Andy Dolby from Write Research challenges our notions of the Standard Model of Recruitment in his key note session at our Building Capability Conference 2012
6. ‘...we need to guard against a new HR orthodoxy: the
popularity of the three legged stool model (Ulrich)
meaning we pay too little attention to an
organisation’s unique context and business strategy
when designing the HR function.
Rather than focus on structure, our Next Generation
HR work suggests a number of design principles to
help create an HR function which is insight-driven. ‘
Warning
Not to be taken too literally
7. The ‘Ulrich’ From ‘doing’ to ‘delivering’
3-box model - Strategy execution
- Administrative efficiency
- Employee contribution
- Capacity for change
Centres Of Expertise HR Business Partners
Learning & Development
Employee Relations
Reward (C&B) Shared Service Centre
Talent
8. Does recruitment fit within the 3-box
model….
…and if so, where
…and if not, what is the optimum
solution to replace it?
9. Developing a Standard Model of….??
A) Recruitment
B) Talent Acquisition
C) Resourcing
D) Staffing
E) Other
10. Structure
Our HR model can best be described as…
A) Pure 3-Box applied globally
B) 3-Box with local variations
C) Adapted version of 3-Box
D) Totally different HR structure
11. Structure
Currently ‘recruitment’ sits…
A) As an independent function outside a 3-Box HR
B) As a ‘Centre of Expertise’ within a 3-Box HR
C) Within ‘Shared Service Centre’ in a 3-Box HR
D) Hybrid across, ‘C of E’ and ‘SSC’ in a 3-Box HR
E) As a separate function/team in a non-3-Box HR
12. Structure
If you ran the company, ‘recruitment’ would
be…..
A) A centralised function totally separate from HR
B) A specialist function devolved to business units
C) A ‘Centre of Expertise’ within HR
D) A ‘Shared Service Centre’ function
E) Part of an integrated ‘Talent’ function
13. Strategy
If you were setting strategy, ‘recruitment’
would be…..
A) A global operating model deployed consistently
B) A global model with minor local variations
C) A ‘framework’ with flexibility to meet local needs
D) Managed independently to reflect local conditions
14. Responsibilities
The strategic objective of a ‘recruitment’
function should be to…
A) Attract, engage and hire people
B) Identify and acquire ‘better’ people
C) Appoint ‘transformational’ people
D) Contribute to organisational effectiveness
15. Responsibilities
To become a true strategic partner to the
business, ‘recruitment’ needs to…
A) Improve delivery effectiveness and cost efficiency
B) Focus more on building proactive talent pipelines
C) Gain a deeper insight and understanding of the
external talent market
D) Develop an effective workforce planning process
16. Scope
The ‘recruitment’ function should be
responsible for…
A) Permanent external recruitment only
B) Permanent and temporary external recruitment
C) Permanent, temporary and Interim recruitment
D) Permanent, temporary, Interim and Contractor
recruitment
E) All forms of external hiring and internal
recruitment/mobility
17. Scope
The majority of Executive appointments are
best managed by…
A) Senior Directors directly with Exec Search firms
B) Generalist Recruiters with Exec Search firms
C) Generalist Recruiters
D) Specialist internal Exec Recruiters & Researchers
E) Internal Exec Recruiters & external Researchers
18. Roles
The interface with the business is best
managed by…
A) HRBPs as part of their wider remit
B) ‘Talent’ Business Partners
C) Specialist ‘Recruitment’ Business Partners
D) Recruiters without need for BP intermediary
E) Other
19. Roles
The transactional element of recruitment
process management is best delivered by….
A) Generalist HR administrators in a Shared Service
Centre
B) Recruitment specialists in a Shared Service Centre
C) Combined Recruiter/Co-ordinator team
D) Outsourced to 3rd party
20. Technology
From a technology perspective, recruitment is
best supported by…
A) Recruitment module within an enterprise HRIS
B) Specialist ‘standalone’ ATS
C) Portfolio of niche software solutions
(ATS/CRM/Social media/Brand/web analytics)
D) Integrated Talent Management platform
21. Partners
Talent attraction activities (advertising, digital
marketing, brand mgt, social media etc) is best
undertaken by…
A) Integrated recruitment marketing agencies
B) Specialist providers of individual elements
C) Internal functions
D) Corporate marketing/comms agencies
22. Partners
Candidate sourcing and market mapping is
best delivered by…
A) Specialist internal teams of scouts/sourcers
B) External specialists on an outsourced basis
C) Hybrid model of internal and external capability
D) Part of generalist Recruiter’s responsibilities
23. Partners
Recruitment agencies will be responsible for
the following % of permanent hires
A) 0-5%
B) 6-15%
C) 16-25%
D) 26-50%
E) 51%+
24. Existing Insight
Best-in-Class Metrics
- 91% of hires retained beyond year one
- 86% of key positions filled internally
- 23% year-on-year improvement in hiring manager satisfaction
Best-in-Class Common Characteristics
- Validated data linking talent acquisition initiatives to organisational profitability
- Use of social media to engage candidates and build communities of talent
- Measuring Quality of Hire based on organisational fit and performance
- Integration of talent acquisition practices with performance management
Best-in-Class Action Points
- Strengthen employer branding initiatives and improve candidate experience
- Identify critical roles and concentrate on delivering quality hires
- Measuring Quality of Hire based on organisational fit and performance
- Invest in innovative technology (social media/CRM/video)
Aberdeen Group. Strategic Talent Acquisition, Are you prepared to hire the best?
