HR Magazine Conference: Recruitment & outsourcing strategies

HR Magazine’s October HR conference focused on recruitment and outsourcing strategies. International speakers shared advice to help HR bring on board the best local and overseas talent.

Top 3 ways to tackle lack of talent  

• More temporary workers (36%)
• More flexible work arrangements (42%)
• More overseas workers (30%)

Source: World of Work Report 2012/13, Randstad Hong Kong

Flexibility key
The Randstad report found that nearly half of Hong Kong’s employers realise that they will need to introduce flexible work arrangements. Evidence seems to point to the fact that it increases productivity—employees remain engaged and indeed tend to contribute their best time to work.

In terms of candidate requirements, seven in ten Hong Kong employees say work-life balance is critical in choice of employer, according to the Community Business 2012 State of Work-Life Balance in Hong Kong survey. In this region this is especially poignant as work is often given more priority than in other nations. Lead by example and roll-out flexible policies and it may help you to have a better engaged workforce, a better employer brand and to become an employer of choice. To do this HR needs to drive the message and sell its company’s strengths both internally and to the talent it wishes to attract.[s2If current_user_can(access_s2member_level1)]

Neil Chowings, Managing Director, Work Group in Asia
Topic: Becoming a talent magnet

Neil Chowings, Managing Director, Work Group in Asia

Chowings presented powerful recruitment campaigns in which employer branding had been aligned with overall marketing strategy. Coca-Cola’s talent search within mainland China included the catchphrase, ‘What’s your secret formula?’ to harmonise the recruitment and marketing messages. Graphics associated with the campaign depicted Coca-Cola bottles whose shadows were silhouettes of individuals in a variety of shapes and sizes. Thus, the differentiator used to attract talent was strongly associated with the mystery recipe of this popular beverage.

Ikea Australia also provided a highly novel way of direct marketing to potential candidates by inserting leaflets, in Ikea-style font, into boxes of flat-pack furniture. The leaflets provided instructions on how to ‘make a career.’ Thus, they appealed directly to brand-loyal consumers, utilised existing sales material and avoided costly recruitment fees.

Chowings advised HR to undertake steps to take advantage of their unique brand association. Firstly, HR should fully understand the company and the brand and realise the USP of that brand. Next they should try to understand candidates in today’s market place where behaviour is changing radically in terms of employment desirables, expectations and modes of interaction. Armed with these factors HR should calculate their employer value proposition and leverage it to maximise engagement.

Crafting career sites
Candidates had commented that they would always use a search engine irrespective of how well known the company was—SEM and SEO are necessary. Almost all candidates will visit on-line career sites which become the first point of engagement and provide an opportunity for organisations to present the reality of the positions on offer. Branding becomes critical for filtering out and pulling in aspiring candidates.

Tools of the trade
LinkedIn has proved an invaluable tool for recruitment, particularly in the Asia Pacific. Its growth not only means more lines of communication but, thanks to cloud technology, LinkedIn analytics can detail talent movement, and thus show distribution of skills in a given geography. HR can use the metrics provided to uncover talent pools and make informed strategic planning decisions.

Many organisations remain reluctant to make use of social media; threatened at the prospect of a shift in power. Yet it is inevitable that content will appear so HR must influence on-line perception of their brand. Chowings urged recruitment professionals to have a social media policy which reinforces brand identity and concluded that the direct, brand-aligned engagement channel is both cost-effective and highly successful for attracting the right talent.

David Barr, Director APAC, Resource Solutions
Topic: RPO solutions for HR and leveraging recruitment technology to bring on board the best talent.

Barr began by critically analysing the advantages and disadvantages of outsourced models. The advantages include flexibility, speed and specialist support, he asserted, “Providers come to you with different initiatives, different ideas.” The disadvantages include a lack of support and cost. The disadvantages, however, should not undermine the fact that the smart use of technology is crucial for success as Barr expressed, “The ability to harness technology to drive consumer preference or sales has become vital to smart and successful brands whatever sectors they operate in.” HR’s adoption of technology is, nevertheless, poor.

