The lean approach to talent acquisition: Waste elimination (Part 1)

By Marylene Delbourg-Delphis

In a landmark book Talent on Demand: Managing Talent in an Age of Uncertainty, Peter Cappelli was applying lean supply chain management concepts to people in order to enable companies to build adaptability within their staffing strategy. Since then, several books from Lean Human Resources: Redesigning HR Processes for a Culture of Continuous Improvement by Cheryl Jekiel to more recently, Lean HR, Introducing Process Excellence to Your Practice, by Dwayne Lay have advocated lean approaches.

Sometimes, however, exporting concepts from a vertical to another can be disconcerting to the non-specialist, which can explain why the very notion of "lean" has been somewhat mocked. Yet, it's not necessary to know everything about lean to leverage some of its valuable principles. For me, one of the most important notions of talent acquisition is waste elimination, i.e. "any activity that does not result in moving the process closer to the final output or adding value to the final output." This (identifying and eliminating “muda” or wastefulness) is one of the 3 central concepts of Lean management (along with identifying and streamlining “mura” – unevenness – and “muri” – excessiveness.

In the talent acquisition process, the drop-out rate of candidates who come to your website is astounding. Sometimes, this rate can reach up to 90% of the candidates that you have been able to attract via your job posts or your social media efforts. They come to your website but either do not find the information they are looking for or are reluctant to fill the myriad of forms that you request to ever be considered by the company.

Clean up your process and welcome candidates at the various touch-points with your company (career site, job boards, public social networks, etc…)!

Make sure that you move from a process designed for the candidate to respond to a job requisition or job requirement, to a process where your company can be responsive to an inquiry or expression of interest from the candidate. In other words, allow candidates to join your talent network. It's easy and this will save you a considerable amount of money.

This involves a subtle shift in approach – from a one-sided, non-collaborative one to an engagement approach where you attract talent, build an active online community and then send them to the ATS when they are qualified.

The biggest benefit of this lean approach to talent acquisition is that it provides an optimal candidate experience. With the proliferation of social media, employers can take advantage of the social tools available today to build out this optimized recruiting workflow: an engagement platform, i.e. an employer-branded space where candidates and recruiters can meet and interact — and where constituencies can operate comfortably each on their own terms. 

Diversity Management in the Workplace

By Jessica Miller-Merrell

If a candidate applying is a buying decision, than a newbie employee’s first day is their wedding day as they say “I do.” This critical moment is important in the retention and engagement of that employee. Even so, newbie employees often seek greener pastures when other job offers come through. New employees, tenured employees and experienced employees play the employment dating field throughout their time with you.

Diversity management can no longer be ignored in the workplace. It’s no longer just about the numbers and having the right mix, but it’s about how an organization or company treats its people authentically down to the core values. There are hundreds of reasons why having a diverse workplace is good for a company.

A diverse workforce drives economy growth. According to a 2012 Mckinsey & Company survey women went from holding 37% to 47% over the past 40 years. At the same time our economy saw a record growth over multiple industries. Most economists believe that increase in diversity is a direct result to economy growth over the years.

Increased creativeness and innovative workforce. The one thing your company doesn’t want is a workforce made up of same personality types. 85% of companies in a recent study by Forbes stated that they “agreed or strongly agreed that diversity is crucial to fostering innovation in the workplace.” Having a workforce that is diverse won’t open help put your company on top, but will help separate yourself from the competition.

Diversity is a key aspect of entrepreneurialism. The greatest companies are built from those with an entrepreneurial mindset. Startups are formed through the minds of entrepreneurs taking ideas or products and helping them come to reality. In the corporate world, entrepreneurs strengthen your product development team and help lead your company into a world of innovation. According to the U.S. Census diversity is a main catalyst in small businesses. 22.1% of U.S. businesses are owned by people of color, 28.8% are women, and the Latina-owned businesses are the fastest growing segment. Hiring these people will not only help your company, but take it to the next level.

If your company is struggling to promote and maintain a diverse workforce, TalentCircles has the answer to you problem. Within the TalentCircles platform recruiters are able to create specific “circles” and pursue a proactive Diversity and Inclusion strategy effortlessly. To be a leader in the industry it’s imperative to attract and address segments of the population that’ll help your workplace evolve and company grow.



Using TalentCircles, you can segment your talent network into circles using the point-and-click Circle Manager. This allows you to segment out certain populations like working mothers, veterans, or any segment of the population you’d like. If you want your company to produce record numbers and optimal growth it’s essential that you utilize tools and best practices that facilitates the hiring of a diverse workforce.

Jessica Miller-Merrell, SPHR is a workplace and technology strategist specializing in social media. She’s an author who writes at Blogging4Jobs. You can follow her on Twitter @blogging4jobs. 

Photo Credit. 

How to Hire and Recruit for Company Positions & Skills Not Yet Invented

By Jessica Miller-Merrell

Imagine your boss walking in your office in 2004, asking you to hire for a marketing or communications role requiring experience in social media or with big data... You would likely have nodded your head or given a funny stare not really understanding what they meant. Today, anticipating needs is the new reality of the recruitment and hiring industry. According to the U.S. Department of Labor, 65% of today’s grade school kids will end up at a job that hasn't been invented yet. The phenomenon is not new. Last year, Megan Casserly put a list of "10 Jobs That Didn't Exist 10 Years Ago" for Forbes. So the question is: how do we hire for skills, positions and jobs that don’t yet exist? Here is a short list of action items:

• When you hire a candidate for a given position, test the candidate's ability to eventually learn new skills — and check if the candidate is likely to get out of her comfort zone to try new things.

