by A resourcing strategy and a recruitment policy helps you understand future staffing needs and work out how to ensure those needs are met. The policy should be consistent and transparent, reflect the organisation’s mission and values, and comply with employment law regulations.
The resourcing strategy broadly states the goals that the organisation aims to achieve through recruitment. This could be by external recruitment or developing existing employees; working with the whole organisation to understand its current and future needs; and ways of addressing resourcing (both by filling vacancies and also through the wider needs and expectations of candidates).
The policy should clearly set out the recruitment process; demonstrate consistency across the organisation’s sectors; extend information about the organisation’s recruitment strategy; and integrate with strategic and operational objectives. Finally, check that your resourcing policy chimes with your employer brand, and that your organisation is fulfilling those ambitions and values.
Components of a resourcing strategy include knowing the talents and skills you need to meet your business requirements; where and how to fill gaps; and how to fulfil your future talent needs:
- Workforce planning: The number and type of employees required
- Employee value proposition: The ‘give’ and the ‘get’
- Resourcing plans: Where to find your people; learning and development offer
- Retention: Being ‘an employer of choice’
- Flexibility: Addressing hard-to-fill roles; offering different hours and work locations
- Talent management and succession planning: What future talent does the business require and where will these managers come from?
Successful resourcing strategy include:
- Ensure you have a ‘resourcing champion’ overseeing your strategy, whatever the size of your organisation
- Refine the employer brand and employee value proposition (evp) to determine how you stand out against the competition
- Build talent internally by adjusting existing roles, providing training, flexible working, or creating career paths to build loyalty and enhance your employer brand
- Develop an internal pool of candidates by using internal referral schemes and contacting previous applicants
- Consider establishing relationships with graduates, past employees and other contacts to provide a talent pool
- Keep a schedule of hiring practices and expenditure to monitor the most successful and cost-effective channels and inform future strategy
- When selecting a recruitment agency, look for one key expert in your industry that offers a genuine partnership, based on longer-term resourcing needs.
If there is more than one person in your organisation who can hire new recruits, make sure any changes to hiring processes are communicated effectively. It is important to have a clear understanding of the current marketplace and what your business may need in terms of talent for the short and long term. The same goes for your organisation’s targets, projects and relevant timescales, and how these link to future vacancies.
Process
- Have a Workforce Plan
Imagine if you never had a vacancy again. This may seem far-fetched but you can get pretty close by having a thorough Workforce Plan which considers the type of workforce you need for the future, the volume of people you need and where they are based, what skills they’ll have and where you can get them from. If you build in a proactive approach to recruitment where you plan for the future and know what roles you needed and when, you would be able to build pro-active talent pools and reduce the need for in the moment, requisition-led recruitment, which would in turn limit the number of vacancies you have.
A key part of the Workforce Plan is to have a detailed view of Succession. You can also use the succession process to scenario plan (who’s likely to leave), future-proof your business, plan development, keep an eye on talented individuals and identify internal and external replacements succession doesn’t just have to be internal, you can keep external talent warm too. In my view part one of a resourcing strategy is to minimise vacancies. Workforce Planning is the best way to do this.
- Know and communicate what you’re about.
I’m not a fan of HR jargon but in the trade, this would be referred to as a strong Employer Value Proposition. In essence this means being really clear on what you stand for as an employer and what the prospective employee will get in return for working from you, for example fast career progression, high pay, long hours or strong values, flexibility, a great environment. It is important that this is reflected in all your recruitment literature and job adverts. A strong and accurate proposition will help you attract the right people to your business.
- Be clear on the type of person you’re looking for.
In order to attract the right people, you’ve first got to be clear on the type of person you’re looking for. This means knowing the skills, qualifications, experience you need to be a success in the role and combine this with the values the person needs to work effectively in your business.
- Advertise your roles in the right place.
It seems pretty simple when you think about it. I’ve done a lot of work with some great marketing people recently who have helped me to identify the right channels and right places to advertise based on where the people I’m trying to attract look for jobs. For example, if I’m trying to attract people out of the city then I’ll advertise on the London tube, if I’m trying to attract rural people, I’ll look at Farmer’s Weekly, if it’s HR people then the CIPD etc.
If you’re using a recruitment partner/agent, then it’s critical that you pick the right one. One that shares your values and can represent your role and brand as well as you can. The partner you choose says a lot about you to your prospective future employee. It’s about more than just price.
- Stay in touch with second place.
It is about making sure you keep in touch with the good quality, unsuccessful applicants for roles in your business. This is a great way to keep a warm pool of high-quality people interested in your business who want to work for you. They might not have been successful this time but they could be great for future positions. Staying in touch could also help you build an external talent pool so you’re not always starting your recruitment search from a standing start.
- Have robust selection methods.
Build a selection process and method for assessing candidates that reflects and effectively tests the skills applicants will need to be a success in the role. Don’t just rely on an interview which can be subjective build a recruitment assessment process that tests on the job aptitude through practical assessments, numerical, verbal and psychometric assessments and use referencing from previous roles. If you’re relying on interviews then use competency-based interviewing to draw out real examples of when they’ve had success before.
Resourcing Types
Internal Recruiting: internal recruiting involves filling vacancies with existing employees from within an organization.
Retained Recruiting: When organization hire a recruiting firm, there are several ways to do so; retained recruiting is a common one. When an organization retains a recruiting firm to fill a vacancy, they pay an upfront fee to fill the position. The firm is responsible for finding candidates until the position is filled. The organization also agrees to work exclusively with the firm. Companies cannot, in other words, hire multiple recruiting firms to fill the same position.
Contingency Recruiting: like retained recruiting, contingency recruiting requires an outside firm. Unlike retained recruiting, there is no upfront fee with contingency. Instead, the recruitment company receives payment only when the clients they represent are hired by an organization.
Staffing Recruiting: staffing recruiters work for staffing agencies. Staffing recruiting matches qualified applicants with qualified job openings. Moreover, staffing agencies typically focus on short-term or temporary employment positions.
Outplacement Recruiting: outplacement is typically an employer-sponsored benefit which helps former employees transition into new jobs. Outplacement recruiting is designed to provide displaced employees with the resources to find new positions or careers.
Reverse Recruiting: refers to the process whereby an employee is encouraged to seek employment with a different organization that offers a better fit for their skill set.
