01: Introduction

Nurses Wanted

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As we have learned from our Recruitment and Selection studies, the Canadian demographic makeup is undergoing a significant transformation. We are facing significant increases in the number of people retiring or exiting the workforce as they continue to age. This aging and exiting workforce is leaving behind high numbers of job vacancies, along with a corresponding decrease in the number of skilled and available workers for those jobs. This pattern is evident and highlighted recently in the province of New Brunswick. Provincially, the health care sector will not be able to meet increasing patient needs due to the predicted lack of availability in skilled and talented nurses.

In order to address this issue, the New Brunswick government has put together a provincial ‘Nursing Resource Strategy’. This is a pro-active recruitment plan designed to meet current and future nursing demands. The strategy has four action items which include the targeted recruitment of internationally trained nurses; reducing barriers to work while waiting for provincial nursing registration; permanent employment offers and potential signing bonuses for new nurses committing to work for three years in the province’s rural areas.

Click here to read about New Brunswick’s nursing recruitment strategies.

As the focus of this strategy is to increase the numbers of internationally trained nurses, the plan includes targeted recruitment from countries with nursing education programs that provide ‘similar nursing professional standards, competencies, and credentials’. This approach links directly to the need for accurate job analysis so that there is a precise match between the alignment of job availability, professional requirements, and candidate competencies.

Further, this plan is based on an analysis of demographic information that forecasts both the supply and demand of skilled nurses over a nine-year plan. It may seem that a nine-year time frame is focused far into the future but, the current state of this skilled labour shortage is already at a critical stage and cannot wait for any future delays.

New Brunswick’s ‘Nursing Resource Strategy’ is a plan that has been developed for one particular province to meet its health care sector needs. The plan includes demographic analysis, staffing forecasts, job analysis, professional and competency requirements, action items and a time frame for delivery. In summary, the approach provides us with a template for what an effective recruitment strategy looks like. All that remains is effective implementation.

Discussion Questions:

  1. Identify additional recruitment strategies that could increase the availability of skilled and qualified nurses in New Brunswick.
  2. What types of services or industries are impacted by the lack of skilled nurses provincially?
  3. What types of skill shortages are forecast for your province?
  4. What types of recruitment strategies would you put into place to address these skill shortages?
  5. As a new graduate, would you be willing to relocate to another province or another country if you were given a guarantee of employment in your field? Explain your rationale.

HR Recruits HR

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Wanted: HR Professional with highly developed competencies as an organizational strategist, workplace advocate, and change champion. Must be dedicated to excellence.

Depending on the organization, the role of the Human Resources function can range from transaction based (focused on process), to operational (focused on goal achievement), to strategic (focused on organizational vision and mission). In many cases, all three of these components are required of the Human Resources function at any given time and in any given way in order to meet organizational demands.

How then, does the Human Resources professional recruit and fill a Human Resources vacancy? While this question may have a simple answer (use the same processes that are in place for all recruitment campaigns), there is an additional element of scrutiny that must apply when our profession looks to hire for itself.

A recent article posted on thebalancecareers.com offers some practical advice on the types of questions that HR professionals can use to recruit and hire for other HR professionals.

Click here to read the article.

As noted in the article, the questions suggested for use during an HR interview follow the range of HR competencies through each of the tactical, operational, and strategic requirements. We can also infer, through the types of questions asked, the role that HR plays within the organizational structure.

If the questions focus specifically on tactical, process-related issues it is possible to infer that the organizational need is for a tactical, process-oriented HR professional. Conversely, if the questions focus on organizational strategy, then the need is to fill the position with an individual focused on and experienced in HR strategy.

One HR question that pops out from the list identified in the article is, “What do you enjoy the most”? Hopefully the answer for each of us is linked somehow to the ability to influence the workplace (and its people) in a positive way. If we as HR professionals do not find joy in our work, then we are truly in the wrong profession. We must love what we do in order to do good work.

No matter what the organizational needs are, or how they are defined, the Human Resources professional must be able not only to meet them, but also to anticipate and respond to future demands.

So, in addition to the competencies identified at the beginning of this blog, we should add the talent requirements of flexibility, forecasting, and fun, along with an additional heap of love for HR.

 

Discussion Questions:

  1. How do HR-related interview questions reveal organizational commitment to the human resources function?
  2. Write three interview questions that you would like to be asked as an HR professional.
  3. In your opinion, should HR professionals be recruiting to fill positions for their own profession within an organization? What are the benefits and risks?

The Joy of Talent Management

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For an overview of the importance and impact that recruitment has on any organization, a recent interview with Patty McCord provides both inspiration and motivation.

Click here to read the interview.

Ms. McCord speaks to the very real perception that the recruitment aspect of the Human Resources function can be (and often is) relegated to a ‘workmanlike’ status.  It is, after all, a process-based series of steps that puts a candidate through multiple sets of assessments and events in order to determine whether or not the employer should hire them. If the Human Resources practitioner approaches recruitment from that perspective, it can be perceived as a tedious set of tasks for both the practitioner and the candidate.  The result may be the same, the candidate gets hired or not, but the value and the joy of the process is missed by everyone involved.