Of the 2100 HR and recruitment professionals invited to be a part of a survey conducted in June 2012, over 60% did not have recruitment technology in place to track permanent recruitment and over 70% did not have it to track the temporary recruitment process. Barr asked questions on how an organisation could support its quality data or access its population data without technology. The figures come as a surprise due to the fact that 68% ranked ‘improving the quality of the candidates attracted’ as first or second priority. If considering an Applicant Tracking System (ATS), Barr gave his top six considerations: user experience, scope, talent pooling, management information, cost and independence, and future proofing.

Barr explained the benefits of having an ATS such as the ability to cross-pollinate temporary and permanent applicants, and he challenged, “How many passive talents are you missing because they can’t access your career’s site on their iPad?” Barr offered HR some advice, as he acknowledged outsourcing was not always the best option, before considering outsourcing—“Look internally first and ask, is it my system that’s ineffective or a shortage of that talent?” Furthermore, he suggested, “Graduate schemes are a dangerous piece to outsource.”

Kerry Rooks, Chief Human Resources Officer, The Prudential Assurance Co. Ltd
Topic: Successful recruitment strategies from the Prudential Assurance Co. Ltd

Kerry Rooks, Human Resources Director, The Prudential Assurance Co. Ltd.

HR is the gatekeeper of any organisation and when it comes to ensuring the right match is made with every new recruit, HR has a responsibility to be brutally honest with its opinions, according to Rooks. Getting to the stage of signing on the dotted line, however, poses several challenges itself. Despite enjoying double-digit growth year-on-year and success in the APAC region, The Prudential Assurance Co continues to operate in an environment where expense controls are extremely tight and immense pressure is placed on limited existing resources. And with an average of 50 vacancies to fill every month, the company’s HR team has had to adopt measures to decrease the need to actively recruit.

Focusing on attraction has become a key element of the organisation’s people strategy. One of the key challenges has been to improve the company’s employer brand and value proposition in order to broaden its appeal beyond the insurance industry, which Rooks admits has been a long and arduous task. However, one thing HR has done is push the organisation to launch a new career website, which Rooks had previously considered ‘embarrassing’.

The company has also looked to social media, such as Linked In, to aid recruitment with some ‘pleasantly surprising results’. However, while this has enabled HR to directly engage with potential candidates, Rooks confesses that more passive candidates, particularly those in more senior positions, have been too scared to communicate directly with new HR contacts. This is something she also learnt when HR attempted to cut out recruitment agencies to reduce costs, but missed reaching their key target audience. Other measures the company has taken to improve its recruitment strategy are: introducing more robust assessment tools at interview stage to guide hiring decisions, a staff referral programme with rewards, and helping hiring managers to improve their interview skills via training.

And once new recruits are in the door, retention is a key focus for Rooks and her team, as she stresses the importance of staying engaged with employees even after they have signed their contract. The company go about this by maintaining ‘touch points’ with staff after 30, 60 and 90 days of their employment in order to sustain high engagement levels and reduce the early leaver rate within those crucial first three months of employment. Whilst Rooks admits that perfecting the company’s recruitment strategy has been like running a ‘marathon’, it certainly seems the company is far beyond the start line.

Stephen M R Covey
Topic: How HR can leverage trust to maximise recruitment effectiveness

Stephen M R Covey, respected business author, honoured HR Magazine by addressing delegates via video link from the USA. According to Covey, an organisation that demonstrates trust can successfully attract and retain talent. He proclaimed trust to be the global economic currency of today. This is because, he elaborated, trust acts as an enabler to engagement. “Nothing destroys or creates engagement like trust,” he asserted.

Covey began by explaining how trust underpins every aspect of our lives–socially and economically. In economic terms he identified two measurable outcomes, which fluctuate according to levels of trust within a business, as speed and cost. When trust goes down so too does speed as emotional barriers are created and laborious administrative tasks generate physical obstacles to productivity. This superfluous activity causes labour-intensive processes and restrictive practices, both of which are costly and inhibit growth. He likened this costly phenomenon to a low trust tax.