25. Next Steps
Outputs from today will be compiled into a single graphic model
Launch of the Strategic Talent Acquisition Report 2012 (STAR 2012)
Workshops and forums through The FIRM to continue the debate
26. …and the powerful force that holds the standard model together is....
…insight symmetry
Notes de l'éditeur
Well thank you very much and welcome to what I believe is commonly known at conferences as the ‘graveyard slot’. Not sure I entirely know what that means but I was told to expect that 1/3 of the audience would probably be snoozing after a fine lunch and one chicken Goujon too many, 1/3 would be preoccupied having picked up messages from highly distressed colleagues describing the latest ‘hiring manager interview faux pas’ and the remaining 1/3 will be texting or tweeting their team to call them with an imaginary hiring manager faux pas so that they have an excuse for not sitting through the first session after lunch.I was also given very clear instructions ‘not to sell’ in my speech. ‘Members of the FIRM don’t like people using their conferences as a sales pitch’ I was told. And not wanting to experience the Recruitment equivalent of the Arab Spring with 120 talent acquisition professionals rising as one to overthrow my brief moment as the centre of attention, I decided to try something different.So the next 45 minutes is hopefully going to be an interactive energising experiment in the conference equivalent of crowd sourcing…but more of that and explanation as to why you have voting pads on your chair later.
So a quick introduction..and forgive me for briefly talking about Write Research as it allows me to place the session this afternoon in context.I am Andy Dolby, I’ve had nearly 25 years in recruitment during which time I’ve had the opportunity to work with some great clients across a wide range of sectors…. some of whom are here today…hi! Supportive smiles and nods of encouragement are greatly appreciated. Thanks.I’m here today as the COO of WRC – A talent acquisition, research and insight consultancy. Again I’m delighted to see a number of existing clients in the audience.For those not familiar with the activities undertaken by a talent acquisition, research and insight consultancy…I like to think of us as the Secret Talent Intelligence Service…the MI6 of the recruitment world if you will…and don’t worry…having spent a number of years working with 2 of the 3 British Intelligence Agencies I’m fairly confident that I’ve still got the security clearance to say that…hope so anyway…sure I’ll find out pretty soon if I don’t.So essentially we create a window onto the outside world so that our clients can be better informed about external talent markets, competitor organisations and the transformational people who will help them solve critical hiring requirements.
One of the key areas where we support organisations is in the collation and interpretation of talent intelligence, or ‘business’ intelligence as it is sometimes called. Over the last 18-24 months we have noted a dramatic increase in the number of organisations interested in gathering a clearer picture of competitor activities around the HR and talent agenda. Initially, these exercises reflected the typical subjects…brand audits….salary and reward surveys…analysis of competitor talent acquisition strategies. Very quickly it became clear that that a more fundamental review of best practice was happening. At first this moved beyond talent acquisition strategies to examine wider talent management & development schemes, and specific initiatives such as global mobility programmes. In particular we were being asked to assess how effective were organisations being in knitting these initiatives together into a holistic approach to engaging, developing and retaining talent, More recently this has further evolved into something closer to an organisational design review, with greater emphasis being placed on understanding evolving structures and the division of roles of responsibilities within HR and Resourcing - in what appears to be a clear quest to visualise the resourcing model that will deliver the optimal improvement in organisational effectiveness.
