Bill Gates and is HR/Recruiting Stuck in a Time Warp?
There was a major article by Bill Gates in a recent Wall Street Journal – “My Plan to Fix the World’s Biggest Problems.” Gates’ solution is pretty simple – define the problem, develop some measurable solutions, and use metrics to track improvements. Continuous improvement, as described, has been around since the dawn of the industrial revolution, probably earlier, but as Gates’ contends, this is simple in concept, but often difficult to execute.
On a more immediate level ….
I’ve been in the business world since the dawn of the handheld calculator and the personal PC. During this time, I’ve seen huge improvements in all types of business processes from making zillions of metal fasteners a day within six sigma variation to closing a set of monthly financials for a multi-industry global business within seconds of the last order being placed and shipped. When I started in industry, a 5-6% scrap rate was acceptable and if you knew what happened last month by the end of the current one you felt in control.
While times have changed for most business functions, it seems that the HR and recruiting departments are stuck in a time warp, circa 1975. Consider that interviewing accuracy has not improved, Quality of Hire has not increased, and everyone makes still makes excuses. Companies still post boring jobs, hoping to find exceptional people where no one else looked before. Presentation is still more important than performance. Techies still overvalue experience and technical skills. Managers still over trust their gut. And everyone still gets seduced by first impressions. We still preclude people who have great ability, but without the so-called “proper” background or requisite years of experience to be considered. In our rush to hire at scale we still ignore the needs of those being hired and how they make decisions. There’s not one marketing 101 person who knows this is backwards. It’s surprising that HR still relies on the dogma of hiring practices 100 years old, and still believes that a 62% interviewing accuracy rate is acceptable. Despite their voiced desire for improvement, many still blame the government or their legal department as reasons for maintaining the status quo.
So why haven’t things gotten better? I suggest it’s the avoidance of, or lack of appreciation for Bill Gates’ universal solution: measuring and managing what you want to improve. With this as a starting point, here’s my list of what HR/Recruiting should begin to measure and manage:
1) Stop using skills and experience-based job descriptions that list so-called measurable criteria likes years of experience and some arbitrary list of skills and competencies. Instead require the hiring manager to define the job in terms of 6-8 measurable performance objectives. For example, rather than “Must have 5-7 years of international accounting experience, a CPA, and an MBA,” say “Implement the SAP international consolidations module in six months.”
2) Measure the hiring manager’s ability to attract, develop and retain top people. If talent is #1, this should be every hiring managers' number one performance objective.
3) Never interview more than four people for any job. If you need to see more than four people, something’s wrong. So figure out what's wrong before interviewing more candidates.
4) Define Quality of Hire before the person’s hired. This is not rocket science. Just define success as B+ level performance for each of the performance objectives listed in the new age performance-based job description (see point 1).
Even in the olden days of the 60s and 70s we measured everything, from the yield on the glass display in our handheld calculators to how long it took for the tools in our stamping presses to wear out. This is basic business process control 101. Perhaps the reason HR/Recruiting doesn’t naturally have a “measure and improve everything” attitude is because their performance never depend on it. As Gates’ suggests, this might be a good place to start.
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Lou Adler is the Amazon best-selling author of Hire With Your Head (Wiley, 2007) and the award-winning Nightingale-Conant audio program, Talent Rules! His latest book, The Essential Guide for Hiring & Getting Hired, was published on February 1, 2013.
I help ordinary people become famous
10yThanks
SME Financial Services, Business Analysis, Risk Management, Regulatory Reporting, Governance, and Technology. Frequently engaged by Top-tier Investment banks, Asset Management, Consulting, Software firms.
11yGood article, with good points. However, I don't know if you addressed one of the keys to developing metrics, in this case "What is HR function?". As long as HR is driven by proving lowest cost denominator, and proving value add, their service will be least somewhat oppositional to the desires of hiring managers. In addition to your metric of define the quality of hire, you might want to add whether career path goals are important. As an example, if you want a good chief of staff or business analyst, that might be their ceiling, and ability to perform that job function might be primary vs. ability to perform their manager's or another job function which might be secondary. I would also mention that the current standard of complete separation of external recruiters from hiring managers is overall a negative, and clearly is not the model for the truly senior most positions. HR could be a "Consigliere", but not necessarily the gatekeeper, which they are too often at most mid-level, etc., positions. I have previously been in position where we have found the right contractor, candidate, etc., however HR has said "no you didn't" this is the process, creating project risk and geometrically adding to project burn rate.
Partner/Co-Founder at Blank Page, LLC
11yConfirmation, or illumination - I have been fortunate enough to work with HR leaders that championed notable change: Building goals into the job description rather than "experience" statements, and then using those goals to measure performance in a system that mirrored the company wide performance management system, advancing assessments through the use of competency based selection, and tools like "color insight", and building systems that are robust enough to collect feedback and retain data to build predictive models for hiring and building out teams in the most effective labor markets globally. We have also been successful in marrying the finance organizations metrics with the HR metrics to create effective dashboards for workforce planning and productivity evaluation. I don't think HR is waiting for the next big thing - I think HR is the next big thing....
Making things better all the time!
11yI have always thought that screening out personality disorders and screening in optimism (aka positive psychology metrics) is a good place to start. I bet this would solve 80% of HR's problems. I'm not in HR, so what do I know? Hope I'm not poking a hornets nest!
PXT Select Consultant || Technical/Soft Skills Writing/Editing/Training || Job Search/Career Coaching
11yA topic near and dear to my heart! As a provider of job-fit assessment solutions, it's unbelievable to me that any employer would not use some sort of objective measurement as part of the hiring process. And, to add insult to injury, I've discovered that within companies who ARE using a validated, objective instrument, the HR department frequently does not share the results of the assessment with the hiring manager. Whether this is done out of ignorance or a misguided sense of protecting one's perceived fiefdom, I do not know but when HR is not regarded as part of the team that affects an organization's bottom line (either by HR itself or the executive leadership), the business will suffer. People are key. Thanks for the insights.