Sunday, May 1, 2011

Process Value | What has HR Done to Add Value?


We often view HR processes solely through the lenses of efficiency and effectiveness. Efficiency and effectiveness measures are important, but value adding processes deliver more than this. As Maggie Hurt (Renolds) puts it: 'I am keen to get across to my team that the value that comes through good HR is not through ticking the box in a work process. It is about ensuring the output is right. We need to engage the brain — develop "thinking HR" at all levels of the function'. So processes need to deliver specific outcomes and these outcomes must drive engagement, commitment and performance.
Take the selection process as an example. How well this process works could be measured in terms of recruitment cycle time, quality of candidates, costs of recruitment, number of recruits, etc. — all standard activity, efficiency or effectiveness measures. The outcomes of recruitment though are, arguably to:
  • find the best fit person (role and organisation) and for that person to have the potential to grow and develop further;
  • ensure that that the unsuccessful candidates leave with a positive impression of their experience.
To secure the best candidate will be the result of many interactions that person has with the organisation or its agents — from the first point of contact through to the period before joining. One of our senior practitioners who has recently moved roles talked of a selection process that did not go smoothly and contrasted a poor impression given by the headhunter at the initial meeting (which nearly resulted in the person leaving the interview) to extremely favourable impressions of the organisation itself: even when the process did not run smoothly senior managers behaved in a way that not only recovered the situation but turned it into a positive experience. For this person, these are excellent examples of value adding moments during a process.
A different type of process value in selection is seen in the way KPMG UK recruits graduates. Graduates value straightforward, quick and transparent selection processes. In response, KPMG was the first large employer to go 100% online (back in 2000) and the first to have online reasoning tests. The KPMG process is one of the quickest in the marketplace with most decisions being taken within 1 month from initial application. Graduates are told in advance what they will be assessed against and KPMG gives feedback to candidates at each stage of the process regardless of outcome. When offers are made candidates are sent a link on the same day that takes them to their electronic offer. They can accept online and access all the relevant documentation online.
Rackspace, a global managed hosting business, demonstrates process value in their approach to on-boarding. This is presented in the case study below.
An exercise we completed with the HR leadership team of a FTSE 20 company was to review people processes and consider whether each was having a positive, neutral or negative impact on employee engagement. This was an illuminating experience and revealed that most were either neutral or negative. As a result, we were then able to identify what could be done to shift the employee experience for each key people process.

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