LEAN, Just-in-Time Recruiting!



Archive for June, 2010

Health System Workforce Planning

Friday, June 25th, 2010

A recent article from McKinsey Quarterly discusses how most health systems lack a rigorous approach for matching clinician supply to the demand for various health services.  As a result, patient care and clinician morale suffer—and costs cannot be controlled effectively. Essentially they discuss the need for better workforce planning:

“Few health care systems forecast their workforce demands accurately. Predicting the number of doctors who will be needed in ten years’ time isn’t enough; it’s also necessary to figure out how many general practitioners, specialists, nurses, and allied health professionals will be required. The length of clinical training only compounds the problem.” – McKinsey, Managing The Clinical Workforce

We concur with McKinsey’s recommendations and have added a few of our own from the work we do with our clients.

Our collective suggestions on creating proper workforce planning and staffing optimization structures include:

  • Forecasting:   Begin with accurate forecasting focused on demand of services by job clusters.  What types of jobs does the system need– now, next year, and the year after?  What types of jobs will need to be refilled or created based on market needs and system growth plans?  Work with finance to get accurate budget projections – this should be something you do every year at the beginning of your fiscal cycle and at least once during the fiscal year to track changes.
  • Determine Baseline Demand:  For each job category, determine your baseline demand.  This would be a charting of hiring needs for at least the past year, ideally two years, by job family.  Again this would involve working with finance to map the potential needs over time. You can also look at actual hires made month to month for the last year or two to get a sense of the fluctuations.
  • Forecast Changes in Demand:  Map potential changes in hiring demand based on various factors, including demographic changes, retiring workers, consumer expectations, medical innovations, policy shifts, or productivity improvements.   Career progression and job movement internally are also factors.
  • Scenario Analyses:  Project various areas of impact to your model based on the aforementioned factors.  Here you get to play with the “what if” scenarios – a spike in hiring in Q2, a dramatic slowdown in August, etc.  The Scenario analysis will prepare you for these fluctuations and changes so you can be more proactive.

These are simple outlines of concepts, which of course have much more depth.  In a future post or whitepaper we’ll delve into workforce planning in more detail.

If you’d like to learn more about how we approach workforce planning and staffing optimization, and the benefits they could provide to your system contact me.

Posted in Bradley Savoy, LEAN recruitment, Lean Human Capital, Recruiter, Recruiter Academy, Time Management, Workforce Planning | No Comments »

LinkedIn + Persistence + Phone + Respect = Success – Don’t stop until they say, “NO!” – A TRUE STORY

Friday, June 18th, 2010

My colleague (Kristine) recently received an executive level, ‘niche skill-set’ search opportunity from one of her clients/hiring managers.  As many savvy recruiters do these days, she developed a targeted sourcing strategy and:

  • Identified all competitor companies and companies that employed people with the skill set she was looking for.
  • Then defined all the different titles that this person would/could be called within these target companies.
  • She then started to seek potential candidates and individuals she could network with in this market (the client didn’t want to relo if possible) via LinkedIn. 

Armed with this intel (and a compelling Value Proposition Statement/Attention Grabber) about this opportunity, she made contact (via Inmail or directly via business/personal email) with all the potential applicants/networking professionals. 

While this is a very common practice among thousands of recruiters, her subsequent actions are often not.

  1. She sent two to three electronic messages out to each and every candidate.  While her response rate was good, she didn’t receive feedback from many and most importantly . . . she did not connect with the A+ talent her client demanded and deserves.
  2. She didn’t give up. While most recruiters would give up on these “prospects” in search of others, she identified phone contact information (this is part of her normal process) for all candidates that had not yet responded to her Inmails/emails and started an out bound telemarketing campaign. 

Covering all bases and having resilience:

She caught one individual around 7:30 am (knowing she was a manager, she called before meetings started – - usually around 8).  Her brief discussion that morning led to a subsequent discussion that led to . . . . an interview, offer and hire for a critical to fill position with interface with the COO, CMO and CEO of a Fortune 500 company!

One day after the candidate (now new hire) accepted the offer, she sent the most wonderful email to Kristine.

