Recruitment is a very serious investment for any business and employing the right staff should always be considered a key business priority.
The more effectively a business recruits and selects staff, the better chance they have of hiring and retaining good employees. It also results in improved productivity and financial performance and a cohesive, happy workplace.
Poor recruitment practices on the other hand can be an expensive mistake for any business, and never more so than in times of severe skills shortages. They can result in lack of immediate productivity, and an enormous amount of time, effort and money invested by the business in either training the employee or performance-managing the employee.
Terminating an employee because they are ill-suited to the job can be even more costly when you consider the wasted salary and benefits, severance pay, recruitment fees, training costs and hiring time involved, not to mention the fees and time involved for recruitment, training and hiring when you have to go through the whole process again.
Kathy Bracken, Senior Human Resources Officer, Australian Business Limited, is a highly experienced recruiter. She explains "The right people with the right skills are not always in the right place at the right time - especially in such a candidate short market. It is critical not to fall into the trap of taking second best when desperate to fill a vacancy. If you do, the business will suffer in the long run through skill deficiencies, lack of knowledge or practical application. This will require extra effort from your staff or yourself to rectify."
Bracken’s experience is that whilst filling the need may solve one problem in the short term, it may create several problems in the long term. She says in some cases employers may be lucky and second best may have been a good decision. This unfortunately is rare and generally more good luck than good management. The worst case scenario is that an employer may need to look at performance management and eventually termination, which puts him right back to square one with considerable cost and time wasted.
Bracken’s final word of advice is that even with a candidate short market, be patient and the right person will eventually come your way. The right choice, first time is best for your business and your staff.
Steps to take before you advertise or contact a recruitment agency
Never be in a rush to fill a position even though the recruitment process can be viewed as a lengthy process and therefore time consuming. It is worth every moment you spend on it. Follow these steps diligently before you start recruiting.
- Have in place a thorough planned and structured schedule for the recruitment process. The schedule should reflect appropriate time to:
- identify the business requirements
- develop a job description
- develop an advertisement
- advertise internally or externally
- acknowledge applicants
- shortlist applicants
- interview applicants
- undertake selection process
- undertake referee checks
- make a selection
- negotiate with the chosen candidate
- get appointment form signed
- issue contract
- have contract accepted
- send letters to unsuccessful candidates
- Reassess your business plan and consider what skills your business needs for now and the future.
- Consider qualifications and specialisations for your current and future requirements of the role.
- Identify the knowledge, skills and critical job level performance requirements of the position you wish to fill.
- Determine what are essential criteria - indispensable for the performance of the job; and desirable criteria, attributes which will help the applicant perform the job, and give them and the business a competitive advantage.
- Develop a performance-based job description that clearly defines your expectations of both the employee and the position; and provides you with criteria and guidelines to assist you to recruit the best person for your business. This is an essential tool throughout a recruitment process - you can use it as the basis for advertising, interviewing and selection.
- If it is an existing position don’t automatically rest on the original job description. Review the role and talk to staff in the business at all levels to get an updated understanding of the needs and responsibilities of the business area. This may require you to rewrite the job description.
- Take into account where applicable:
- budgets and funding
- current staffing structure
- skill levels
- foreseeable changes which might impact on the role and its responsibilities
- whether the needs for the position might change
- Develop assessment tools that will help you test the critical performance requirements and standards of candidates. Consider ability, aptitude, personality and motivation.
- Identify the values that are integral to your business - it is important to employ people who share these values and who will fit in well with their peers and the organisational culture.
- Consider whether you have a good existing member of staff who could fill the position, either with or without some training. Retaining competent staff who are loyal, skilled, motivated and who have a sound understanding of the business and the way it operates can be extremely beneficial under normal conditions, but even more so when there is a diminishing skills pool.
- Consider the value that apprenticeships and traineeships can bring to the business. Don’t fall into the trap of believing traineeships involve employing young people on low wages.
- Be aware of the value of diversity of staff by gender, age, skills, experience and background. Consider the benefits of training existing workers and employing the services of mature age workers, indigenous people and people with disabilities.
- Ensure that your recruitment process is fair and transparent and all paperwork clearly communicates important information.
- Ensure that those involved in the recruitment process have a clear understanding of the responsibilities of the role and how it contributes to the effectiveness of the area and the total business; and that they are conversant with the requirements of the process. This is preferably the supervisor.