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.

Case Study — Rackspace

Rackspace has enjoyed considerable growth in recent years and differentiates itself from others in the market through a strong corporate culture. 'Fanatical Support' is its value proposition and therefore the successful on-boarding of new talent, so that they are not only productive quickly but assimilate into the Rackspace culture, is a critical success factor for the business.

The philosophy that underpins the Rackspace approach to Rackers (or 'employees' in more conventional language) is that if you get the Racker experience right, Rackers will get the customer experience right.

You probably get the drift already that Rackspace is no ordinary company. Fanatical Support is not just a front end proposition, it applies to all functions. So on-boarding is no conventional experience either. There are four parts to on-boarding:

• Rapid Induction Programme (RIP)
• Rookie Orientation (Rookie 'O')
• Team On-boarding
• Pathfinder

RIP is your day 1 experience. Led by Steve Pegler, a trainer in Rackspace University, the day involves the usual paperwork and briefings on health and safety. But it is informal, it is personal (people are walked around the whole office and they get to meet fellow Rackers), it is non-hierarchical (if the MD or other Directors are sat at their open-plan desk they are introduced to new Rackers), they are shown the many photo walls with pictures of fun days, charity events, parties and the hall of fame — fanatic of the month and they get to feel the culture.

Rookie O is a 4-day orientation run monthly. But this is no 'chalk and talk' orientation. There is no job-specific training. It is all about the culture. So, Rackers are given some of the Rackspace values to think about and during the 4 days they have to gather real life examples from around the organisation of these values being lived. So new Rackers need to get out and about and talk to people. They also get to understand the business. They visit a data centre and literally get under the floorboards to understand what the business is all about. Perhaps the most compelling part of Rookie O is that during the week every function gets to present to new Rackers. This could be very dry and lead to death by PowerPoint. Not at Rackspace. It is highly competitive and new Rackers get to rate each presentation against a set of customer engagement measures (NPS) on how much they have learnt and how engaging the presentation was. At the end of Rookie O week (Friday afternoon) all Rackers are invited to celebrate the arrival of new starters and awards are given — including which function presented best! Needless to say, this approach has resulted in some very creative presentations being developed around game shows and the like.

Team on-boarding has two distinct characteristics. First, a framework is given to managers for them to decide how best to on-board their new Racker. So, managers will be expected to set expectations/standards; discuss training needs; brief communication protocols, etc. but how they do this is up to them. This is to ensure consistency. Second, as with most Rackspace on-boarding, managers are encouraged to be creative. So, for example, instead of simply giving people a list of business contacts/resources, new Rackers are given direction and they then need to go and actually meet people/find resources for themselves.

Finally, Pathfinder focuses on job-specific training. What is interesting about this training is that it is assumed that new Rackers will know the technology. The focus is therefore on how this technology is used/how things are done at Rackspace.

Rackspace has been recognised in the Sunday Times Best Companies to Work and the Financial Times Great Place to Work and has won the most welcoming company award.

We present this case study as an excellent example of process value and how a people process is fully aligned to the business goals and value proposition.

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.