Talent management puts people and recruitment costs first

Ask a random sample of senior managers in large companies to name their most important asset and, chances are, the majority will unhesitatingly place their people in pole position. They will say, ìWe are nothing without our people.î

But how do they justify their often careless approach to looking after their peopleís careers? Why is it that so many ideally qualified internal candidates are overlooked when it comes to filling important vacancies? Itís not just a case of favouring external people: very often potential internal candidates donít even learn about the opportunities until itís too late.

Take the case of a typical global company with offices in perhaps four continents. What chance do people in Singapore have of finding out about a job opportunity in London? The answer is none at all unless they are told about it officially in advance or hear of it on the corporate grapevine. And if they have to rely on keeping their ear to the ground in order to plan their progress through the company ranks, they will hardly have time to do their jobs properly in the first place.

When good internal candidates are denied access to job opportunities within their own companies they are bound to feel aggrieved, and eventually they will start looking at other companies that have a more enlightened approach to internal communications and career progression.

However, a straw poll of people applying for jobs with large companies would also tell a depressing story. We frequently hear tales of woe: applications lost several times; no acknowledgement of applications and candidate emails; interview times changed repeatedly; delayed interview follow-up or none at all.

The bottom line is there is massive contradiction between the ideal candidate experience and reality. On one hand, company chiefs fall over each other to say how important their people are to them. But on the other, they preside over outdated and under-funded recruitment processes that are damaging their relationships with their own staff and their reputation among quality people in the employment market.

These days, people applying for jobs make important and lasting judgements, both as consumers and potential employees, about companies to which they apply for jobs. If they are treated badly, they will tell anyone who is prepared to listen about their experience. In other words, they have the power to inflict lasting damage to that companyís brand both in the employment and the commercial market.

These judgements are based on the efficiency and courtesy ñ or lack of both -- with which their applications are handled, even if, in the end, they are unsuccessful in winning the job they want. People expect to be treated well and taken seriously, but the degree to which this happens is wholly dependent on the on the standard of companiesí recruitment practices and processes.

I know of one large pharmaceutical company that files all its incoming CVs for vacancies in cardboard boxes strewn all over the floor of its recruitment office. There are literally thousands of current applications for many different posts in these files at any one time. Naturally, they get mixed up. One candidate was advised to apply at least four times for the same job to be sure of her CV getting into the right hands. No doubt this companyís top management are among those who say people are their most important asset.

However, having said this, some companies are beginning to acknowledge this problem and are taking steps to address it. Perhaps the inadequacies of their recruitment systems have been exposed by the downturn in the economy, which has prompted many companies to focus on cost control and redeployment. In many cases they have looked into their recruitment processes and management practices and not liked what they have found.

The most obvious shortcoming is the absence of dedicated technology for a task that demands seamless workflow and database management for it to be successful.

Talent Relationship Management (TRM), as we call it, is a simple idea. Itís the means by which a company keeps in touch with qualified people both within and outside their organisations. It ensures that the company maintains its brand value with these people while at the same time developing a pool of talent which it can access quickly to find the right person for the right vacancy. It saves time, money and reputations.

The problem with recruitment is that people under estimate the importance of process management, which must be robust and scalable, both up and down. Many organisations are still using recruitment methods and processes that were appropriate at the height of the 1990s boom, but are wholly unsuitable now. For example, as soon as a vacancy comes up, they automatically start advertising, dishing out briefs to dozens of recruitment companies and putting details up on their electronic job boards.

But if they stopped and thought for a minute, they would realise that they could almost certainly fill the post through redeployment. Indeed every time companies recruit externally for a post which should have been filled through redeployment, they incur huge costs.

TRM is a continuous process, whereas traditional recruitment is demand driven. BrassRingís approach is to create a technical infrastructure to enable companies to build an ongoing relationship with talented people both inside and outside their organisations and access this talent as recruitment requirements occur. It allows them to take a considered, planned approach to recruitment and gives them the opportunity to focus on building the value of the companyís human capital rather than simply filling vacancies.

Naturally TRM is ideally suited to web-based recruitment and email-based workflow management. Indeed one of the big benefits is the speed with which hiring managers can access the talent pool and start the process via a single email message.

The time for TRM is now. Many large companies are operating their recruitment around inflexible, worn-out manual processes that are costing them significant sums of money and damaging their reputation in the employment market every single day. When the economic recovery comes, they will still be paying a high price and will be unable to meet their managerís demand for new people.

Meanwhile, no doubt, senior management in these companies will still be telling the world that their people are their greatest asset.

By Jeremy Langley, UK Managing Director, BrassRing