HR as gatekeeper against overstaffing

I was a job applicant for the post of human resources (HR) manager in a medium-sized company. After some pleasantries and harmless questions, the chief executive officer (CEO) asked: “What’s the most important part of the recruitment process?” I blurted out an uncertain answer — “the interview portion.” How would you answer that question? — Green Nomad.

The best answer is to determine, first and foremost, if there are compelling reasons why a certain job vacancy must be filled. Vetting the request for personnel is an important part of the recruitment process. No doubt about it. The HR manager must be there to challenge every bid to hire additional workers.

This can be done via interventions like promoting from within, multi-skilling, intra- or inter-department transfer, and equipping people with additional skills, among others. Doing more with fewer workers is the key to labor productivity.

The HR manager must not be a yes-person agreeing to all requisitions for additional manpower after the CEO clears it. It should be the other way around. All requests to fill a vacancy or create a new post must pass through HR before it goes to the CEO for approval.

Understanding this is more critical than knowing the ins and outs of the recruitment process. The HR manager must serve as gatekeeper to counter the tendency of department heads to build their empires, under the impression that having more workers makes them valuable or even indispensable to the organization.

RATIONALE
A job vacancy can only happen for two reasons. One, when an employee resigns, retires, dies or is dismissed. And two, when a new post is created or added as a result of expansion or restructuring resulting in the transfer of some employees to departments where they are best needed.

When a vacancy occurs due to one of these two events, the following questions must be asked by the HR manager: Why do we need a replacement? Can the tasks be distributed to the incumbents? If the job is not sensitive, can it be done by contractors? Can we hire temps to fill the gaps while we wait to stabilize your operations?

These are tricky questions. Many times, it can be a source of friction between HR and department heads. To avoid this, HR must formulate a clear-cut policy on how to proceed in hiring additional manpower. Of course, there are many alternatives to hiring regular workers or even temps. They include student-trainees who can be assigned to work on boring, but important tasks like encoding. You can even challenge these students to think of a better way of doing things.

This is also beneficial to those students who must perform at least 300 to 400 hours as on-the-job trainees. What’s important when hiring student-trainees is to pay them a reasonable allowance for their transport and meal expenses.

Another option is an apprenticeship program. Beneficiaries must complete at least three months of training in highly technical, vocational jobs. And they must be paid no less than 75% of the applicable minimum wage.

DRAWBACKS
Many HR managers and other managers don’t realize the disadvantages of hiring people from outside the company. In fact, they may simply ignore the risks in the hope that any problems can be cured in due time. On top of my list of such disadvantages are the following:

One, it’s costly to hire people from outside. The expenses include job ads if you want your announcement to reach as many people as possible. Other costs include onboarding and training programs.

Two, outsiders may not fit in. Many of them may take some time to acclimatize to the culture and values, the better to achieve teamwork in the workplace. In some cases, this means staying beyond the work hours (read: work without pay), as practiced by some Japanese companies.

Three, the risks of the outsider’s failure. Many times, the new worker can turn out to be less effective than what was promised in the curriculum vitae and job interviews. This happens when your interviews are unproductive.

Last, incumbents may sabotage the work of outsiders. Demoralized employees who do not get promoted may refuse to cooperate with the new workers.

I benefited from internal promotions during my corporate years. This explains my bias against external candidates. If there’s no choice, the only recourse is to weigh the advantages and disadvantages of hiring external candidates. At times, hiring from outside might be unavoidable.

Bring Rey Elbo’s leadership program called “Superior Supervision Subordinate” to your management team. Contact him on Facebook, Linked, X (Twitter) or e-mail elbonomics@gmail.com or via https://reyelbo.com