“If you’re asking for a seat at the table, I think you’ve missed the point”

Susan R. Meisinger, SPHR, became President and CEO of the Society for Human Resource Management, the world’s largest human resource management association, in March 2002. Prior to joining the Society, Meisinger served as Deputy Under Secretary for the Employment Standards Administration (ESA) in the US Department of Labor, where she was responsible for the administration of more than 90 Federal laws and regulatory initiatives affecting workers’ compensation, minimum wage and overtime, and non-discrimination and affirmative action obligations of federal contractors. There’s not a lot she doesn’t know about HR…

NGP. What do you think are the greatest challenges in recruiting the best staff? What areas are your members currently focused on?
SM. What we’re beginning to see is that one of the bigger challenges is finding adequate numbers for candidates. The skills shortages that are going to be manifest globally are more present. Unskilled labour is less of a challenge, the more skilled and the more specialized, the greater the challenge.

NGP. Does this increase popularity of outsourcing?
SM. That’s part of it. It’s also that everybody is trying to focus on their strategy – so the things that are being outsourced are not core to what an organisation perceives as creating value in the organisation. Things that are tactical or repetitive are the first to move.

What’s interesting is there is an aspect of skill shortages – and therefore outsourcing –in some of those more highly skilled professions, such as engineering. The US has been outsourcing the repetitive skills functions, not necessarily the creative aspects or the innovation, but it’s only a matter of time.

NGP. What are the most popular skills in short supply?
SM. Scientists and engineers are highly in demand. The more years of education proficiency in a specific job role requires, the more at risk that role has become.

In the US, nursing shortages are becoming a problem. The average population of nurses tends to be in their mid to upper forties. If you have a workforce that’s older, in a clinical situation where there are physical demands of working with patients, this is something of a challenge.

NGP. There are now many ways that companies are assessing candidates – group interviews, role-play, etc. What do you believe are the most effective hiring processes?
SM. There’s no one best way, and that’s part of the challenge. Many HR professionals and companies are looking for the Rosetta Stone of what is the best thing to do. It really has to be a process that’s linked to your organisation strategy.

As a rule of thumb, the more folks who are involved in the selection process from an organisation, the higher the likelihood of success from that candidate. That’s because, when more people have a stake in the outcome, more people are focused on making sure the selection is successful and there will be more internal support for that candidate. Obviously, for some positions it’s not practical; but for other positions it is quite essential.

NGP. Is there a way that HR can impact across a wider section of the company to get more ‘buy-in’ at an early stage?
SM. Yes, by training managers so that they understand the principals of what some of the research is about regarding successful recruitment. You can’t just leave it to HR: managers have to understand that they have ownership for this process as well.

I think too, HR has an obligation to spend more time up-front understanding what the needs of the positions are and what the manager wants. The more time spent up-front gaining an understanding of what the business strategy is and what outcomes are being sought by this position, the greater the likelihood of success for the recruitment effort.

Sometimes managers don’t know themselves what they need and it can take skilful probing and interviewing from the HR professional to make sure that the manager fully articulates and understands it. Sometimes managers fall victim to a normal human bias, which is being drawn to people like themselves. I don’t mean to suggest that in a demographic “I’m a white male therefore I like working with white males” sense, but through thought processes and how people approach a task. Sometimes what you need is somebody to fill a weakness that you have in how you approach a task. An HR professional, if they’re skilful, can work with a manager to help them feel comfortable with and understand that, and then search for candidates and help the managers interview them in a way that teases out the information the organization needs.

NGP. What role does technology play in HR recruitment? How has this changed the nature of recruitment and what do you think the future will bring?
SM. I think it can take care of the ‘administrivia’. Technology has great use now in terms of resumes being submitted online, creating a database that can be searched for skills using keywords, and teasing through volumes of information about people so that those with the greatest likelihood of having a skill that meets the need are run to the top.

There’s lots of technology that allows for ease of routing of resumes and information about candidates so that things go to the manager and the manager is better equipped for the interview. It allows HR folks to spend more time on the front-end, making sure of the search criteria and that the skills and attributes really do match the needs of the organization.

NGP. So HR is still very much a ‘human’ environment. It still requires expertise and experience rather than a set of pre-told data?
SM. Absolutely, it is not execution against the rules. Technology also allows for employee self service, so that the employee can go in and address their own employment records and update them or whatever. That gives the employee some creative confidence: if they are doing the data entry there’s usually less risk of error, so the employee has a better experience because they feel the information is correct in the system. And most HR professionals don’t really want to spend time on the transactional stuff. There are some who are more comfortable with that, but I don’t think they have long careers in front of them.

