Companies need a balance of home-grown talent and fresh blood bought in from
outside. But either way, are they clear about what they’re looking for?
“It’s vital that companies consider what they think talent is and what is
needed,” says Victoria Winkler, adviser to the Chartered Institute of
Personnel and Development (CIPD).
According to Russell Hobby, associate director of the UK office of the
management consultancy, Hay Group, companies should first look at where the
success of the organisation is decided – it could lie with customer
services, for example – and understand what drives outstanding performance
in those jobs. “Assumptions made about a particular role are often wrong,”
he says. US Navy admirals, he reports, when asked what made good captains,
cited courage and conviction, yet a survey revealed attention to detail and
a concern for crew were most vital.
In-house talent. At Amey plc, a consultancy that works with the
highway, railway and property sectors, a Talent Tracker programme helps
develop internal talent. “We’re increasing our internal promotions,” says
Scott Hobbs, Amey’s head of talent. “We have more than 100 sites in the UK
so our talent can be hidden. We have to spot it but also have to help people
help themselves.” The programme’s self-nomination system, he says, has
revealed people who had previously been overlooked. “These people are then
taken through an assessment centre where we see what their strengths are and
what they could develop, and then we help them with that. We do internal
managerial training, send some managers on university courses, and give
people experience, such as managing one or two people to begin with.”
External recruitment is expensive and Amey wants to increase retention, says
Hobbs. “We want people to feel that they can develop here and we need
visible internal opportunities. In the scheme’s first year, we saved about
£840,000 on search agent fees, because of greater retention rates. People
are now more aware of what we’re looking for. We’re also using our Talent
Tracker values in recruiting externally.”
Hobby confirms that evaluating the potential of existing staff is a good
policy. “You have data on the people you already have. There’s always more
risk with new recruits.” Psychometric testing is useful for measuring
employee performance. “A 360 assessment, which gathers feedback from an
array of people, from bosses to colleagues, is a good way of getting
comprehensive data on how people are performing, too,” adds Hobby. Some
companies have panels of representatives from across the organisation.
However it is arranged, combining forces helps to increase the quality of
judgment about promotion as neither human resources (HR) teams or line
managers have the whole picture themselves, asserts Hobby. “HR people have a
perspective of the organisation and systems for measuring people. Line
managers have the daily experience of how people perform.
“Web-based technology is very useful for capturing data or doing 360
assessments on people in-house and particularly in large organisations,”
says Hobby. “Instead of measuring your top 200 managers, you can spot talent
in wider groups and at an earlier stage. It’s more cost effective and less
time consuming than interview and paper-based feedback systems.”
Fresh blood. However attractive internal promotion may be, external
recruitment remains a key component in boosting talent. Many organisations
rely on graduates to satisfy immediate and long-term needs. “It’s a very
competitive market for new trainees and we recruit several years ahead,”
says Chris Parsons, graduate recruitment partner of Herbert Smith, the
London-based international law firm that has more than 1,100 fee-earners
worldwide.
Parsons, and other large firms, targets students at universities around the
country. “We do events, such as workshops, that tell students about us and
about life as a lawyer,” he says. Holiday internships provide a taste of the
legal life, too. “We have about 140 students with us here for two weeks over
the summer holidays.”
Candidates are assessed on academic results and performance in case-study
exercises designed to reveal their analytical ability. Recently, the firm
introduced 10 scholarships in schools – half public, half independent. “We
find students who are considering studying law and may work for us in the
future,” says Parsons.
Retail giants such as Tesco also recruit vigorously at careers fairs. “We have
about 12,000 university graduates on our UK staff,” says Lorna Bryson,
Tesco’s head of resourcing, retail and distribution in the UK. “We also have
people doing A-levels with us, working part-time or full-time.”
External recruitment, however, is a more uncertain affair than internal
promotion and experts advise that companies should refine their selection
process. “The interview process can be problematic,” comments Hobby. “Big
factors in success, such as working habits and character, are harder to
assess than academic qualifications. Only about one third of interviews are
successful in identifying excellence.”
The typical interview process is often collusive, he says, with interviewers
asking questions that suggest the answers they want. Free-flowing narratives
are more revealing, Hobby insists. “Instead of asking someone if they’re a
team player, ask them for examples of successes in their work. If they make
no reference to others, that can be telling.”
Sharpening interviewing processes is part of honing the whole recruitment
exercise, says the CIPD’s Winkler. “Assessment centres now often help by
putting candidates through live exercises. But while some candidates shine
in processes like these, others don’t. You need balanced recruitment methods
and they should reflect the ethos of the organisation.”
Herbert Smith
WHEN Abhinav Sarana, 23, (pictured), was a student at the National Law
University of Jodhpur in India he had little intention of applying for a job
abroad. “I thought I would work in India. There are more opportunities there
now,” he says. But then London-based international law firm Herbert Smith
came calling, as part of graduate recruitment partner Chris Parsons’
twice-yearly itinerary that takes in the law schools in Calcutta, Jodhpur,
Hyderabad and Bangalore, plus universities in Sydney and Melbourne.
After an interview with Parsons, Sarana was offered a two-year contract as a
trainee solicitor and joined in August 2007. “There are a lot of
opportunities: all kinds of training seminars, the people are supportive and
there’s a huge pool of knowledge. I’m learning a lot.” He hopes that in time
India will relax its restrictions on foreign law firms operating in the
country. “If it does and if Herbert Smith opens an office in India, I’d like
to stay with them and work there.”
Tesco
MANY companies are now looking abroad for skilled staff. In the past two
years, Tesco has recruited 20 Chinese postgraduate students in the UK. After
six weeks working in one of China’s 49 Tesco stores, they undertake further
training in the UK to learn the retail business, says Lorna Bryson, Tesco’s
UK head of resourcing, retail and distribution. Following that, they will be
posted to a Tesco store in China. “This scheme has really started to take
shape,” she says.
Recently, adds Bryson, Tesco has started recruiting MBA graduates in India who
undertake development programmes there before being relocated to one of the
company’s global businesses.
Closer to home, as well as retaining older workers – there’s an 82-year-old
cashier in Scotland – and allowing flexible hours, university students
returning home for holidays can ask to be transferred to their local store.
“They mightn’t be able to work as many hours as they do in their
usual store but we have a high success rate of slotting them in – 97% last
Christmas,” says Bryson.
