By
Reginald L. Barefield
Competitive
talent acquisition and retention pressures have never been
greater.
During the past decade, the HR staffing function has come
under increasing scrutiny, with a focus on its effectiveness
and return on investment. My work with Fortune 500 employers
to improve staffing operational and organizational performance
has given me the opportunity to examine management's concerns
in depth. I've observed that management's evaluation of
the HR staffing function is driven by four factors:
· Talent planning, acquisition and retention are
essential regardless of the fluctuations in the economy.
·
The routine challenge to remain profitable and develop strategic
competitive advantage.
·
A growing lack of confidence in HR staffing activity--the
result of its negligible impact and increasing costs and
time requirements.
·
Concern about its relationship with those who provide HR
staffing services, and of particular concern is an apparent
passiveness, lack of business acumen, and poor follow through.
In
making this evaluation, management is concluding that the
sizable expense required for recruiting quality talent is
not yielding an adequate improvement in performance by the
HR staffing function.
Moreover,
management is coming to recognize that the organization
itself may ultimately provide the sole avenue for acquiring
quality talent. This, they surmise, might be the best way
to sustain a competitive advantage. The strategic staffing
function could play a principal role in realizing this potential.
In addition, outsourcing all or part of the HR staffing
function would reduce improve results, reduce costs, and
free up cash for other business uses.
Sweeping
technological, social and economic changes will place challenging
new demands on organizations and their HR strategic staffing
functions. Internal and external forces have given rise
to a wide range of recruiting issues, which must be faced
on a daily basis by every HR staffing leader and practitioner.
Increasingly,
management is calling on departments such as strategic staffing,
recruiting, talent resources, human capital management or
talent acquisition to help hiring managers plan, source,
attract and retain quality talent. The specific responsibility
of the HR strategic staffing leader will be to develop and
implement workforce analysis, acquisition and retention
strategies to meet short- and long-term business needs.
However,
management is faced with a dilemma: though the HR staffing
function will play a dominant role in establishing organizational
competitive advantage, it currently represents a significant
investment with too little evident payback. In response,
many executives are deciding to reduce their investment
in HR staffing by outsourcing, or restructuring and downsizing
to support-only, entry-level or non-exempt internal hiring.
Some are deciding to continue or expand enterprise-wide
strategic staffing activity. Other executives remain uncertain
about what is the best course of action. Adding to this
challenge is the fact that most executives are not well
informed about workforce technologies. These tools include
workforce planning, skill assessment, relationship recruiting,
networking, contact management, and optimizing performance.
HR strategic staffing topics currently receive limited attention,
even in the best colleges and universities.
Management
can benefit greatly from two types of information in deciding
the fate of its HR staffing investment. First, management
needs an objective appraisal of its HR staffing department's
current performance. How cost-effectively is the department
meeting the organization's workforce planning, analysis,
and acquisition needs? This information needs to be specific
but does not need to be comprehensive. And for it to be
accurate and useful, the appraisal requires impartial inquiry
and analysis.
Second,
senior management needs ideas of the possibilities--a sensible
picture of what an HR strategic staffing function could
contribute if its mission was not limited to the traditional
administrative staffing processes but included planning,
analysis, marketing, sourcing, relationship building, business
acumen, and attracting and retaining quality talent proactively.
Lastly, learning how to build a strategic staffing business
case is not easy. Unfortunately, many HR staffing leaders
have no benchmark or operating procedure for successfully
developing and managing an HR strategic staffing function.
But there is help available!
Reginald
L. Barefield is President of Strategic Staffing University,
a Houston-based learning center that provides proven methodologies
for developing a winning strategic staffing business case.
