mean me yelling FORE! and praying I didn’t hurt anyone with my ball going way off track.  O.K enough about golf, it’s not my forte so I’ll stop right there. 

We all know that disciplined execution is the hard stuff to ensure the right, consistent hiring outcomes happen the high majority of the time – the key to that statement is ‘consistent and high majority of the time’. A great talent acquisition program will never be perfect but if you intersect effective behaviors, processes and technologies to enable diverse, exceptional hires, you’ve found the sweet spot for success. 

So where to start? Initially, I like to spend time researching the company’s long-term goals, investment and revenue drivers, customer base and desired client experience, ultimately, to gain a picture of what success looks like.  At the same time you need to gain insight on the ‘talent reality.’ I do this by surveying leaders, recruiters, and other key stakeholders for insights on brand, attraction, sourcing, assessment, hiring, and onboarding practices. Lastly, I spend time understanding the talent marketplace to assess the demand and scarcity for the type of talent the company wants to hire.

“A great talent acquisition program will never be perfect but if you intersect effective behaviors, processes, and technologies to enable diverse, exceptional hires, you’ve found the sweet spot for success.  “

With these insights you have a clear picture of an organization’s talent maturity and the ability to form a customized talent acquisition strategy.  Next, you need an inspirational statement with clear proof points for your roadmap to success in the future– call it your north star.  These proof points involve consistent behaviors, processes and technologies with a line of sight to economic and experiential hiring metrics.  Lots of effort goes into building awareness, gaining stakeholder and team buy-in so everyone clearly understands their role in the success of the program.  These are the highlights and while there is much more to say about this I want to get to the hard part– sustained execution. Here are a few critical success factors:

1. Ensuring all stakeholders clearly understand their role to make it an incredible hiring experience – this involves recruiters as trusted advisors, leaders as talent champions, and hr/technology partners as critical enablers.

2. A standardized, lean process with clear roles and responsibilities aligned to important value drivers in the hiring experience from planning to onboarding.

3. Reporting, reporting, reporting....enabling a clear line of sight to the experience and hiring outcomes to show the gaps/successes and where possible, show the causal links to ROI -- the sweet spot -- a great candidate and leader experience that delivers diverse, engaged, retained, productive hires with trajectory.   Never forget you want an incredible candidate experience whether you hire the person or not; this is critical to report on as all candidates are customers or potential customers.

4. Rinse, wash, repeat – you need to be dogmatic about ensuring the foundational processes are followed on the highest percentage of the time as you iterate optimized tactics (AI, Referral programs, etc).  You need to be focused on solidifying the foundation as you evolve the TA program.

5. Celebrate all parts of the journey from ideation, design, build, implementation, and sustainment– building a durable, effective program is not easy – everyone has to know how they contribute to its success and you need to celebrate all key milestones.

Like anything in life worth doing it takes hard work, collaboration, grit, and passion to make it happen.  Throw in spices of fun and celebration and the sky’s the limit to what you can achieve!