Good Recruitment Strategy and KPIs for Measuring Effectiveness of Recruitment Strategies - Essay Example

Implications of a Good Recruitment Strategy and KPIs for Measuring Effectiveness of Recruitment Strategies A good recruitment strategy is one that provides blueprints for a state-of-the-art pro-active recruitment process that is well managed and driven in the same direction as the business strategy of an organization. There is no single recruitment strategy that is conclusively the best. An example to highlight the implications of a good recruitment strategy can be seen from the point of a company considering how to recruit staff based on the mobility of both the company’s operations and the mobility of the workforce in the market. These two aspects can be looked at in the case of a business that is open to recruiting both locally and internationally for a required skills set. Should the company have a locally based project that is set for a short term period; it can consider recruiting internationally where expectations are on the labour force being more skilled and thus more profitable to the locally based jobs. The recruitment strategy in this case will consider the mobility of the international workforce. For a longer term locally based job, a more practical recruitment strategy would consider hiring locally and training staffs to the required higher standards so as to compensate for not recruiting internationally for the higher paid staffs. There however would be some costs for the company in terms of training costs for locally recruited staffs. On the other hand, should the business be looking at long term international expansion to an overseas location where still, the same high skills set are required, an appropriate recruitment strategy should be one that considers workforce in the foreign country where the new business location is. In this instance the recruitment strategy chosen must be in consideration of the mobility of the company’s operations. However should the international job opportunities be short term, recruiting from the company’s home country can be more viable in terms of less recruitment and staff compensation costs. In either case, the choice of recruitment strategy depends on the availability of the most appropriate skills force for the company, the nature of the jobs to be filled and the locations where they are to be executed. These among other variables that influence a recruitment strategy must most importantly be within the recruitment budget set aside for any company, be it locally or internationally based. Each organization is different, and where one recruitment strategy may work it may not produce the same positive outcomes for another organization. Nonetheless, a good recruitment strategy, however different it may be must clearly outline the resources, budget, timing, and availability of skills for vacancies in an organization. The implications of a recruitment strategy that has all these components can vary depending on the extent to which each component has been assessed as per the unique organization requirements both in the short-term and in the long-term. Business strategies in organisations are most importantly widened in the scope of the long-term goals and objectives thus the recruitment strategies used must also be set for the long-term. The recruitment budget should cover any forecasted recruiting costs for good employees. The budget basically determines how recruitment will be done say, if a head-hunter firm will be used or if recruitment will be done by internally appointed recruitment teams. The timing component of a good recruitment strategy should be set such that new skills are sought proactively rather than reactively. Where the proactive approach is used more time, at an advantage to an organisation, is put towards searching for the best candidates for a job. More sources of new skills can also be utilised in a proactive recruitment strategy. This approach; whilst working to meet expansion and new staffing needs for an organisation can also easily cater to abrupt and reactive staffing needs as a result of unexpected departure from work or resignation by staff. When a recruitment strategy has the right recruitment resources in the form of recruiters’ already in place and clearly communicated in the organisation recruitment handbook, the effect is that recruitment of new talent does not become a disorganised process that is pushed to the last section of a to-do list. Rather it creates a situation where recruitment, be it reactive or proactive is a speedy, less costly, and directional process that is done by the handbook. Availability of skills to hire depends on many factors such as current employment situations and available skills for various niches. These are factors that an organisation has little control over however its recruitment strategy is not left without a chance to take a proactive direction. A good recruitment strategy that brands an organisation as an ideal place for various professionals to work in leads to competition for any and all advertised vacancies hence enhancing the availability of skills for recruiters to select from. Such branding and organisational reputation has an effect of reduced advertising costs, less time spent in looking for the best required skills, and increasing chances of landing the best talents. A good recruitment strategy, apart from driving the recruitment process also sets out the Key Performance Indicators (KPIs). These indicators are used to gauge how effective the recruitment strategies used are and as such how the recruitment process is. KPIs address the most important measurable values and outcomes that Human Resource Managers and entire organisations expect from the applied recruitment strategies. General values and outcomes that are covered under KPIs are many but the 3 most significant deal with costs, speed, and quality of the recruitment process. Each organisation is unique in the definition of these 3 values thus the KPIs must be set to meet the individual uniqueness of each organisation. The KPIs used must involve other managers in an organisation as it is they that deal most closely with the outcomes of the recruitment process; that is, the new staff. Thus, when managers’ input is used, the overall conclusion from observation of KPIs can be trusted beyond the Human Resource Management. Quality as a KPI answers questions of performance and retention of new staffs. This component used visual and statistical confirmations on whether the hired talent has increased productivity, reduced spending, and in what extent from low, to good, to excellent the success range is. This component also assesses how many times it takes to fill a vacancy and consequently what the retention rate is for the new staffs. Speed as a KPI indicates how long it takes to fill a vacancy, how long it takes those who view a vacancy advert to apply for it, and how long it takes to find the best talent for the advertised vacancy. Ideally, getting the right talent should not take a long time if a good recruitment strategy is used. Cost as a KPI looks at the recruitment costs an organisation covers for each talent that it hires. Organisations prefer recruitment strategies that minimise the costs of hiring new staff. Recruitment strategies vary from social media recruiting, mobile recruiting, global recruiting, and employee referral among other recruitment methods. More organisations are using social media for their recruitment purposes. Social media is not one of the ‘traditional’ recruitment methods, but it has quickly been adopted due to how it helps organisations to acquire new staffs that meet the KPIs of quality, speed, and cost. In terms of costs, social media addresses KPI by significantly reducing the time it takes to find suitable candidates. This time-saving aspect reduces recruitment costs by nearly half of what is spent on ‘traditional’ recruiting methods. In terms of quality, social media addresses KPI by making quality employees accessible to recruiters through sites such as LinkedIn on which job seekers can advertise their education, experience, and skills for recruiters to find. In terms of speed, social media addresses the KPI due to existence of large media traffic that accelerates traffic to employer websites and supports sharing and re-sharing of content on vacancies advertised. Read More