Plan Before you Hire: Think Before You Jump
How important it is to plan the recruitment and selection process? Importance of recruitment planning
Organizational success depends on having the right mix of human resources and that is true. Having the right people in your organization makes your organization efficient and productive. You want to have people that are effective at doing their jobs and who can achieve their targets. Recruitment and selection process enables you to achieve this goal. Top organizations focus a lot on the hiring process. It is because they are not hiring just the talented but they are hiring people who fit in the positions they are hired for. It is important to have the right person in the right seat inside your organization.
In the 21st century having able staff means having a competitive advantage. If you are trying to grow your brand, you know nothing can be achieved without having skilled human resources. In this century, apart from technology the focus is on human resources. HR has become central to efficiency. After all it is the people who are planning, managing, coordinating and executing it for the company. As Anyim, Ekwoaba and Anthony note, “Human resource management is the strategic and coherent approach to the management of an organization’s most valued assets, that is, the people who individually and collectively contributes to the achievement of the objectives of the organization” (Anyim, Ekwoaba and Anthony, 2012). So, when all the stuff depends on the people, you would not like to have the wrong people working for you. It is why plan before you hire. There are several things you would like to consider before you start the hiring process. In this age, you do not want just the people with the right technical skills. You want people with the right attitude who fit with your organization’s culture. Planning is important at every step from recruitment to performance appraisal. However, the game of HR begins from recruitment, it is important to be cautious right at the first step.
Organizations that miss the planning part at the time of recruitment miss the most important thing. Several things will go amiss due to this mistake. It is not just about drafting ads and then expecting the right people to come to you and get themselves hired. First of all you need to focus on your own needs. You are not just hiring, you are going to form a contract. Now, how long or short term this contract is will depend on how positive things are at the initial stage. You must set a positive environment because if you want long term relationships with the best people then all must be welcome right from the beginning. You are planning to hire the best and retain them and not to lose more on hiring costs only because you made some bad hirings. That is what happens when you do not plan before hiring. A few careless hirings can spoil the entire game. Afterwards you would have to worry on performance management, and several other things including retention. One bad hiring means one missed opportunity. You missed to hire the right person and you will need to try again to find him. Unplanned recruitment results in higher attrition rate and higher HR costs. So, one problem gives rise to another and the chain continues. If you are trying to find a strategic fit between the job and the person then you need to formulate a recruitment strategy and act as per it.
It is difficult to find the right person for a job that means so much to you and your organization in the first attempt. So, that does not mean you would start hiring recklessly. Yes, reckless hiring is at the root of most ills. The hit and trial method does not work in case of recruitment. You cannot just try everyone or anyone for a job. A few months later than having hired someone whom you believed had the right skills, you were again worrying where things went wrong because he does not fit with his team or his subordinates and his supervisor. He has excellent record and all the right skills that made him appear the best choice for the advertised position. Did you miss to check the other things? Did you check how good he was with teamwork? His resume said he had worked in high pressure situations, you believed it and thought he will be able to fit well with you and your team. Things turned out to be different and while his skills were good, his nature did not fit well with the organizational culture. He never proved to be the man your organization wanted. He was the man who looked full proof but did not turn out to be. Therefore, HR managers must work from every angle to ensure that there is not a single hole in their strategy.
You are planning to have a synergy between your recruitment efforts and your business goals. So, you must not miss on recruitment planning. The contribution of every employee to the achievement of your business goals is important. It is even important to ascertain that all of them are able to utilize their caliber and contribute. Now, if you do not miss these key things, you will not have to invest more in performance planning. There is no ready-made solution for this problem. All HR managers have to do their homework before making a final suitable choice at the time of interview. So much depends on the choice they make. You already know how big a burden HR costs are and are actively trying to minimize them. Plus you are trying to develop a coherent team and one single anomaly can spoil your plan. So, when you hire, you also have to evaluate people from this angle. There is also another important reason that you must plan before you hire. It is always good to think before you jump. You want to see your people happy and satisfied with their jobs. For this purpose too you have to ensure that you are hiring mindfully. People who do not fit with their positions or the organizational culture are bound to remain less satisfied with their jobs. This will again increase the churn rate. Moreover, if you are planning your recruitment efforts then it will also help you plan and synchronize your other efforts and HR policies. It will increase your effectiveness across the HR spectrum and will help you create a better impact. However good your performance appraisal methods are, they would not work with the wrong people. If you have the right people, your policies and efforts both will generate the desired results. So, planning your recruitment is the appropriate investment if you plan to achieve your business goals faster.
Sources: https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/8211/4c75c130f8b6ebf4bf2d281efc776e7f7d61.pdf