How are finance recruitment processes managed?
As part of the research conducted for Finance connections we asked over 1,000 line managers to tell us how they managed their recruitment process. We asked employers to set out ‘how the process was managed?’, ‘what was the objective?’ and ‘how effective was the result?’.
What is the objective the process?
Almost two thirds (60%) of employers stated that talent attraction was the primary focus for their recruitment process. Less than a fifth (18%) of employers focused on streamlining their procedures, instead stating that ‘process effectiveness / efficiency’ was the goal for their internal recruitment strategy. This could be for a number of reasons as line managers working for large cap UK firms are likely to have a high volume recruitment requirement and HR teams re-focus their efforts.
The impact of HR departments’ changing their roles
We found that recruitment processes were handled two thirds by line managers and less than a third by HR teams. This is a shift that has been coming for a number of years as HR teams become more strategic. They build the processes and strategies for attraction, development and retention with in their organisation. Once HR teams have developed and implemented the process they hand it back to line managers to manage on a local level. HR teams need to ensure a consistent candidate experience throughout the attraction, recruitment and on boarding process within their firm.
Getting results
The research indicates that line managers received results dependent on the objective at the start of the initiative and more importantly, how the process is managed. Our survey revealed that when line managers led the recruitment process, and in the majority (60%) of cases they did, this had a positive impact on the quality of candidates hired by the business. When line managers led the process, two thirds (66%) of them told us that they focused on talent attraction. Of these 29% said it was very effective and 53% said it was quite effective. Less than 18% told us that this was either satisfactory / not as effective as it could be or not satisfactory.
So what is this telling us? Line mangers are likely to be closer to the vacancy that they are planning to fill, therefore will have a greater appreciation of the cultural fit needed and team dynamic. Where as HR managers are less likely to be close to the role and have a much wider remit. This is reflected as in a third (34%) of cases recruitment was driven by HR, with just over half (53%) stating that their primary focus was talent attraction. The remainder focused on process effectiveness/ efficiency (22%), on cost reduction (8%), value from providers (7%), candidate volume (6%) and succession planning (4%). For a strategic HR team these will be key components to ensure a consistent approach and best practice throughout the organisation.
Start with the end in mind
Clearly identify what your key recruitment objective is: is it candidate volume, process effectiveness/ efficiency, talent attraction, cost reduction, value from providers or succession planning? Then determine how best to handle it. It’s likely that combining the interest and strengths of line managers and HR will be the optimum solution – it shouldn’t be a battle of wills.
In the majority of cases in our research line managers ran the recruitment process. They told us that they felt that focusing on talent attraction was effective for them. The results for HR managers were lower; they did not feel their processes were as cleanly cut. HR contacts told us that their role was broader as they covered additional elements, such as: value from providers, candidate volume and succession planning.
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