The Rottman Group, Inc.       

       Redefining an Industry One Relationship at a Time.

The Human System  Vol. 1, No. 4       

   “The wise man built his house upon the rock. How’s the foundation of your human system?”

Last week we established the model of the People Flow Continuum; how people progress during their life with an organization.  (You can click on “People Flow Continuum” if you missed it.)  The first point of the continuum is recruitment.  Some of you may disagree with me calling recruitment THE FOUNDATION of your human system.  This edition of “The Human System” is to more firmly establish the reasoning for calling recruitment “the foundation”. 

In reflection, remember that the “variable” part of HR is how you best have opportunity to set yourself apart.  Being more specific, recruitment that is understood, strategic, and visionary can be a major competitive advantage.  The opposite is misunderstood, haphazard, and reactionary recruitment.

Why the emphasis?  I believe that recruitment, in most settings, is a stepchild, not a strategic function.  Remember, Cinderella was a stepchild.    Is your paradigm of this function keeping you from seeing the treasure that lies beneath this often overlooked and squandered opportunity?

Though this is a challenging statement, I seriously doubt, as the title of this suggests, that there is anyone leading an HR function today in healthcare that started with a blank canvass and said, “I think the foundation of our human resources initiative should be recruitment.”  Would you ever say this during an interview for a VP of HR position? (One you wanted)  A new CEO comes to your organization, he/she asks you your core view of human resources, you tell him/her, “I believe that recruitment is the foundation.”  Could there be a quicker way to get fired?  Do you see why I feel it is more of a challenge to make you a believer in such a concept?  You aren’t programmed to believe this. 

Wouldn’t it be much more acceptable to call training & development, motivation, or retention foundational initiatives.  Are they yours?  We could easily make a case for these.  They deal with the “who you got”, not the who you’re going to get.  Though these other initiatives are focused on the “who you got,” everyone was in the “who you are going to get” category at one time.  You feel either blessed or stuck with the people you have in your organization; most likely some of both.  Though you are stuck/blessed with the “who you got” today, strategic recruitment is your opportunity to make each piece of the future as good as it can be.  Metamorphosis is not a snap-change thing; it is a perpetual evolution to something else.  Thus, focusing on the “who you get” will change your organization.  You can have people that are resistant to all the training and development or motivation you could ever want to throw at them.  But, you can make choices about the makeup of the people you bring in.

With a shortage of workers in general, but especially the national focus on skill sets like nurses and pharmacists, retention seems like a very acceptable “foundation”.  Recruitment is getting some headlines, but it is reactionary and still wouldn’t be considered the foundation.  I would call what is happening more busy or aggressive recruitment, but not more strategic.

For those who are going to dismiss this recruitment thing and want a taste of the retention fruit, I’m going to satisfy you for a minute. 

• Question: Do you know what your #1 retention strategy should be?   What is yours?  Is it a retention incentive?     Compensation?  Benefits?  Take-your-birthday-off program?  Bring a pet to work day?

What is the #1 reason people stay or leave an organization?  It is the relationship they have with their front line supervisor or manager. 

Answer:  your #1 retention strategy should be your management/leadership recruitment strategy/program.  Was that slick or what?  Pulling you right back to recruitment.  I’m telling you, as much as you don’t want it to be, recruitment IS the foundation.  Now, what is yours built on?

What about selection?  It is the interviewing, testing, referencing process, etc. that makes the decision on who to bring into the organization, right?  Good argument, for a moment.  I believe in quality selection systems, I believe in sophisticated selection systems.   However…you recruit a lousy batch of candidates and you may just select the best of a poor group.  Your chance of a selection error is still high unless you have sourced a superior group of candidates.  That is what we are talking about here, SOURCING.  We need to understand the distinction.  Gathering the group of candidates is different than choosing between them; that is selection.  If you recruit a best group of candidates, your chance of making selection errors goes down significantly.  If you are resource conscious, you don’t have to have as sophisticated a selection process.  As long as we are tracking with that thought, do you think these top groups of sourced individuals come to you with intense training needs?  Are they self-motivated and easier to retain by nature?  Have I made my case yet?

Recruitment is very multifaceted.  I believe there could/should be university level courses taught in it in the school of business or any human resources program.  Instead, it has historically been a stepchild function/department.  We are going to explore many of the different facets and dynamics of recruitment, both in general and also how it applies to healthcare.  My hope is that by the time we finish you will feel as if you have a Masters equivalent in recruitment.

Why the importance?  Every individual in an organization is affected by either quality or sloppy recruiting.  Each manager they have, each staff person they have, each peer is affected by how well the recruitment and selection process is handled.  Reflect on your own experiences.  How much time was taken in the recruitment and selection of your current boss?  Your best and worse?  For your own personal, selfish reasons, how would you want the recruitment and selection system of your boss to be handled? 

Here is your golden nugget bonus of the day:  do it this way for everyone and you just became THE employer of choice.

I mentioned recruitment being very multi-facetted.  What are these many facets?

·         Who does recruiting, is it centralized or decentralized?  Is there dedicated staff for this?

·         Role of an internal recruiter. How do you view the skill set and competencies of a recruiter?  As an administrative type person, an         executive, a consultant, a sales person?  What combination of these?

·         How should recruitment be operationally different for different job families?

·         How should recruitment be operationally different for different levels in the organization?

·         What about this external recruitment world?  Is “professional recruiter” an oxymoron?

·         What about recruiting sources? Which provide value? (value being a function of time, quality and cost)

·         Who is responsible for selection systems and administration of them?

·         What is a written recruitment plan?

·         Does recruiting belong in human resources or the marketing department?

·         What about metrics?  Cost per hire?  What about cost of a bad hire?

These are the things we will explore together in weeks to come, and in more depth.

Again, let me invite your feedback, I would love to hear of your practices, thoughts, etc.  Understand my disclaimer, I speak in normative groups.  There are some of you that do this well.  I would contend it is the exception vs. the rule, but it happens.  Just don’t put yourself there too quickly.

We can all nod our heads in agreement, but it is the actual embracing of new practices that we are talking about.  That takes commitment.

Choose to make yours a great week!

Don Rottman

HR Evangelist

Previous Issues:

• Introduction

• The Everyone Is Above Average Phenomenon

• You Gotta Go With The Flow of the People Flow Continuum