Hacking HR to Build an Adaptability Advantage
Our hack includes 3 stories of Up Front Experiments
Edna's story:
We have given up on long and expensive recruiting processes. In our group we do it this way: we collaborate with all universities in our country and invite their graduate students to gain practice with us. We then offer the best ones - after a one day a week practice for a year - to join us.
When we interview the candidates for the trainee program, we do it up front in a team of two and if we like a candidate - we accept them right then and there, if the candidate is willing to make the decision up front too !
This way we take a risk - but we have found out that this risk is lower than the risk to lose a talent to a competitor ! We have practiced it for a few years now - and have found out that this is a great LEAN and happy recruiting process !
More stories by Mike and Nigel follow.
1. We lose talent in long recruiting processes. Adaptable organizations act fast on opportunities. We need to speed up recruiting. 2. We need to attract people who are willing to experiment and to take risks while experimenting. How should we do it?
Mike’s ideas:
Edna's final notes:
I would like to thank my team and especially Nigel and Mike for co-creating this hack. I believe in recognizing personal contributions so I left the personal stories as is without trying to mix them. I also believe that people learn from specific stories, which is another reason to leave our personal stories for you to explore - this way you have some experiments you could try when experimenting up front!
I invite our team members and maybe more of our hackaton participants to add more personal stories of experiments in recruiting processes - both as recruiters and as recruits - which hacked the traditional recruiting culture and procedures!
> We need to attract people who are willing to experiment and to take risks while experimenting. How should we do it?
Form and host public communities of practice in each of your line of business. Invite students to participate with the potential of gaining engagement based on their contribution to the CoP. Everybody wins, the company, the industry, the students, even if those who don't get hired.
Edna, some lessons for the Hack from our joint submission
Sometimes it seems that SMEs have few constraints when it comes to embracing new practices, sometimes it seems only the largest businesses have the resources to develop and innovate. However, from the stories we have gathered I think we can identify a number of characteristics that could be developed in organisations of any size and heritage, that don’t need radical transformation to put into place and would allow HR practitioners to move into a free, more creative model of recruitment.
For me there are 6 transferable practices:-
- Recruit “active learners” – look for potential employees who are looking for learning opportunities rather than "just a job"
- Increase job mobility – encourage and give recognition to managers who move team members into new and challenging positions
- Increase pace of change – selectively - “active learners” and “high potentials” will welcome new and opportunities
- Nurture the uncertain – not every employee is going to be fast track to the top – there will be many who come in this way who want a more stable work environment – these are critical resources who need reassurance that their contribution continues to be valued and recognised
- Protect risk takers – managers and employees who embrace change will not always be successful in every role – provide a framework that enables lessons to be learned and shared and make sure constructive risk takers are not “punished” or isolated
- Reduce barriers between teams – encourage lateral moves as well as promotional moves – the active learners may already be in the organisation but be in another team – share knowledge between teams and encourage swaps and transfers to build wider network
Although these practices could be formalised they have characteristics such that could they could be overlaid without bureaucracy onto existing recruitment frameworks. So, subject to the HR and organisational context they could be deployed at a local level to build a case for change, or could be incorporated into an existing framework if a more directed model were appropriate.
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