Recruitment & Selection Process

How to Get Employees to Stay

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Employee retention keeps many HR professionals up at night. You can just hear the echoing murmurs throughout HR conference rooms across the country as turnover rates go up in this tight labour market. Many of them ponder these thoughts:

  • How do you keep employees from leaving?
  • What will make them stay?
  • Retention is the key, someone will always say

However, is retention really the key? Perhaps our language around employee turnover is wrong. Let us look at the definition of the word retention:

“The continued possession, use, or control of something.”

Now, let’s put that in the HR context and the perspective of building a relationship with the employee:

  • the continued possession of employees
  • the use of employees
  • the control of employees.

It makes one ponder how employees interpret the meaning of retention. Would you want to be retained by your employer, let alone be considered a controlled possession?

Is retention the key? Or perhaps it’s time to move our language forward.

MEC, an outdoor supply retailer, has always been an innovative company right from its foundational roots of being a cooperative.  MEC applies a forward thinking concept of employee retention. Here is a quote from Nahal Yousefian, chief people experience officer at MEC:

“The philosophy we’re taking here at MEC is that the approach to talent retention is already outdated.”

What does she mean talent retention is outdated?  What is MEC replacing it with? MEC is replacing the controlling concept of retention with the concept that the employees’ talent should be generated and that will create an environment where employees will want to stay.  This seems to make complete intuitive sense.

There are also surveys that support this concept transition; here are some current statistics about retention according to a Hays study:

  • 43% of employees are actively looking for other career opportunities and
  • 71% of employees are willing to take a pay cut for their ideal role

In addition, LinkedIn has discovered that 93% of employees would opt to stay in their role if their employer invested in their careers.

Think about these numbers for a minute: Almost 100% of employees will stay if the employer will develop them, and almost 75% are willing to take a pay cut to leave their current employment.

It may be time for HR professionals to put the controlling language of employee retention to bed and truly be a workplace where employees want to stay. All it may take is a true relationship-building commitment of employee development.

Discussion Questions

  • Research several organization that have low turnover rates.  Once that list is generated, identify what are the factors that may influence their success.
  • Identify what are the most beneficial training and development activities employers can implement to create an environment where employees want to stay employed

Mass Hiring Made Easy?

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In our recruitment and selection studies, we focus on the importance of ensuring that all of the processes we use as HR professionals follow a consistent and well-planned approach to individual hires.

We spend a lot of time, both in theory and in practice, making sure that we use the right approach to select the right person for the right job. The question arises, how does this approach support mass hiring as a recruitment project?

Mass hiring takes place when an organization has to recruit and select numerous candidates for multiple jobs within a very short time frame. This differs from the concepts linked to individual selection processes. Typically, the scope of a mass hiring recruitment plan is based on filling as many positions as quickly as possible with the most likely candidates who fit a broad set of job-related requirements. Call it a bulk, volume, or mass recruitment project, the basic elements of sound human resources practices must still be in place in order to make solid hiring decisions as the end result.

As the time-to-fill-rate for a mass hiring process is critical, the use of technology based tools provide for the elimination of time wasting steps which bring little value to an overall bulk recruitment strategy.  This includes the use of mobile texting to make the application process simpler and faster. The Canadian Home Depot retail chain has recently implemented a ‘Text-to-Apply’ process in order to fill thousands of possible vacancies across the country.

Click on the link to read about Home Depot’s mass hiring process.

As noted in the article, while Home Depot has implemented easy steps for potential candidates to apply, they continue to maintain a standard set of requirements for all applicants.  In order to be considered, candidates must meet at least two fundamental business needs which include the delivery of ‘excellent customer experience’ in a ‘values driven team’ environment.  These business needs are articulated on the company’s website, which also gives us another example of a technology-based tool that is used for effective recruitment practices.

  Click on the link to peruse the Home Depot Careers website.

Mass hiring and open-forum recruitment processes, as implemented by organizations like Home Depot, do not necessarily mean a reduction in the quality of candidate requirements. In fact, these processes appear to require an increase in the quality and quantity of effective human resource management in order to ensure that recruitment and selection is clearly aligned with organizational strategy.

Discussion Questions:

  1. Identify three potential risks and benefits of using a ‘Text-to-Apply’ process as part of a mass hiring recruitment campaign.
  2. From a Human Resources perspective, what steps or processes would you put into place that assess a candidate’s ability to fit the business needs identified by Home Depot?
  3. What does the Home Depot – Careers website tell you about its culture and work environment?

Talent Shortage or Recruitment Skills Shortage?

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What does your company value more? The potential employee or the recruiting process? All organizations should ask themselves that question? Is there a talent shortage in Canada and the USA? Well, based on the following North America headlines one would definitely think so.