At the same time the converse is true. When trust is increased so too is speed and cost thereby reduces. At the levels of the individual, industry and society trust facilitates a state of collaboration, rather than one of mere coordination. Partnerships are formed from trust and innovation is encouraged and expedited by its presence. Covey alluded to Watson Wyatt data which found high trust organisations to out perform low trust ones by 286% in real terms; stock value plus dividends were found to be almost three times higher. Sticking to Covey’s financial analogy this high trust, high speed, low cost situation yields a high trust dividend.

The ability to create and demonstrate trust is therefore of huge significance for attracting and retaining potential employees. Trust should be apparent in the recruitment process and be embedded deeply within the organisation. To this end Stephen offered good news—the ability to create trust is a learnable competency. It can be inspired through credible managerial behaviour.

He offered two pieces of advice for HR in recruiting talent:

• be a model for the delivery of trust –be credible by demonstrating sound processes and by being bi-lingual in terms of language of the business and of culture; and
• be a trust-catalyst for others so that they instil trust in every sphere of the business.

Winnie Ng, Diversity & Inclusion Manager, Community Business
Topic: Adopting an Asian lens to assessing talent—for recruitment and development purposes

Winnie Ng, Diversity & Inclusion Manager, Community Business

Ng advised HR managers to understand and appreciate the strengths of all candidates and to recognise that local talent may present competencies differently. Asian talent has a plethora of benefits that companies would struggle to obtain with a wholly imported workforce; local knowledge of customs, language, laws and the market. Ng asserted that—with corporations moving increasingly towards the East—those not taking advantage of the local expertise are foolish.

In APAC, the import of foreign talent has created a disproportionate representation of Asian talent in executive positions. To avoid overlooking potential talent by looking for Western attributes, Ng suggests that organisations should ‘adopt an Asian lens’ when rating candidates. The most popular guidelines for recognising the different behavioural quirks of Westerners and Asians are those created by Globesmart and Hofstede. The main differences are levels of independence, approaches to communication and choices in risk or restraint. Asians tend to place more value in trust, while their motivation and communication tends to differ from their Western counterparts. It is also necessary to recognise the way Asians express opinions—they are unlikely to do so during a meeting being more likely to mull a decision over. Ng stressed that these differences do not represent weaknesses.

The main strengths of Hong Kong employees are their language abilities—being proficient in both English and Mandarin—and they tend to have good work ethos and be highly driven. In addition their local knowledge and pre-existing relationships cannot be equalled by expats.

Candidates from the mainland often have very strong analytical skills, valuable knowledge of legal and banking regulations, good understanding of local clients and customs, and are self-motivated and ambitious. These strengths are seldom recognised in talent assessment processes.

Appreciating Asian talent
Assessment models rely heavily on self-promotion skills, often in a language that is not the mother tongue. Ng declared it essential to have a global standard for assessing talent, albeit adjusted for local behavioural criteria. This would, she insisted, not lower standards, but rather make the method of discovering talented individuals more flexible. It helps, she continued, to make HR managers conscious of their automatic bias. Ng advised not to try and westernise talent but rather try to appreciate the strengths it brings.

Panel Discussion
Topic: HR recruitment and outsourcing strategies

From left to right: David Barr—Director APAC, Resource Solutions; Hongyan Wen, Vice President of HR, Venetian Macau Limited; Jim Crowe—Managing Partner, Alexander Hughes; Martin Cerullo—MD-Development, APAC, Global Director, Resourcing Communications & Innovation, Alexander Mann Solutions; Toby Rakison—Director, Work Group; Paul Arkwright, Publisher and Editor-in-Chief, HR Magazine

Recruiters often rely on the internet to find the brightest talent both locally and from across the globe. Some view social media, online platforms and data mining as a more effective use of time in getting a larger number of candidates onboard in a shorter space of time. But with what consequence?

Barr firmly believes that you can never remove the human element from recruitment, no matter how far the on-line media process has evolved. He asserted, “Businesses are formed by leaders choosing who they want to hire and that comes down to personal engagement rather than anything you can do online.” Whilst Cerullo agreed to a point, he asserted that in reality even the older generations are choosing to engage through social media. He explained, “It’s not about volume…it’s about quality and having conversations and engaging people much earlier in the process…it’s about having a very blended approach to the way that this works.”

