The importance of solid recruitment strategies and how HR enables agile people-first businesses to work effectively

Did you know that the job market is rapidly becoming an employee’s market? But what does that mean? Just some years ago, employers ruled the job market as they had the power to choose and find the talent they wanted selectively. Nowadays, employees, especially in engineering, computer science, technology sectors, and science, have a higher selective power than they used to have. Hence, many organizations struggle to find or secure the right talent and still leave HR on the backburner. This article will cover the importance of having a solid and modern recruitment strategy, and how HR departments within organizations enable agile people-first businesses to work correctly.

How can you define the criteria for a new role, and how do you structure your recruitment process?

You must consider different factors in your recruitment process and strategies like transparency, culture, diversity, positive work environments, professional development and training, and career progression within the business. What may have worked before the Covid-19 pandemic or even years ago can now be considered outdated. Therefore, focus your recruitment process on finding an individual that fits your company's overall values and vision. More specifically we will focus on tactical hires and strategic hires from an agile perspective in this article.

Tactical hire:

If you are looking for new talent to add to an existing stable setting, then defining the role should be delegated to the team. The peers/teams should be in control of defining the profile they are looking for - HR and the leadership team should only challenge these roles from diversity and financial angles. Aside from it, the team/daily business should be in control.

The recruitment process needs to be fast and transparent, it makes sense to use a shared recruitment tool, and keep the peers/teams in the loop. Through this method, the recruitment process becomes intelligent and flexible - the peers/teams understand what is going on, and they can help screen candidates early on. In addition, opening up the process encourages "hire for attitude and train for skill approach".

As a result, peers can avoid high potential junior applicants being removed from the process because they do not fulfil some criteria. They can also bring in the gravitas needed for senior applicants, asking specific and detailed questions early on. In the end, the team should decide who is hired - this may sound pretty obvious - but in many cases still isn't.

Strategic hire:

If you want to make your recruited talent last and lead to success in the longer run, and hire individuals to fill today's and tomorrow’s job positions, then strategic hire is the way to go. It's a business attitude that could lead you through the recruiting process and ensure that you get the best outcomes possible. In a word, it is taking a larger view of your present and prospective personnel, always asking, "How can they contribute to my organization's business goals?"

If managed and planned correctly, strategic hiring can improve your overall talent management view and render your talent pool more robust. Therefore, you need to constantly keep your business’s objectives, goals, and needs in line with your recruitment procedure.

Another important aspect of strategic hiring consists of building a strong employer brand that puts forward the employer value position. This role consists of branding and marketing the employer as an optimal one through sharing transparent and honest testimonials of other employees, the workplace environment and the advantage of joining the company.

The importance of making agile transformations an HR priority:

As we have mentioned above, finding the right talent can be challenging, and using the tactical and strategic hiring approaches alone might not be efficient. Therefore, organizations need to make HR and recruitment a priority in their agile transformations.

In many organizations, HR still has an old-school reputation that needs dusting off - where it is perceived to be "bureaucratic" and "ineffective".

If your organization has difficulty finding good talent, an agile people-first strategy may be a good way forward. And for this to work, HR, or to give it a modern name, people development, needs to get the attention it deserves. However, one must consider that this is also a double-edged sword - with great power comes great responsibility. Thus, to become an agile people-first organization, HR will need to evolve and do its part. It will need to make some concessions regarding its domain which translates into focusing on more collaboration, co-creation, and transparency because they are essential for success.

Conclusion:

HR and talent acquisition are crucial aspects of a corporation, and you should not overlook them under any circumstances. It is as critical to employ agile approaches on an HR level as it is in other more functional departments of your business. After all, you should see your employees like customers and you should allocate enough time and resources to hiring them as they’re the ones who will be responsible for driving your business’s success in the future. Hence, you need to ensure they share your company values and know what your company stands for and want to achieve.