NGP. Human capital is the key to success in any industry – but is especially relevant to an industry such as pharma, where knowledge is the name of the game. What strategies should those involved in the pharmaceuticals industry look to employ to retain and motivate key staff?
SM. Again, there’s no one Rosetta Stone. It is about understanding your work force, understanding your business strategy, and trying to make sure you can link the two. I think HR has an obligation, because of some of the skills shortages pharma is going to be seeing, to help earlier in the pipeline – for example, making long term investments and working at schools to get students interested and intrigued. You may not see an immediate linear pay back, but over time you can’t afford not to be doing that.

Where we are also seeing employers making change is in being much more flexible about the work relationship – to respect and understand what an individual may need in their work/life mix and be flexible. You don’t have to have the standard work arrangement and that’s the only arrangement you allow for your employees. Employers that are going to have the better likelihood of retention are those that can be flexible and manage that flexibility. We have so many civil rights laws that HR professionals can be too focused on treating people equally. It’s important to treat people fairly as well, and to understand that employees understand when you design different work arrangements based on work/life balance or whatever an employee needs at that point in their career – as long as they think it’s done in a fair manner. It may be a different structure for different people, but as long as it is done fairly it doesn’t have to be equal.

Of course that’s a different skill for large organisations because they have systems and controls in place to avoid abuse. To have some customisation of the work experience can be a difficult thing to absorb, especially if you have managers who are more senior in their career and who didn’t have that opportunity. In this situation, HR can play a real role in helping to educate an organisation and create a culture where that sort of effort is exerted on behalf of the employee.

NGP. Given the complexities and demands of the legislative minefield, what will be the impact of the shift towards outsourcing recruitment? What do you see as the major benefits and potential pitfalls?
SM. Decisions on outsourcing recruitment have to be linked to the business strategy, and there are different levels of outsourcing recruitment. You can outsource recruitment so that it’s simply going out and finding a slate of talent. Then you move it inside so that the selection and the review processes are done internally.

You may be much more likely to outsource recruitment for a job where there’s a high availability of talent and high turnover, but you may be less likely if your corporate culture is linked to that. For example, an airline company starts as a low cost operator and one of its cultural attributes is the friendliness of its staff and its humour. It wouldn’t be uncommon on one of its flights to hear attendants singing on the intercom system. The way it continues that culture is to have flight attendant teams interviewing candidate flight attendants and making recommendations as part of the recruitment process. Pilots will interview other potential pilots as part of that process. That’s the airline’s business strategy, to continue an intrinsic part of their culture, and I don’t think they’re likely to outsource it. It really does have to be linked to the business strategy, and there is no one right answer.

NGP. How can HR people provide business leadership?
SM. The first thing with an HR professional: if you’re asking for a seat at the table I think you’ve missed the point. What that means is you’re not focusing on HR’s role of adding value in the organisation, and once you start focusing on that and understanding the business and how to leverage HR for the business you will be at the table.

For example: if you don’t understand what the drivers of wealth within a company are; where does the revenue come from and who are the key players in generating revenue. That’s where you should be spending a lot of your time – on the talent that’s generating the revenue and understanding that pool of particular workers. What are the attributes of the most successful folk? What is it they do that makes them so successful in the organisation? Understand that and then look to fill those positions with people that have those attributes.

It seems obvious, but many HR professionals don’t take that approach to things. They look at a job requisition and they post it, but they don’t really dig down to what it is that will make a difference in the organisation.

The other thing that has come to light in some of the research we’ve done with Dave Aldridge and Wayne Brockbank at the University of Michigan on the competencies of HR professionals in high performing organisations: they spend half their time on strategy – a full 50% of their time on the strategic aspects of understanding the business and how to leverage HR. And they spend time on the HR delivery issues: searching for talent, finding it and keeping it. Also, their credibility is high. By that I mean not just that you can believe what they say, but that they are truthful and good coaches and councillors and keepers of confidence who deliver on their commitments.

Frequently, if you work in a performance situation, you’ve got deadlines for the delivery of certain products or execution of services. If you don’t do that on a consistent basis you lose your status, your role and your job.

HR professionals have a clearly defined role; they’re expected to find candidates and good talent. If they haven’t been able to find it, they lose some credibility in the organization. What I tell HR professionals frequently is “do less, but do it better”. If you focus on your core role and making sure that core is done well, and don’t do new programme rollouts every six to nine months, you will be more credible within your organization. That is what ends up with the organization insisting that you be involved in their strategy discussions.