“Kristine, I can’t thank you enough for being persistent and making contact with me.  Honestly, while I was intrigued by your emails, I probably wouldn’t have called you back simply because I get so busy during the day with work, life events, etc..  Your persistence has allowed me to find an unbelievable opportunity for me and my family.  I am grateful for your efforts!”

WOW! 

Morale of Story:

  • Don’t assume that no response means they don’t want to talk, won’t help you network, etc.  Remember they are as busy as you! (Are there calls or emails that you have NOT responded to because they are not urgent or of top priority?)
  • Emails, texting, social media tools, etc are awesome and a quick way to reach out to a targeted group of people quickly.  But don’t fall into the trap of ONLY communicating via this method!  A targeted sourcing strategy including emails, texts, and PHONE CALLS is the key to successfully recruiting passive candidates.
  • Your compelling message, your tonality when calling, and the time you actually call are . . . all key ingredients to successfully engaging top talent.
  • Don’t stop until they say – “No, not interested and . . . can’t help with networking” (objection handling on this topic is for another day!)

While I am sure all of you have heard this before and/or follow a similar strategy as a matter of practice . . . I thought this was a wonderful story to share to ensure you are practicing it NOW!

In this age of electronic communication, I think it is easy for even the savviest recruiters to fall into the trap of “email & pray” on occasion! :)

Posted in David, David Szary, Elite Recruiters, Just-In-Time hiring, LEAN recruitment, Lean Human Capital, Recruiter, Recruiter Academy, Recruiter Boot Camp, Recruiter Sales, Recruiter Top Gun, Recruiter Training, Recruiting Buzz, Relationship Recruiter, Sourcing | No Comments »

Making the Lean Business Case

Friday, June 11th, 2010

During our consulting engagements and training we’re often asked:

How do I convince my leaders and associates to practice lean?

The challenge is often a large mountain to climb.  Perhaps the best way to start is to ask a different question.  “What does it take for lean to become part of your company’s culture?”  The answer begins with a matter of perspective.   How do you enable a mass of constituents, hiring managers, recruiters, and business leaders, to see the value lean can bring to the organization?

Lean is a totally different perspective which enables people to solve a problem regardless of how the problem’s been defined.  Let’s look at hiring 100 people as a common problem that a recruiter and a hiring manager would share.  As a recruiter I might define the problem of meeting my hiring goal as an issue of not having enough quality candidates.  From the hiring manager’s perspective, they could care less about my volume of candidates.  They just want the one right candidate who’ll continue to generate revenue for the business and help their department achieve the business goals, times 100 of course.   So while the two stakeholders have the same problem, they have different perspectives on what the root cause of that problem is. 

So, not surprisingly, the solution starts with communication and knowledge sharing for each stakeholder to see the problem through a “lean lens.”  We do this in our process optimization and design workshops, as well as when we develop training programs.  Utilizing a “voice of the customer” approach, the various stakeholders are gathered to share their common views of the problem, and to discuss potential solutions for the problem through their respective “lenses” or their perceptions.

The other aspect of adopting this method is communication of the value add of going lean.  As we have consistently discussed, we, as an HR function, are not as adept at communicating the value of what we contribute through the lens of the businesses we support (money, $, revenue, and $).  As we’ll reveal soon with the results of our current healthcare benchmarking study, there are thousands of hours of waste in existence within many healthcare systems’ recruitment practices, but until we begin to equate that waste into dollar amounts, our businesses will not understand our value, or support initiatives such as lean.  Our recent webinars have exposed many of you to the concepts of ‘cost of vacancy’ and other techniques to display potential ROI from lean initiatives. There will be more of that to come with the results of the study.

So consider: 

  1. Exercises and events to promote communication of common problems from the lens of all stakeholders 
  2. Communication of the value add of going lean from a business perspective that’s tied to financials.

More on this soon, but in the meantime contact me if you have questions or would like to discuss this further.

Posted in Bradley Savoy, Elite Recruiters, LEAN recruitment, Lean Human Capital, Recruiter, Recruiter Academy, Sourcing, Uncategorized | No Comments »

‘Elite’ Recruiter Assessment Results!

Wednesday, June 2nd, 2010

Thanks to all those folks that participated in our ‘Elite’ Recruiter self assessment!  We have just reached the 1500 participants mark! 

For those of you who have not participated, please do so.

