Learning from Lean

16 Dec

What can we learn from “Lean” about recruitment?

I have been an advocate of the Lean approach to business for a long time and have applied it both here and overseas on a range of projects.
The challenge, as always, is to bring others onboard and encourage them to embrace the concept.

To many people, Lean seems like doing more work in less time which could not be further from the truth.
 
One of the principle tenets of the Lean concept – only do what is required.  Another way of saying this is do only what you are being paid for, nothing more.  The best way to test this is ask the customer if he is prepared to pay for the additional features – if not don’t do it.

Another tenet is do not sub-optimise.  Make a small part of the process efficient even when this efficiency does not add any incremental value to the overall process.

So, what has this to do with recruitment?

Let’s go through what happens in many organisations.  Someone identifies the need for a person to do a job.  They approach HR or are requested to find a suitable person.  They may write down a skill set and may even write something about the company or team.  Some have a job description.  This may be turned into a job ad including some notional value of a salary.
 
From a Lean perspective, the process fails to identify what the real overall objectives are - what are the real outcomes required for the organisation.

Often people just focus on hiring a “body” – most organisations want something much more – a result.  There is a purpose in the hiring and that is to achieve increased performance at a value for less than the cost of the person.
 
What we can learn from a Lean approach is that we must state exactly what this new person needs to achieve to deliver value to the organisation and by when.  When we take this overall point of view the next obvious question is what are the barriers (or constraints) that will prevent that person from achieving the objectives.

At no time will any of these things be mentioned in the brief for the person.  When this happens then the link between outcomes required and the attributes of the person hired can be significantly different. The likelihood of mutual satisfaction between the hirer and the new hire will be reduced.

Once you have defined the objectives and the constraints, only then can you define what type of skill set is required to lead to success.  One of the best ways to do this is to model those who are successfully doing the same role – this seems obvious but it’s surprising how infrequently it’s done.

Having defined the requirements, the skill set and hopefully modelling on an existing person, a clearer picture develops around what value this brings to the organisation. This helps define where and who you should be looking for and what you are willing to pay someone who achieves the results.

The Lean principle tells us to specify only what is really needed. What you are willing to pay for.  The essence of the skills and profile this person must have to be successful. 
 
This avoids over specifying the skill set.  Instead of covering a wide range of attributes you look for the bare minimum.  There are several advantages in this approach.  Firstly, the core attributes can be the entire focus.  It becomes easier to assess and simpler to evaluate.  It reduces your time and cost and becomes much more objective.  Secondly, on the assumption that attributes and skills take time to acquire and master, the more you ask for the more likely the person will be senior and expensive.  You may end up selecting for the non-essential skills.

If the real work requires only a few attributes but many are listed then the potential problem is that the person is hired for the less important attributes.  This may result in high failure rate because the person will not do the job or feel bored or disconnected from the job.  You’re not getting a return on your investment.

The process of hiring a person has now been sub-optimised.  All the energy is in the process of getting someone onboard.  Indeed, if you look at the statistics, they’re all about the cost of hire.  By that I mean the direct costs.  It includes the search and selection and costs associated with this subpart of the overall objective.  It does not address the cost of failure if the person being hired underperforms or leaves the company within a short period of time.
 
Independent studies indicate that these costs are much higher than the salary paid for the person.

Some people have told me that they never define the obstacles of the job because they feel this will reduce the number of possible candidates.  Their process focuses on getting many candidates not focusing on getting quality candidates.  If the job needs mental toughness and resilience you need to be looking for these people.  People who are not easily deterred and will welcome new challenges.  The very people that might be ideal.
  
Failure to adequately define success and requirements results in high costs of failure.  Both direct and indirect.

The lesson that Lean teaches is to think of the entire process and the outcomes required.  More effort in the definition of roles and what is to be achieved results in overall lower costs and higher quality of outcome.

At CIS we can help you reduce your overall hire costs, reduce the process time and deliver high performing people.  Through our TalentConnect process, more than 94% of our people are still in the organisation 12 months after placement.  We guarantee this performance.
 
Call us on 1300 850 195 or visit our website www.cis.com.au