Entry Level Hire Example
Here is a simple example of how a recruitment department can become a strategic input even on an entry level hire. Our example business is called Bank A. Bank A needs to hire a new relationship manager. In the classic model the business unit head of Bank A will say; I need to hire a new relationship manager for the Industrial Zone in the city. Our current relationship manager has resigned, let us replace her as soon as possible.
The recruitment team assigns a recruiter to the remit, let’s call her Sally. Sally will search her data base, perhaps take a few online ads out, call her industry contacts and come back to the business unit head. Let’s call the business unit head, Jennifer. Sally submits to Jennifer a selection of three RMs for the position. Sally is very professional and has interviewed the candidates and then ranked them for Jennifer. She provides a presentation such as the one below, complimented by a short write up of each candidate.
Had Sally been extremely well trained, she would go as far as breaking down the competencies for the job and then assessing the candidates for their ability to perform on each one:
Jennifer, the business unit manager, may appreciate her work and move forward with interviewing the candidates. This process fulfills the basic needs of the recruitment request but does not provide the HR Department with any ability to become a strategic partner to the business, it is only fulfilling the operational requirement of filling the position.
To provide strategic input, all Sally needs to do is simply add a few questions to her interviews which are focused on revenue, net profit, growth strategy and other related metrics. Once she does this the relationship between HR and the business can shift dramatically. Take for instance the report below. Sally now has added one graph to the report which is Revenue Per Relationship Manager and has identified Bank B as having a superior performance on this metric with a delta ranging from 25% to 1000% depending on which bank you compare it to:
The Chief Human Resource Officer can now approach the Chief Executive Officer with this information and highlight why Bank B is outperforming in the market. This is a mix of different elements, one of which is higher coverage, that is more RMs per customers.
“They are running at 50 active customers per RM, and our bank is running at 300 active customer per RM. Also Bank B has a larger suite of products to offer their clients, and finally Bank B has 20 training days per year for their Relationship Managers and we only have five training days per year.”
Better trained RMs, more aggressive client coverage, and an expansive portfolio of client services gives Bank B its competitive advantage. Bank A can now say its business unit head is not using the right strategy to win. We do not have the right organisational structure to optimise our revenue from the industrial zone free zone. Our RMs need treasury product training and client management training. We need to increase the L&D for this team by 400%. Finally, we need to bring in better and more sophisticated products that our RMs can sell.
By bringing competitive intelligence to the table the recruitment function can test the strategy of the bank, the tactics of the bank, and can compare and contrast the approach being used with the top performers in the market. Now HR has become a true strategic partner.