For those that have participated, you can check out the results to date.

After reviewing the results, one skill/attribute score that caught my eye was:  

  • Acts as a trusted advisor to a candidate and articulates the career opportunity with your organization when negotiating salary offers.
    • To date, folks have rated themselves a 2.97 (out of 5). 

Over the years, I have written many blog posts on this topic including:

Don’t forget the reason we talked in the first place

What every recruiter can learn from spaghetti sauce

I know you were not looking, but you listened

52 reasons why someone should join your organization

So as you connect with candidates this week, I want you to reflect and make sure you are able to identify 2-4 non-monetary “motives” for which a candidate would leave their current position. 

If you haven’t had this conversation with them, there is a high probability that if/when you make an offer they will do one of the following:

  1. Take a competing offer from a firm that does know their motives and can articulate how their company can meet them.
  2. Stay where they are. Since it is easier to stay put than venture to new, unknown challenges.
  3. Walk away simply because you don’t have enough “ammo” to “close the deal”.
  4. Lure you into negotiating ‘monetary’ motives like salary, bonuses, vacation, etc.  All the things you DON’T want to negotiate!

Remember, once you decide you like a candidate, it’s your job to help them understand how this move will benefit their career long term based on what they’ve told you about their career goals and aspirations. Not only do candidates have to sell themselves on the idea that your job could be a good move for their career; they also have to “sell” it to family and friends. The more you can do to help the candidate see how this position fits in with their career aspirations, the easier it becomes for the candidate to do the same.

Some food for thought after a long memorial day weekend!

I hope you have a perfect day!   

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In a recent post, “You know you are an Elite Recruiter if . . . .”, we shared some attributes we believe Elite recruiters possess.  We thought we would share other folks thoughts on this topic! If you have others – - please share

  • Your clients take you with them from company to company when they advance their own careers! – Patti Yaritz
  • You know that you are an elite recruiter if former candidates/new hires seek out your advice unsolicited and without your follow-up. Some of the most rewarding pat-on-the-back compliments I have ever received have come from new hires contacting me after I have left a company. – Thomas Bolt
  • You are included on emails from the SVP of HR to members of the internal recruiting team with comments like…”Team, let’s make this happen”. – Sandra McCartt   
  • An elite recruiter is willing to share his/her knowledge with junior recruiters and is willing to mentor them to success. – Chuck Clevenger
  • An Elite recruiter gives back to the community by volunteering to freely help people in their job searches. An elite recruiter is known for his/her pro bono work.  – Chuck Clevenger
  • An elite recruiter has the ability to advise and influence HR and Hiring Managers in regards to job specifications and compensation based on their knowledge of the local/national marketplace and talent pool – Dan Helpka
  • Candidates you once turned down, turn up 1 & 2 years later, successfully compete for jobs they now can do having gained the knowledge, skills and experience you advised them to get. – Gerry Crispin
  • More students are graduating from local high schools inspired by your efforts and more of them are looking to aspire to a college degree. – Gerry Crispin
  • More college students are inspired to major in areas that will drive company performance, innovation and collaborative culture. – Gerry Crispin
  • Company alumns send you leads of high performing prospects who they believe will benefit your firm and grow in the bargain. – Gerry Crispin
  • You are a local pro-bono pay-it-forward support of time and advice to One-Stop employment centers, community organizations offering employment counseling and resource limited health care organizations is lifting the brand image of your entire community and increasingly attracting candidates who previously wouldn’t relocate. – Gerry Crispin
  • You are dedicated to assuring that their quality referrals and hires include diversity. You don’t have to be told by hiring management, “We want to see some diverse candidates in the mix.” You bring it and wow even those hiring teams who didn’t expect, didn’t want it, and didn’t ask for it. – Valentino Martinez
  • You help build an elite TEAM! – Julie Rehbein
  • The C-level in your company gives you a call when it wants to add “impact level” talent and believes you can find it. – Mat Apodaca

Posted in David, David Szary, Just-In-Time hiring, LEAN recruitment, Lean Human Capital, Recruiter, Recruiter Academy, Recruiter Boot Camp, Recruiter Sales, Recruiter Training, Recruiting Buzz, Talent Aquisition, Uncategorized | No Comments »