7 Comments so far

Sunday, October 21, 2007 by Peter Schofield

Agree wholeheartedly with your comments about slip-shod service from some recruiters, although I'm not convinced that regulation will solve as much as natural selection.

As mentioned in the last blog post, I believe that the state of the recruitment industry reflects the way in which employers approach recruitment. Let me qualify this...

If a bar dilutes its drink with water in order to make more profits then, pretty soon, people will cop on and take their patronage elsewhere. Point being, if employers understood how to select agencies properly, then they would find a whole host of them ready and willing to do the job properly in return for a committed working relationship.

The down side of this is that employers never know which recruiter is handling the next career move of the the person they are keen to recruit, so it's obviously not as simplistic as my natural selection theory makes out!

(to solve this, by the way, I developed some recruiter collaboration software - see www.recruitpeople.com)

What you say about forging strong relationships is 100% spot on. I really appreciate what you're saying with this post and hope people readily take this on board.

Very refreshing!

Thursday, October 18, 2007 by SG

I agree with this article but also would like to add a point. The 'necessary evil' has grown up as a result of cynicism of a loosely regulated industry and past history with slip-shod service from agencies.

It is easy to see why HR Mngrs may view what an agent actually does for the fee and see it as money for old rope - little added value to the consultative process between agency and client. But this can be mitigated by careful selection of a few number of agencies who really know your company and needs.

Critical to a successful agency/client partnership is openess (i.e. tell them the pitfalls of working for a company such as yours so they can pre-empt this in their discussions with candidates as well as the predictable and usual 'spin'), careful and detailed briefing to the agency about what your needs are - go beyond the job spec and tell them about the competencies you look out for, the expectations of what fits in your culture etc.

And don't use every agency under the sun under the misguided impression that if you throw enough mud against numerous agency walls, some of it will stick!! I worked with a very small, select PSL, had regular quarterly meetings with them to review their performance (and tell them how their competition was doing on the PSL too so they can all learn from each other) and lots of feedback on CVs - keep in contact - don;t put your RMS technology between you and your agencies - it creates distance, misunderstanding, a dilution of your EVP messages, and therefore not great service.

YOU as the person responsible for recruitment in yor firm is soley responsible for forging service-driven working relationships with agencies that work and are sustainable. The excuse that all agencies are just cowboys is a cheap shot. I have had agencies and headhunters do splendid jobs for me, made me, and my employer look good, and hard work from both sides means a successful relationship.

We need them - in a 0% unemployment market such as the one here in Dublin, Ireland, I need their market intelligence, their market spread, their salary info - these guys are at the frontline of the applicant marketplace and they can help you steer your stragey based on what is really happening 'out there'.

Wednesday, October 03, 2007 by Angus

With regard to the only one I know of personally they published the ones that they did something about as well as those that were "under review." There were of course some that were either personal or completely unrealistic from a finacial perspective so they were either left out or had a "come on get real there's no way we can afford to do that" sort of answer but to give an example they did actually install SKYTV so that people could watch sport etc during their breaks. A pretty cheap investment that went a long way to showing how much they listened. Granted this was at shop floor level in a large retail distribution business but it went down well with the shift workers - some staying behind or arriving early to work to watch games with their colleagues. I know of others that only post the ones they have done something about and whilst it is selective it does show progress as it often satisfies those who ddin't speak out but felt the same way.

Wednesday, October 03, 2007 by Peter Schofield

I don't know what it is you do exactly, but I can tell from your comments that you are right at the sharp end of what this campaign is about.

I particularly appreciate the point in your last paragraph regarding those employees either side of that point of no return. Absolutely spot on.

Staff surveys are very useful if carried out by people who understand what they're dealing with. Unfortunately, I'm come across many companies who have been since blinded to the benefits, having had a bad experience of ill-conceived surveys which merely served to open up wounds, with no mechanism to resolve them.

If anyone is reading this and wondering how tell the difference between a good staff survey practioner and someone who's fresh from a training couse of lifted the theory from a book, the key thing to look out for (it sounds obvious, I know) is practical examples that demonstrate their understanding of why people leave and join companies, and how their survey has resolved some of these issues. Otherwise you are in danger of opening the organisation up to a 'whinge-fest'.

Angus - the example you gave of publishing the results of exit interviews. Do they publish all of the gripes, or just the ones they've done something about - and - how public is this 'publishing'?

Tuesday, October 02, 2007 by Angus

You make a very good point Pete - many employees are still worried about the prospect of a negative "off the record" reference so they find it easier at exit interview to play ball and in their own mind not burn any bridges. Often the fact that they're leaving means that they've given up on suggesting changes or felt that to do so at exit point was already too late.

Perhaps companies should look at what's not working before it gets to the stage where people feel that they have to leave to seek the changes that would make them happy.

A lot of the time they are used to a blame culture or one where freedom of speech often carries with it the risk of recriminations later on from people who's departments or indeed personal performance may have been challenged.

I'm sure many of us have seen things that we don't agree with at work with regards to systems or processes but we've taken the easy option and kept it to ourselves - not the best way to make improvements but it seemed like the safest option at the time.

Some organisations try to dehumanise it by applying continuous improvement techniques like 6 Sigma to the workplace which has some positive effects yet at the same time does appear to devalue the opportunity for human input. I'd be interested to see an exit poll on the perceived value of the exit interview by those interviewees.

It's refreshing to see that some companies - often service based - who publish their exit interview results in collectively anonymous form and then show what they've done about the issues raised - a bit like the suggestion boards in the supermarkets where they say "you said you wanted more people on the checkouts at peak times - we put another 10 people on the tills." This approach is sometimes taken by companies after their employee satisfaction surveys and also seems to receive positive feedback when actionned.

I suppose the message here is that talk is cheap - if someone leaves then they have usually given the real reasons behind this decision to some of their colleagues who may also feel similarly disaffected but not yet found another role or are willing to put up with it in the hope that the situation changes. These are people who are often not yet past the point of no return - people who if they see positive action may well decide to give their employer another chance.

Sunday, September 30, 2007 by Peter Schofield

Without knowing exactly what your exit interview structure is like and the culture of your particular organisation, I couldn't comment about your own case.

Talking in general, it is very difficult for any employer to gain an honest worker perspective. During the appointment interview, people are in there to win. Even if they find they don't particularly want the job, they want to be the one to turn it down rather than be rejected. On this basis, people have a tendency to say what they believe the employer wants to hear.

Even in the exit interview it's hard for employers to get at the real truth behind what people really think about the organisation and why they're leaving. There's something about us that doesn't want to burn bridges; we don't want our comments to somehow come back to haunt us.

Conversely, people are far more open when talking to a good recruiter. I would venture that recruiters (again let's emphasise GOOD recruiters) get the hear things that people would never tell their current, past or future paymasters.

I have long felt that the knowledge a recruiter gains is vastly under used by employers. Why people really leave and join them is one of the most crucial areas of HR, yet I venture that many HRs wouldn't dream of asking a recruiter their opinion on the subject.

Your thoughts?

Thursday, September 27, 2007 by DavidJ

Why would a recruiter know more about why people leave our organization than I do? Our exit interview formula is very effective as it gives our employees every opportunity to say why the no longer want to be a part of the picture?

ps - I've come across the bad and the ugly many times.....!