Appunti Human Resources Management - Modulo 1

Assessed person's behavioral characteristics

It generates "Compatibility Studies" of candidate vs posts, as well as determining the person's ability to successfully fill a post. Moreover, it measures:

• Business skills: Identifying how they generate new contacts, how they behave and negotiate with others, how they close sales, how they monitor clients, etc.
• Managerial skills: Identifying how they make decisions, how they motivate, lead, and create teams.
• The level of emotional self-control and how the person manages their emotions.

Recruitment process

In the recruitment process, the timing aspect has always been fundamental: the less time necessary for having an employee, the better it is. Even if the employee is perfectly ready, companies need to give the right time and endow correctly that cannot be done by technology. Sometimes, timing is the reason why companies choose this kind of group or competitors. The ultimate objective of a strong hire should be to monitor the performance, possibly after one year.

Small tips

• Do not play the game, be yourself!
• Learning agility, be curious and really spontaneous about what you prefer.
• Do not be afraid to show your dreams, be humble, and do not claim to know everything (because it is not true).
• Try to understand who is the interviewer, be prepared about the company.

Recruitment deals with which criteria will be used in order to interview possible candidates. Most large companies now use automated tracking systems and AI helps a lot for this, since it makes the screen of profiles through some keywords. Then, we decide how many candidates to present to line managers (max. 5). HR does not make the mistake of giving CVs to line managers, since it is skilled in doing this. When we think about the recruitment phase, the 3 key strategies are:

• Can do? Understanding if the person has the cognitive ability and technical skills to do the job, this is a task of line managers.
• Will do? Understanding the interpersonal capabilities and personal traits, this is done by HR.
• Will fit? The values and interests, done also by HR.

Hence, HR needs to present only some adapt candidates while line managers decide in the end. HR can drive the decision by using tactics, although the final decision must be taken by managers since they will work with those candidates. Do not ask about sensible topics, keeping the negative things inside usually is convenient. The moment of recruitment is never so rapid, since there are a lot of phases inside it. The only way to have a smart screening is to make people apply for jobs (it is not finished when a pool of applications has been received; it continues during shortlisting and interviewing stages).

Alternatives to recruitment

An easy alternative to recruitment is the Job Posting, which can be both internal and external. Internal applications are confidential, then if we decide to hire internally we have to talk with line managers (not before). This is very common now in companies, although bosses are selfish and sometimes do not want their workers to make a career internally. By using this way, this bias is avoided since people directly apply. Another alternative is the Job Re-Design, as well as flexible work arrangements with temporary workers.

Internal recruitment methods and sources

In addition to the HR databases, Intranet is very useful and especially LinkedIn in Italy is utilized by every company. Some companies are beginning to use also social media, moderation is suggested otherwise you may lose some opportunities. The employee referral is when there is a vacancy and employees are asked if they have some people who may fill up, then if you hire somebody presented by an employee, he will obtain an award. Usually, it is possible to find good candidates and paying less money than with a headhunter.

External recruitment sources and methods

• Recruitment advertising
• E-Recruitment
  • Company website
  • E-agency (e.g., LinkedIn, Viadeo)
• Universities
  • Placement service
  • Job events recruiting
  • Personal contacts with professors
  • Business games, more connected to business scenarios (e.g., in front of this case, how do you solve the situation?)
• Word-of-mouth
• Job fairs
• Internships
• Professional associations
• Executive search firms "in basket".

Assessments are used, which are tests like the matrix exercise, in which you can assess the reaction to stress, as well as time management and problem solving. According to 2 criteria, importance and urgency, a matrix is built formed by 4 quadrants:

• DO NOW, if things are important and urgent;
• PLAN, if things are important but not urgent;
• ASK TO SOMEBODY ELSE, if things are urgent but not so important;
• DO NOT DO, if things are neither urgent nor important.

In this phase, especially at the beginning of your career, the payment is not important. Hence, do not ask for money and focus more on learning. Pay is just a component of the reward, it is more a "hygiene" factor than a real motivator and it is easily matched by competitors.

