Challenge

Our HR Department is facing challenges in finding the right candidates for the open positions we have in our company on a timely manner. This situation has brought up great criticism from managers, who are frustrated that the normal operations are disrupted by the lack of team-members. The own growth of the company is at odds, since plans to expand operations are not supported by a new influx of human capital.

The HR Department would like to get to the source of the problem, but they have no data to work upon. They know that open positions are mounting up and a great backlog is being created, but without the right references, it has been difficult to come up with an action plan.

They have therefore put forward a plan to create a set of Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) with the purpose of measuring their performance and figure in what areas do they excel, and in which ones they need to improve.

As an Innovation Coach in organization, I was requested to support HR in selecting the right set of KPIs, as well as choosing the relevant source of data for its metrics.

Selection and Application

We have decided to use the mind-mapping tool (week 3, video 4). We used it in order to describe the journey of an open position, from the moment the request is created by a manager and forwarded to HR, to the moment of formal hiring (signing the contract and joining the on-boarding training one Day 1). We had two sessions organized with that objective. In the first session, we did as described above.

In the second session, we emulated the “Critical Path Method”, one of Project Management's tools and techniques, in order to create a flow and measure the number of days that the recruitment process would take to be completed. At this point we also started to identify the indicators that should be measured, e.g how many days does it take to HR to create a job ad based on a manager's request? Or how many CVs in total do we receive per ad, and how many of such CVs are selected for interviews.

We explored the “as-is” situation at length, and the HR Operational Manager played the role of “problem owner”, answering all questions from the audience in regards to the challenge. I was acting as a facilitator, drawing the mind-map on a flip chart as we progressed.

It was important for the department to measure the impact of intrinsic and extrinsic factors to the recruitment process. When a KPI would indicate a below optimal performance for an intrinsic factor, we would choose internal elements that should be adjusted (e.g better technology) and for extrinsic factors, how to mitigate the risk (e.g. marketing campaign).

As we started to identify what was important to measure, it was time to ask ourselves how to measure: what data was going to be used as reference, and how to obtain such data? And last but not least, what was the quality of the data obtained?

To measure for example “Time to hire”, it was important to find a reliable way identify and extract from the system the exact dates of “request received” from the hiring manager, and the exact date when the candidate joins the company. Once it became clear that it was possible to extract a full report from the system wit both dates to Excel, a simple formula would be able to provide the number.

Insight

Design Thinking was an appropriate methodology to apply in this case because the measurement of HR's performance was a mystery to us. We work for a large, global organization and there were no such metrics in place for HR. Additionally, it was necessary for us to explore the “candidate's journey”, from the moment in which he is still unknown to the organization, to the point when hes is fully on-boarded.

The expectation is that by measuring the performance, actions can be taken where they will have most impact.

Some of the conclusions that were taken from the exercise was the managers have a great impact in the length of the hiring process, and that it was important to increase their awareness, so they could act faster. Additionally, they realized that in an increasing competing environment, it was necessary to sell the company to the candidate too, and that new materials and strategies had to be created to guarantee it.

Approach

Although successful, next time it would be important to allow more time to discuss the specific problems faced by the department. In this way, we could use Systematic Inventive Thinking in order to find creative solutions to their challenges. I hope next time we will have the opportunity to go deeper in the discussion and bring such solutions to the table.

