'From Both Sides of the Desk'

ISSUE NO - 3 JUNE 2004

The employment process in perspective

Before discussing employment in detail, it is worthwhile examining the process from a commercial viewpoint.

Consider the decision-making, planning and expenditure control that go into the purchase of capital equipment for your company. Even a modest financial outlay would normally involve an amount of paperwork, reviews, justifications, approvals and commitment.

If we now view the hiring of one person, in capital expenditure terms, we can gain an insight to the importance of applying effective techniques and methods to ensure success.

At current rates of pay and with the addition of on-costs for accident insurance, annual leave, superannuation, sick leave and other costs, an entry-level employee may represent an on-going financial cost to your company comparable to the funds committed to significant capital expenditure. This expense grows rapidly with each new person appointed and is even more pronounced at senior management levels.

Added to this expenditure is the need to induct and train the new employee. Unlike equipment that can be simply turned on to perform at predetermined levels, new employees require orientation, familiarisation and training. This is a cost, which includes the time and the involvement of other people in your company as well as any materials, or other resources you may make available.

If this process needs to be repeated frequently because your new employees are not working out, your costs in terms of time, lost productivity, training, and ongoing recruitment may escalate to unacceptable levels. Unless you can correct the situation, there is no guarantee that the next person appointed will be any more successful than the last!

So, it makes good business sense to manage the recruitment and selection process to ensure the best chance of success!

Regardless of the mystique that many people like to attach to the subject, we believe successful recruitment and selection is not an art form but the application of proven techniques and methods. The contents of this chapter will help you to manage your recruitment activities to make the most efficient use of your time and resources to deliver the outcome you need.

Defining your employment needs through ‘Key Hiring Criteria’ (KHC)

Key Hiring Criteria

What do we mean by Key Hiring Criteria?

Every position in a company, whether Fork Truck Operator, Finance Manager or General Manager has a number of essential or must have factors critical to the role, which need to be identified before you commence to actively recruit for a position. Once you are clear about what these are, you have effectively defined your employment needs. We call these the Key Hiring Criteria for the position.

• Key Hiring Criteria (KHC) will act as a blueprint against which all of your employment activities are checked at each stage of the process. For example, you will refer to the KHC when you are preparing your advertisement, conducting interviews, and again when reference checking.
• KHC include qualifications, experience or skills, abilities and behaviours, which anyone wishing to apply for the position must have before you will consider them for an interview.
• KHC are derived from the job analysis of the position. Job analysis is the foundation stone of recruitment and the importance of a disciplined approach to it, cannot be overstated.
• The time you devote to analysing the position and identifying the KHC should be viewed as an investment that will save time in the long run.
• Before you recruit, we suggest you consider any vacancy that occurs as an opportunity to examine and possibly improve the way the work is performed. This may involve redefining the responsibilities of the position, reporting relationships or some other aspect that will benefit the organisation.

Job Analysis

Job analysis is simply an assessment of the requirements of the position (position description) and of the appropriate person to fill it (person specification).

• Begin by writing down a summary of the position in one or two sentences. This is sometimes called the position summary and it explains why the position exists, and what it contributes to the organisation.
• The position summary is important, because if the purpose of the position is not clearly defined at this point, the rest of the recruitment process may be based on an incorrect premise.

Format

• While there are numerous formats for a position description, you should work with one, which satisfies your needs and is capable of accurately communicating the essential details of the position.
• The aim is to think objectively about the position and to document your findings.
• How you go about this is will vary depending on the level of the position involved. For example position descriptions for some task-based positions (such as Production Worker or Clerical Assistant) may only require a listing of activities.
• More senior positions (such as Sales Manager, Divisional Accountant) where it is important to communicate levels of accountability, reporting relationships and the scope of the position, will require more detail.
• If you already have a position description for the position you wish to fill, take time to review it to see that it still meets your requirements.

Describing the applicant

From the details recorded in your description of the position, you can now go on to specify the characteristics of the person you will need to do the job. This is the second stage of your job analysis.

This document (often referred to as a Person Specification) is used to detail the attributes (experience, qualifications, skills and abilities) and behaviours a person will require to be successful in the position.

Generally these are divided into essential attributes (necessary to do the job) and desirable attributes (those not critical to the position but considered a benefit).

Essential Attributes will usually encompass the skills experience, education and behaviours necessary to do the job.

Desirable attributes are useful in helping you to differentiate between a number of short listed applicants who possess all of the essential attributes. They may include other additional skills and/or experience which while not considered essential, may well be viewed as beneficial to the company.

Any factors you select should directly relate to the position and be non discriminatory. Take care to avoid irrelevant criteria such as race, gender, religion, age, and mental or physical impairment.

Extracting the Key Hiring Criteria from the Job Analysis

Having defined the requirements of the position and the attributes the ideal applicant would posses we can extract the Key Hiring Criteria (KHC) for the position.

• These are a distillation of the most important parts of all the information contained in the position description and the person specification.
• You will include aspects of your KHC in your advertisement, initial screening, interviewing and reference checking. They remain your blueprint for the entire process.

For example, appropriate KHC for the Sales/Marketing Manager’s position we briefly referred to earlier in this chapter, would read as:

• Bachelor of Business degree with marketing major
• Effective leadership qualities
• Highly developed problem analysis and decision making skills
• Proven marketing strategist
• Strong influencing skills
• Detailed knowledge of our markets
• Role behaviour analysis.

Your preparation is now complete and you are well placed to move onto the next stage of the employment process, to consider your recruitment options and how to go about attracting the ideal applicant.

Recruitment should be viewed as an essential investment.

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- A Recruitment Thought for the Month -

'Anybody can get a position that they can grow out of. I help people attain positions they can grow into'
Richie Harris

We hope you are enjoying each issue of 'From Both Sides of the Desk - Newsletter', and are finding them of interest. Our newsletter is a result of positive feedback from our published book ('From Both sides of the Desk'), and as a value added service to our clients, we are delighted to share with you, excerpts and tips from the book in this regular newsletter. This service is, of course, totally complementary and without any obligation.

'From Both Sides of the Desk - Newsletter'-is designed to assist you in improving and enhancing your recruitment skills and the subsequent performance of your associates. Please feel free to forward our newsletters to colleagues, or if they prefer we are happy to add them to our growing mailing list. Back issues (listed below) are available on request.

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We welcome all comments andfeedback and rememberthat ……'PEOPLE ARE YOUR GREATEST ASSET'

Kindest regards and successful recruiting

Roger W Hilton
Principal

'From Both Sides of the Desk' - written by Roger W Hilton and Les Brandis in a unique style, that allows both the employer andjob seeker to simultaneously look over each others shoulder - allowing each to better understand the motives and strategies of the other. . . . read more >>>

Roger W Hilton
Principal
Hilton Consulting Group P/L
Ph: (02) 9957 1513
Fax: (02) 9954 4528

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