• Keep informed about all the early trends that may affect your industry over the next five years, as well as critical general trends that may affect behaviors in the workplace.

• Plan continuous development for existing employees. Give them a chance to attend classes in a College nearby and eventually help them pay for their tuition!

To invest in the future of your company, invest in your people: As China Gorman asks: “Is talentism is the new capitalism.” I know there is some skepticism about this: "Maybe in 5-10 years. When HR is seen as a business function and not an overhead function. And human capital is valued on the balance sheet," China adds.

In all cases, though, a way to be ready for tomorrow is to start now... and before human capital is actually valued on the balance sheet!

Jessica Miller-Merrell, SPHR is a workplace and technology strategist specializing in social media. She’s an author who writes at Blogging4Jobs. You can follow her on Twitter @blogging4jobs. 

Photo Credit. 

Women in Transition: From Caregiver to Breadwinner

By Jessica Miller-Merrell

A record 25% of woman in the workforce are now the breadwinners in American households. These women are re-defining the workforce, work-life balance and leadership roles in business today. As a female in the HR industry, I support this shift not only because I’m a woman and a mother but also because I’ve experienced discrimination first hand while balancing my own views on parenting roles should or shouldn’t be. This shift won’t be an easy one because we have millions of years of evolution and genetics battling against this imperative workplace change.

This statistic has risen nearly six times since the 1960s — at a time when only 4% of women made more than their husbands according to a Pew Study. For decades parenting roles have been defined as the mother staying home with her child and the father going out and basically becoming the sole breadwinner in the family. As the glass ceiling starts cracking women are showing their ability to become the breadwinner for the family as well as reaching the top of major Fortune 500 companies, but at what cost?

According to several psychologists and divorce lawyers who see couples struggling with such changes, many relationships tend to follow the same pattern. First, the wife starts to lose respect for her husband and the chemistry in the relationship disappears. As women continue to push the envelope and become breadwinners for their families they’re seeing that it’s not as easy to balance both work and life because of the pushback they get from society and their counterparts.

As this trend continues and women are making progress in their role in the workplace the caregiver role will start shifting to men. While some feel emasculated in this role, there are a large percentage of men out there who are comfortable in this new mission.

One of the main elements of women becoming the breadwinner in the family is a higher level of education. The wife and husband don’t generally consider one smarter than the other, but men generally tend to prefer doing things with their hands or outdoors, while the women are exceling in the classroom and working at a desk. There is a clear gap in the financial equations between women and men where women are generally more educated which attributes to the sharp increase of women as breadwinners.

We are at a very crucial stage in workplace roles as women assume higher responsibilities including top positions at major companies and men staying home to become the caregiver. In order to completely demolish the glass ceiling it’s important to understand that not only are women becoming a force to be reckoning with in the workplace, but also acceptance is necessary to move forward.

Jessica Miller-Merrell, SPHR is a workplace and technology strategist specializing in social media. She’s an author who writes at Blogging4Jobs. You can follow her on Twitter @blogging4jobs. 

Photo Credit. 

The Secret Lives of Employees at Your Workplace

By Jessica Miller-Merrell

If a candidate applying is a buying decision, than a newbie employee’s first day is their wedding day as they say “I do.” This critical moment is important in the retention and engagement of that employee. Even so, newbie employees often seek greener pastures when other job offers come through. New employees, tenured employees and experienced employees play the employment dating field throughout their time with you.

Statistics tells us that employees playing the field can be as high as 80% as they test the waters submitting applications and interviewing for jobs at any time. There’s really not much job monogamy these days, and it’s up to the employers to figure out why. The statistics are even higher when working on entry level and hourly jobs. In retail a newer employee is ready to jump ship at the sign of the smallest increase in pay. In order to understand the reasoning behind job seekers quick departure from a job it’s necessary to understand what impacts their decision to start looking for employment elsewhere.

I have come up with four different reasons that play a crucial role in employee turnover and the lack of job monogamy in the workplace:

Morale: One of the biggest reasons an employee doesn’t want to stay with a current employer is the perceived morale. There are a multitude of reasons why morale in the workplace is low such as leadership not serving as exemplars, no accountability, lack of career planning, and overall cohesion between departments within an office.

Effectiveness of Co-workers: Let’s face it, if you’re the only employee in the organization that comes in day after day and puts in 110% there is lifecycle to how long you can do this without being burnt out. When co-workers don’t show great work ethic it can tear away the foundation of good co-workers. When someone is paid the same as another and one does the majority of the work, it’s frustrating and you’ll end up losing the good employees.

They’re Bored. Most employers don’t see this as a problem, but for the self-motivated and ambitious co-worker that always wants the next big challenge, boredom can be the root cause of them leaving your company. If there is no room for growth or challenges you’ll see all your high-performing workers leave in packs for companies who are more innovative and career-focused.

Poorly Managed: A bad boss can make an employee miserable. Even if your staff is dedicated and loves their job it takes one bad manager to spoil the good employees. Uncomfortable work environments are a main reason employees may consider leaving.

The cost of turnover can be extreme and can sometimes put smaller businesses out of business. Creating a culture of loyalty and understanding issues within the workplace is one of the most effective ways to reduce the amount of turnover in your office and cuts down on those jumping ship for minor reasons. Take a look at the top reasons employees leave and make sure you have a plan in place to fix similar issues within your organization.

The best preemptive approach is that you know them better as candidates, though!

Jessica Miller-Merrell, SPHR is a workplace and technology strategist specializing in social media. She’s an author who writes at Blogging4Jobs. You can follow her on Twitter @blogging4jobs. 

Photo Credit.