Recruitment is only the beginning of the talent management journey. It is, as Ms. McCord notes, the first step to ensuring employee retention is perceived as a mission linked to organizational success. If an organization is committed to being great, then they must hire and retain great people. That gives purpose and passion for every step and every process that the Human Resources practitioner is involved in.

It also makes the decision easier to not have people who are not so great. When a candidate joins an organization, they do so under a specific set of circumstances and understandings which start to change almost immediately. First, their role changes from candidate to employee. For both the employee and the employer, expectations become more clear, duties and responsibilities expand or contract, working relationships develop in both positive and potentially negative ways.

When there is a clear approach to employee development as part of a positive talent management strategy, the employee is able to accept and adapt to these changes in a constructive way. If there is no strategy in place, the employee’s experience is disjointed and, in many cases, unhappiness sets in.  The employer must decide whether or not the retention of unhappy employees is good for the organization. If it is not good, then the right decision is to relieve everyone of their unhappiness and end the employment relationship.

The ending of the employment relationship comes back to the beginning — recruiting with purpose and passion as the mission for organizational success.

Discussion Questions:

  1. Based on your reading of the article, identify three key effects that successful recruitment has on organizational success.
  2. How do organizational values shape or influence the hiring decision?
  3. If you were able to implement some of the suggested staffing strategies, which one would you pick? Explain your rationale.

 

Ebbs and Flows

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What goes up, must come down.

Canadian employment and/or unemployment rates follow the natural patterns of changes to local and national economies. From a recruitment perspective, paying attention to these external barometers takes time and effort. The challenge is to decipher which way the economy is moving, and then to make corresponding Human Resources decisions.

To use some recent examples, in the spring of 2017, Human Resources headlines highlighted a hiring boom due to significant job increases in the Canadian services and manufacturing sectors.

Click here to read the article.

By mid-summer of 2017, headlines were announcing a hiring slowdown and linking it with historically low unemployment rates across the country.

Click here to read an economic perspective on the drop in jobless rates.

From a Human Resources perspective, all of these scenarios provide us with data-based information in order to make strategic plans and decisions that go beyond the need for recruitment. If the industry or sector that we serve is going through a high employment phase, it means that jobs are being created. Employees are being hired and all of that links back to contributing positively to the economic climate. This also means a highly competitive and busy time for the Human Resources recruitment function.

When there is a low employment phase, meaning that there are no new jobs available, this is not always projected as a positive thing because there is no new economic growth. However, we must remember that the push for new jobs created a few months ago resulted in a flooding of the market. Those vacancies were filled, providing stability in employment for individuals and organizations across the country.

While this may mean a slowdown of work for the recruitment side of human resources, it means that the human resources focus shifts to retention and support strategies for those newly hired employees. No matter what happens in the cycle of fluctuating economic and employment patters, the Human Resources function must adapt and flow with the provision of support where and when it is needed most.

We just need to wait and watch for the tides to turn.

Discussion Questions:

  1. Why should Human Resources practitioners concern themselves with employment rates in Canada?
  2. How would you establish a Human Resources department to handle fluctuating recruitment needs?
  3. What industries do you think are impacted the most by changes to the Canadian economy?

Recruiting for a Change

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When newly elected, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, was asked why he selected a cabinet that was equally divided between male and female representatives his (now famous) reply was, “Because it’s 2015.”  If nothing else, this message sent a clear message across national and international borders that constructive change is afoot at the Federal government level in Canada.

 

Moving beyond the year 2015 into 2016, we see that this need for change seems to be expanding into the recruitment and selection of highly valued public service executive positions. In the spring of 2016, the federal government issued a call to independent headhunting agencies, asking them to submit proposals for the recruitment of diverse candidates from outside of the public sector into senior political positions, including those at the Deputy Minister level.

Click here to read the article.

This shows a strategic push for the federal government to reinforce the movement of ongoing change. There is an apparent commitment to look outside of the traditionally closed government system for individuals capable of bringing fresh ideas to leadership positions. As we have learned through our human resources studies, organizational change is successful if it is led from the top of the organization; is supported by the top of the organization; and is visibly present by the actions at the top of the organization.

Having a new style of leadership commitment from the top position in the country (i.e. the office of the Prime Minister) seems to be driving the federal government along the path of continuing change which has started with the leadership recruitment and selection process.

As with any change initiative, there is push-back from within the existing system. The article identifies the ever-present recruitment and selection concern of ‘fit.’ How can external leaders come into a government system and be successful? There are numerous examples of failed attempts by outsiders that seem to outweigh individual success stories. This ‘fit’ problem has nothing to do with professional competencies or individual capabilities. It has everything to do with organizational culture.

The irony here is that the system of federal government these leaders are expecting to change is a system shaped by the culture of resistance to change, the very culture within which the new leaders must try to ‘fit.’ Only time will tell how this leadership initiative plays out.

After all, it is 2016.

Discussion Questions:

  1. How will the recruitment and selection of non-government executives benefit the federal government?
  2. From which sector would you recruit for effective change leaders on behalf of the federal government?
  3. Why do you think successful business executives have ‘bombed’ in federal government roles?