Believe it or not the year 2020 is less than six months away and this is the time organisations need to review their plans for next year. Many organisations have gone through the motion at the beginning of the year (or maybe three or four years ago) to plan for 2020. It is however time to review those plans. Are those plans still relevant in line with the technology that is currently available? Are they still relevant to what is happening in government and in your environment?
Whether it is for expansion, whether it is for recruitment, whether it is for innovation, review, review and review again.
Today we’re going to be following on from the last article and we will be looking at recruitment, the second portion of your recruitment strategy. Why should we take a good recruitment process so seriously?
We must take it seriously because a good recruitment process minimizes the time involved in the searching, interviewing, hiring and training. It can streamline these processes and make the search for viable candidates much more efficient. Also recruitment has a cost implication when it is not done right the first time. When done right the first time, it saves the organisation not just money, but also saves you making a cultural fit mistake, saves you having a bad egg in the pack or having foxes in the hen house.
The price for hiring the wrong person into a wrong role is more than the cost of the recruitment consultant or the cost of the time of your human resource personnel. It includes the cost of on-boarding, the cost of work tools assigned to new employee, (that may be damaged in the process) and the cost of doing it all over again.
Also a non-monetary cost includes damage done to the morale of other employees and damage done to the work which may in some cases be irreparable. All these can be a high cost.
Therefore you have to be sure you have right candidate. Besides looking for industry knowledge (if this is important), we should be looking for at least the following but not limited to:
* Good Communication skills
* Positive attitude
* Cooperation/Teamwork
* Goal-Oriented
* Flexibility
* Dependability
* Integrity
* Creativity
* Long Term Potential
* Enthusiasm and Passion
* Putting Skills to Action
* Ambition
* Responsiveness.
When all the interviews have been conducted, the successful candidate has been identified and all the reports have been written, the successful candidate has to be taken through the job description again before the letter of offer is drawn up. The contents of the offer can be discussed at this point just so that a letter that will be rejected is written.
Some organisations will do this at the point of giving the letter of offer and some people don’t even bother to have this crucial discussion. They just send the letter of offer and job description. The consequence is either a rejection, after a lot of work and man-hours of senior people have been wasted or an acceptance without the candidate fully understanding the role. This will always end in disaster.
Once the organisation and candidate are sure they want each other a letter of offer is given.
This is a formal written document sent by an employer to the selected job candidate and it is important that both the employee and the employer are clear as to the conditions of employment.
Once the candidate has formally accepted the offer, the organisation should prepare to receive the new employee. The best policy is to have everything the new employee needs ready for them on the first day.
On-boarding is the action or process of integrating a new employee into an organisation. Apparently the word was coined in the 1970s and is also known as organisational socialization. It’s the mechanism through which new employees acquire the necessary knowledge, skills, and behavior in order to become effective members of an organisation.
This process means you have prepared the staff to meet the new employee. You should have prepared information for them regarding the history, culture, goals values etc. of the organisation. You may have different people at different levels interact with the new employee. You give them any work tools and familiarise them with the organisation’s rules on how to use various company assets. You take them through any policies and procedures that pertains to them and that will ensure they deliver to the best of their abilities.
Depending on the organisation, this may take a week or three months. This just depends on what has become your culture. Please don’t underestimate this process. It increases employee engagement and helps get them up to speed with seasoned hires much more quickly. The process benefits new hires, old hires, and company leaders alike.
Orientation is just a step in the on-boarding process. They are not to be confused with each other. On-boarding is an ongoing process of building engagement from the first contact until the employee becomes established within the organization.
Usually the recruitment process ends with the employee’s first appraisal session in the organisation. This is usually a confirmation appraisal that should be at least six months after the start date. We will be talking about appraisals in a few weeks. I however want to state here that appraisal time is not the time when you tell an employee what they have been doing wrong.
A confirmation appraisal may not necessarily end with the employee being confirmed. I would like to sound a note of warning here that if for any reason the new employee is not suitable don’t just pass them through the mill and end up living with them warts and all. The confirmation appraisal may end in the recruitment process being terminated or the confirmation period being extended or the employee being confirmed thereby bringing to an end the recruitment process for that position.
Like I said before 2020 is in less than six months away. What are your plans especially for your employees?
Olamide Balogun