If these headlines are accurate, employers should be raising the alarms and screaming at governments, educational institutions, and HR departments to do something — anything!

However, according to Liz Ryan, CEO/founder of Human Workplace, and author of Reinvention Roadmap, the headlines are all wrong. Her opinion is that there is no talent shortage. Rather, it’s organizations that lack effective recruitment skills.

Click here to watch a short video on the five mistakes organizations make when recruiting.

Could the recruiting process itself be the problem, rather than a lack of suitable employees? Most HR departments pride themselves on their sophisticated recruiting systems. They have often created complex processes, which may include online applications, impersonal advertising, tedious screening tests, and uninspired interviews. HR carries out these screening activities for two reasons: to be duly diligent, and because they believe good systems will hire the best candidates. But, could these HR processes in fact be barriers to finding and hiring the best candidate? Perhaps in some cases the reason the best candidate wasn’t found is because he or she chose not to apply.

HR needs to start treating potential employees like customers, marketing to them, and treating them with respect. Companies need to be convey to prospective employees the message that, “we value you, not our recruiting processes.”

 

Discussion Questions:

  1. Think about the last time you applied for a job and you went for an interview. How was the process? What did you like about the process? What did you dislike about it?
  2. If you were an HR consultant called in to assess the company’s recruitment process, what recommendations would you make?

The Other Side of the Coin: The Rules of a Resignation

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Wrongful Resignation is a term you do not hear very often in the world of HR.

All provincial Employment Standards Acts (ESAs) make it a requirement for employers to give an employee proper notice, or pay in lieu of notice, upon termination. However, there is no requirement under ESA laws for the employee to give proper notice to their employer.

However, the absence of any such legal obligation does not mean employees are able just to quit and walk out.

A common law employment concept exists which functions as the opposite side of the wrongful termination coin — wrongful resignation. The notion of wrongful resignation serves to remind HR practitioners that there are two parties in the employment relationship; the employee and the employer. Yes, the laws place significantly more obligations on the employer, but this does not give the employee carte blanche to disregard the contractual relationship.

Click here to read about a case in which the Canadian courts upheld an employer’s wrongful resignation claim, awarding the employer $35,000 in damages.

When a contract of employment is brought to an end by an employee, they must treat their employer fairly by taking into account the impact the resignation is likely to have. Here is a list of some considerations an employee should consider prior to resigning:

  • How long have they worked there?
  • How specialized is the job or work?
  • How easily can the employer find a new replacement employee?

Wrongful resignation suits are not currently the norm, but they may become more common as employers seek to ensure that their rights are protected when key employees choose to leave, especially if those employees are recruited by an executive recruiter, or directly by a competitor.

 

Discussion Questions:

List several proactive steps an employer could take to prevent having employees resign wrongfully.

Your VP of HR has asked you to create an employment contract. Create a list of items you would include in that contract.

Hiring Today and into the Future

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A Chief HR Officer I knew very well told me, “Once upon a time we used to use shovels to dig a trench because the shovel was the most efficient technology we had at the time; now we use a back hoe because it is available and more efficient.” The traditional process of collecting and screening resumes can be like using a shovel. The question is, has the time come to drop the shovel, and to start being more efficient by using the new technology that is available? In the world of HR, artificial Intelligence (AI) might just be the technological equivalent of the back hoe.

Click here to read Somen Mondal, ideas on AI and hiring process.

Where is the trend of using AI for hiring going? Who is using AI? What are its successes?

The adoption of AI technology is increasing, with many larger companies experiencing success as they use it in their hiring processes. Unilever is an excellent example. Their new process allows for the following:

  • Greater self-selection by applicant
  • Faster decision making
  • Deeper levels of applicant engagement

Click here to watch a short video on Unilever’s hiring process.

Unilever’s hiring process has become more efficient by using AI to screen and rate candidates from video interviews. Their hiring numbers speak for themselves. Unilever has reduced the hiring process cycle time from 4 months to just 2 weeks. It no longer participates in expensive on-campus tours to generate its recruitment pool; it does it all online, making decisions based on algorithms.

AI for hiring is a trend that is not going to slow down. It is the wave of the future in HR recruitment. Therefore, HR professionals should begin to assess, implement, and evaluate AI hiring systems that will work for their own organizations.

Discussion Questions:

Your VP of HR is aware of Unilever’s success in using AI for hiring. She would like you to create a 5-minute presentation reviewing three other organizations that are using AI as part of their hiring process.

What do you think is the greatest benefit of using AI as a hiring technology? What do you think is the greatest drawback of using AI, or an applicant tracking system, as part of your recruitment strategy?