So this got us intrigued…and when we’re intrigued, we typically don’t stop until we get some answers.Now at a basic human level, we’re told by the ‘very handsome Professor Brian Cox’ that we’re all driven to find answers to fundamental questions. If we were physicists, we would spend around £2.6bn building a 27km tunnel under Switzerland, accelerate some particles up to the speed of light, stand well back and see what happens, and from what I understand, what happens is that some particles and stuff briefly peep into existence. Now, I’ve got to be honest, we did initially want to build the recruitment alternative of the Large Hadron Collider. Our plan was to get all the delegates to vote for the 2 recruitment agency consultants who are the most persistent in haranguing you to consider speculate CVs from inappropriate candidates – which of course they send directly to the hiring manager anyway even though you told them not to. We would then place said consultants into our Large Irritant Collider, accelerate them up to the speed of light, stand back and see whether any top quality candidates could be briefly seen flashing into existence. Unfortunately we were informed by the venue that there were a) some health and safety issues and b) quality candidates from recruitment agencies were probably more elusive than the Boson Higgs so we were wasting our time. Boom Boom.
On a more serious note…as that was supposed to be a joke…the standard model…of life, the universe and everything…as proposed primarily by the work of Physicist's Glashow, Salam, and Weinberg through the 1960s and 70s is a way of making seemingly complex matters simple enough for everybody to understand. I’m sure we all have our favourite elementary particles. Personally I’m a big fan of the tau neutrino – although I have friends who say the photon lights up their world…that’s a special little joke for the particle physicists among you.But back to the point.What seemed to be developing was a quest for a ‘Standard Model’ that could be applied to recruitment.
Now before we go on, can I start by issuing a massive ‘warning’. ‘Don’t take this too literally.’As a ‘consultancy’ that specialises in gaining insight to develop unique solutions that deliver a competitive edge we do find the concept of a singular approach somewhat counter intuitive. In fact we’re in total support of the CIPD view, as stated in their HRBP Fact sheet which basically says, ‘models’ can be dangerous and it’s much better to gain insight into the unique challenges of an organisation, and create a bespoke strategy that delivers the required solution, rather than systematically adhering to a conceptual one-size-fits-all model.But the great thing about a model is that it gives you a common reference point and somewhere to start from. And our overriding sense is that at the moment, as inhouse recruitment managers we need to get some commonality into our lives.
So let’s bring this a bit closer to home, and have a look at the so called ‘Ulrich’ 3-box model for HR – which for a period at the start of this century became the Target Operating Model for best practice in HR. An interesting aside, which I’m sure many of you know, Dave himself never put forward the idea of the 3-box or 3-legged stool. Much like another favourite ‘the employer brand’ the original provenance of the idea is clouded in mystery. Dave’s seminal paper Human Resource Champions: The Next Agenda for Adding Value and delivering Results first published in 1997, actually focusses on the changing role of HR and the need for HR professionals to move from ‘doing’ to ‘delivering’ and then develops the idea of 4 areas of deliverables for HR – strategy execution, administrative efficiency, employee contribution and capacity for change. This is something we’ll come back to but for now, let’s look at the accepted ‘best practice’ the ‘3-box model’.Now again, as most of you know, the model proposes a division of tasks, with HR Business Partners, aligned to the operating management structure of the organisation to contribute to the development of the wider business strategy and to formulate a ‘people plan’ that will optimise organisational effectiveness.Next there are ‘centres of expertise’ that provide in-depth technical support in the development of specialist solutions, to be delivered at an operational level within the parameters as specified by the HRBPs.Finally, we have the Shared Service Centre, which if we’re honest, nearly always get’s described as ‘all the other transactional stuff that we don’t really want to do – so let’s either hide it in shed somewhere else – or even better let’s outsource it so it becomes a problem for somebody else.Now, it is widely acknowledged, not least by Dave himself, that there are some pretty big issues with the 3-box model and there’s a couple of great papers by the Centre for Performance-Led HR and another by the Henley Business school from a couple of years ago that are very illuminating in highlighting the shortcomings of the model.But as I say, today we’re looking for a common starting point. And the 3-box model is as good as any.
So our collaborative mission today is to answer the question ‘does recruitment fit within the 3-box model..and if so where..and if not, what is the optimum solution to replace it?’ No pressure then.Now to do this we need to get interactive.So let’s pause and take a moment to have a look at the voting pads that you found on your chairs as you arrived, and let’s revisit the concept of crowdsourcing as a means of gaining insight.
We’re gong to start with a quick test to make sure the technology is working.In fact, it’s actually more than a test. This is one of my real soap box issues which for me is very very indicative of us as a profession.I’ve called this session ‘The Standard Model of Recruitment’ and I’ve called it recruitment really out of respect to Emma and Gary – and the Forum of In-House ‘Recruiters’. But in reality, if we glance down the job titles of today’s list of delegates, we’ll see the words ‘recruitment’, ‘talent acquisition’, ‘resourcing’, ‘staffing’ etc used interchangeably to describe roles that are in reality broadly similar in scope and responsibility. If we’re going to have a model, let’s at least agree what we’re going to call it!So my test and my first question is.. A standard model of what?