Selection process

This is a two-way process of choosing the individual best suited for a particular position and organization from a group of applicants, whose goal is to properly match people with jobs and organization. Results are connected to the motivation of people, always! In this case, CV or résumé are summaries of a person’s experience, education, and training developed for use in the selection process. More important is the cover letter, which is more personal also. References are increasingly being used to conduct background investigations, especially by using LinkedIn. In the CV, try to write a sentence for each experience by saying the obtained results and something about you.

Potential problems in job interviews

• Inappropriate questions and permitting non-job-related information, nowadays there is bigger attention on that;
• Interviewer bias, where the interviewer makes assumptions about the interviewee that may be incorrect and lets these biases influence the selection decision (e.g., stereotype and premature judgment bias);
• Interviewer domination and nonverbal communication.

Metrics for evaluating recruitment/selection effectiveness

• Time required to hire: Shorter the time to hire, the more efficient the HR department. This is very important, even if it may be stressful to be short and at the same time effective. Nowadays, the market is not so easy and we need to be as rapid as possible. Of course, quality cannot be set aside. For some research, timing is easy to reach while in other contexts is more difficult. Digitalization helps a lot to reduce the recruitment phase, but selection is not changing so much with respect to the time needed in the past.
• New hire retention: Percent of new hires that remain with the company after one or two years, this is a quality index.
• Turnover rate: Average number of times employees have to be replaced during a year.
• Cost per hire: Determined by dividing recruiting expenses by the number of recruits hired, this is an index, so how much it costs one hire. We can use a headhunter for more complex positions, usually they take a percentage (close to 35%, lower for less important roles) of the salary of the person hired. Methods can be different, as well as the risk that will be higher a general manager must be hired. Headhunters know a lot of people, so when a company asks them who to hire they already know the answer. That is why, expert and good headhunter do not cost so much. Of course, more interviews are done and higher will be the cost.
• Selection rate: Number of applicants hired from a group of candidates, expressed as a percentage. Greater is the funnel of the candidate's journey, greater is the ability of the company to attract people. In this case, social media help but are also problems. Glassdoor is a sort of TripAdvisor for recruitment, so if they are not that good people will then write their experience there. Of course, it is not statistically scientific. If you do not treat people fairly, the risk is to have a lot of bad comments and HR needs to explain this concept to managers.
• Acceptance rate: Number of applicants who accepted a job divided by the number who were offered the job, this is a measure of the offer of the company. In the market in which there is a skill mismatch, the risk is to lose candidates because they are doing other interviews simultaneously. Hence, it is fundamental to be rapid.
• Yield rate: Percentage of applicants from a particular source and method that make it to the next stage of the selection process, this is a measure of the media. Thanks to the HR analytics, for each process we can have a lot of measures.

Onboarding

It appears to be a very easy step of the employee's life cycle, in reality, is one of the topics in which companies fail. Often, it is not performed well since it helps new employees to become company’s workforce members. HR is not responsible for this, but the manager has to do it. During this moment, we can make sure that the new employee understands expectations and has a clear vision of the company’s values. A good onboarding brings some benefits, the first one is to reduce stress. At the beginning, employees are stressed because they have to start to do something that they do not know completely. Moreover, the first good impressions matter. Increase employee satisfaction, which is linked with the performance, and better retention are other two advantages.

Apart from the boss, another good presence is the mentor, so somebody dedicated to supporting the new employee. More than understanding the technicalities of the job, here you need to understand and enter into the culture of the company. Today’s onboarding isn’t cutting it:

• 49% of millennials want a better onboarding process;
• 32% of global executives say they experienced a poor onboarding process;
• 22% of staff turnover occurs within the first 45 days;
• 91% of first-year workers are retained by companies with an efficient onboarding process;
• 69% more likely for new hires to remain in a company for 3 years if there is a well-structured onboarding program.

The first 90 days are a critical time in establishing a new hire’s success, this is also the time where the new hire’s manager takes on more of the onboarding responsibility. By creating an opening working relationship with the new hire, the manager can facilitate his transition to the new role, team, and company and keep him engaged. It is important to understand who is the decision-maker, in some companies it is easy thanks to a clear organizational chart, while in others it may be difficult. In family-owned companies, the organizational chart is different from the division of power. This type of company is very complex, more than international ones, which there is the organizational chart with managerial roles.