Manage Hiring Needs with This Simple 6-Step Process

When you have a strong process to manage hiring needs, you can quickly find and fill talent gaps, avoid over hiring, and keep your team appropriately staffed and supported. If you don’t have a strong process, it will be difficult to identify needs and meet changing human resource demands.

That is why you need a strong and simple process for managing hiring needs.

At the heart of any successful project within an organization is a simple process that has been well thought out, documented, sponsored by executives, vetted by leaders, and communicated to all relevant stakeholders multiple times.

Having a strong process for managing hiring needs is imperative to the success and health of organizations. So, how can you create a simple process to manage your hiring needs?

Start with a Strong Process Framework

An effective framework is at the core of every successful process. I recommend using business process modeling as a framework. Business process modeling is an effective tool as it captures interrelationships between people, processes, activities, and systems.

The benefits of using business process modeling are that it:

• Starts with your current state (including gaps) then builds processes to determine future states
• Breaks down complex processes and provides the ability to analyze and identify process improvement and efficiencies
• Helps identify areas of the business that are not broadly understood
• Makes it easier to develop learning material to help transition from current to future processes

This model is valuable when implementing new systems and technologies as it documents ownership, accountability, and responsibility both internally and externally to stakeholders.

Business process modeling is one model, however many other alternatives frameworks can be used. At the core of design is simplicity, ease-of-use, and the perspective of the end-user. Depending on your organizational objectives and content, other approaches may be used in conjunction with a business process model. Examples include design thinking, six sigma, and lean. None are magic, but all help your team organize their thoughts and create a plan.

Related: How to Develop a Modern Talent Acquisition Mindset

Factor in HR Considerations

Once you have a strong process framework, you need to add in elements that are unique to hiring. Consider how you need to approach the process to make it work for your specific hiring needs.

For a hiring process to work, it must:

• Have leader and employee engagement in the design, communication, and execution
• Deliver value both internal and externally
• Have clear ownership and accountability of roles and responsibilities
• Align with corporate values and strategy
• Have clear measures to determine if the project was successful
• Have an improvement and sustainment plan

Use This 6-Step Process To Manage Hiring Needs

Now that you know how to design a strong process and incorporate the needs that are unique to hiring, you can follow this six-step process to create a plan to manage hiring needs.

#1) Identify organization goals and priorities.

Articulating a clear, distinct message that is easily understood and communicated across the organization plays a critical role in the execution and success of the goals and priorities. HR supports those goals and challenges the status quo when it comes to managing the necessary human capital for the organization.

Define organizational goals and priorities. Here is an example of determining goals and priorities for talent acquisition.

Goal

• Recruit key positions to meet current ratios for safety and client satisfaction

Priorities

• Develop a marketing strategy to attract candidates
• Develop a recruitment plan for key positions
• Build a robust orientation plan for critical positions
• Communicate plan to all stakeholders

#2) Obtain input from organization leaders.

Size plays a factor in organization communication and hierarchy (siloed vs. integrated). Leaders across the organization set goals and prioritize what metrics and targets need to be achieved.

For example, organization leaders determine:

• Appropriate staffing levels
• Where there are gaps
• What can shift to ensure staffing levels are adequate

Obtain input from the leaders in your organization. Only when priorities have been established can processes can be mapped out and measured.

#3) Recognize organization challenges and drivers, and identify gaps.

Not all industries are the same. Take the time to understand the nuances of your organization. While some businesses may be similar, there are significant challenges that may be unique to each business.

Before undertaking new objectives and goals, identity gaps to understand where the organization is at in terms of processes and projects. For example, external recruitment could be an option, however developing a robust learning program to develop capabilities to promote or transfer employees into critical positions could be another alternative.

Know where you are before you decide where you need to go.

#4) Define talent acquisition goals and objectives.

Objectives should be aligned with the goals that have been clearly defined. Documenting current processes, gaps, and challenges help provide a framework for building for the future. For talent acquisition, identify what you want to measure to move the goals and priorities forward.

Examples of goals may relate to:

• Time to hire
• Retention of new hires
• Employee experience
• Hiring manager and candidate satisfaction with process
• Critical vs. non-critical position fill-rate
• The cost to fill positions
• Perception of employer brand

Develop a plan for who, where, what, and how the team will engage in the recruitment process. HRMS systems can be extremely helpful in capturing these metrics to track if the team is meeting the mark.

#5) Verify information and set success metrics.

After completing the analysis, verify information from all stakeholders. Begin the task of refining or building processes. If time-to-hire or cost-to-fill is a success metric and currently not being utilized, design a process on how to capture the data.

• Does your organization have an ATS (applicant tracking system)?
• If so, are you utilizing the business intelligence function to capture the data?
• Are you running the reports and taking action based on analytics?
• What are you doing with the data?

Effective measurement is vital to determining whether recruitment objectives have been achieved. If evaluation is not completed, organizations cannot learn  from their past  and design better talent acquisition processes going forward.

#6) Include a feedback loop to allow you to adjust as required.

As mentioned earlier, involvement of stakeholders in the goal creation and process development helps with higher adoption of new programs and processes.

Ensure finalized designs are vetted by the end-user and approved by leaders for successful execution. Only then should the process be implemented into systems. For sustainability, ensure there is opportunity to refine and adjust as required. The biggest barrier of system adoption is when HR implements without stakeholder input and or listening to feedback.

Manage Hiring Needs with More Clarity and Buy-in

I used to get asked all the time, “Why are employees and leaders not following the hiring process?”

My response was always, “Did you involve the business in the design? Did you check to see if it met their needs?” If the answer was no, it usually was either not adopted or ultimately missed the mark on some needs.

You can avoid these types of questions and issues when it comes to your hiring process if you take these steps to create a strong, simple process to manage your hiring needs.

This post is a part of our new series on Developing a Modern Talent Acquisition Process. Stay tuned for posts on developing an employer brand, improving the application process, streamlining hiring, and more.