Crafting a Lean IT Hiring Strategy
The war for talent has created the demand for a shift in the staffing and recruitment industry. Traditional third-party processes are no longer working. They are seen as time-consuming, ineffective and expensive in comparison to other service industries. Manufacturers have long known the value of lean practices—and more companies are discovering that the same principles pay off in the recruitment process.
What are the fundamentals of lean manufacturing?
- Identifying value-creating activities
- Eliminating waste
- Focusing on continuous improvement
The end result is to create efficiency and also data that you can deliver to clients. It will also show you where you can make improvements as you go.
Sure, many HR departments have incorporated some type of performance measurement. Typical metrics are cost of hire, numbers hired and trained, ratios of HR staff to employees and HR budget benchmarks. But the focus of these metrics is the cost, not the value-adding results.
So what does waste look like in HR? Look at your practices and identify:
- Redundancies
- Extra processing steps
- Multiple approval levels
- Misaligned human talent and skills.
For example, consider your cycle time between posting a job, recruiting, selecting, and finally having an employee on board and adding value to the organization. This process probably contains unnecessary complexities, redundancies, and extra steps that are not value-added. Ask yourself:
- What documentation is required to complete a job requisition?
- How many approvals are needed before the job is posted?
- Are managers selecting candidates for interviewing via e-mail?
- Are candidates fronting travel expenses and requiring reimbursement?
- Are new hire materials collected manually or electronically?
These are prime areas of wasteful activities in your HR process that can use some streamlining.
As for misalignment of, or inadequate use of, human talent or employee skills, are you wasting your employees’ talents and abilities? Do your specialists (recruiters, talent managers, etc.) spend their time handling tasks such as filling out job requisitions, scheduling and conducting interviews, and processing candidate reimbursements? Wouldn’t those employees bring more value to the organization by spending their time on activities such as workforce planning and identifying high-quality hires, which would reduce another type of waste—employee turnover?
The ultimate goal of any lean enterprise is to create a culture that is continuously working to eliminate waste in processes, deliver high-quality products or services, and effectively align skills with work. Apply these principles to turn your HR function into a lean, results-producing machine!
One very efficient way to improve your hiring successes? Hire the Triumph team. We’ll use our finely tuned recruiting process to recruit superior technology candidates, maximum service and the exact solutions you need.