Luck of the draw
Rakison shared his view that there is an element of luck in every process; taking the stance that recruiters should reduce the external factors that ensure the right fit and mitigate the luck element. Crowe, on the other hand, believes that there can be a significant amount of luck, depending upon the economic cycle and the point at which someone is selected. He suggested that this extends to how the candidate performs in their role. He elaborated, “I see a lot of people starting at the right time of the cycle who do exceptionally well for a few years but when the cycle changes, their luck disappears…was it their competency set or was it luck? You have to learn from that and go forward.” Crowe puts these ephemeral successes down to flawed judgement. He continued that people who manage people can be terribly irresponsible in not digging down and finding out the activities of those who are responsible for billions of dollars. Some of these people have used flawed processes, data and judgement.

So perhaps the role of HR faces an even greater scope not only in finding the right individuals for the job but also understanding the processes that occur in making judgement calls within the organisation. Crowe suggested that HR must be able to mediate; ask a lot of very difficult questions and talk to past employers and past clients of an individual and from that extrapolate that person’s capability. He also warns against the danger of ‘falling in love’ with a candidate based on an original first impression.

Cerullo concluded that luck only happens from an HR perspective if you are not planned. He asserted, “If you’re thinking about your strategy then you shouldn’t be lucky. If you’re finding the right candidates it’s because you’ve put the right strategy in place to attract them, you’ve used your brand in the right way and you have been thinking before you act.”

To outsource or not to outsource?
Panellists agreed that ensuring clear communication between HR and RPO providers seems to be the key challenge when it comes to outsourcing. Barr believes that having clear boundaries in terms of the service is a fundamental approach in enabling HR and RPO to better align themselves. He explained that both parties should understand the role the other plays immediately that the partnership begins. Rakison added that any partnership evolves and matures but that it is important to communicate clearly and be open to the possibility of adapting the service to deliver the clients needs.

Cerullo suggested that geography has a part to play in the relationship between HR and the RPO provider. He elaborated, “Outsourcing deals in other parts of the world are based on a very solid and relatively long implementation process, whereby both parties, work on a joint project together…But in Asia, things move faster. Not taking a step back and going through this process gives rise to these issues.”

Martin Cerullo, MD—Development, APAC; Global Director—Resourcing Communications & Innovation, Alexander Mann Solutions
Topic: How HR can effectively use social media and mobile for recruiting the best talent.

Martin Cerullo, MD-Development, APAC; Global Director—Resourcing Communications & Innovation, Alexander Mann Solutions

Typically, HR is rather frightened when it comes to the use of social media as they may be worried about what their staff are saying about them. Social media growth has been cataclysmic, although it is currently slowing, and it is now coupled with an extremely high penetration of smartphone users in South East Asia; just under 60% in Hong Kong and over 60% in Singapore. Cerullo asserted, “Over 25% of mobile phone users are using their phones to search for jobs.”

HR in Hong Kong has been seriously slow in adopting social media to lower recruitment costs, however, “Hong Kong is ahead in checking people out,” Cerullo stated. He explained that Asia is behind as HR does not have the resources to manage social media with only 32% of organisations owning Facebook pages, and some of those are going for as long as 33 days without updates. Cerullo provided Deutsche Bank as an example of an organisation which engages with candidates via social media. The bank outsources its social media management and it has policies in place to get legal involved to deal with risk—communication is clear and no false promises are made. Cerullo advised that organisations should now be taking advantage of ‘augmented reality’ and its ability to allow a prospective candidate point their smartphone at the company’s logo and see all the available jobs within that company. He urged, “They’ll be talking about you on social media, you need to engage in this.” Furthermore, HR professionals were advised on the importance of the role played by the marketing team, he stated, “One of HR’s biggest challenges has always been to engage with marketing. Marketing can look after the Facebook page.” Cerullo concluded by addressing the issue of buy-in from the C-suite—he asked if whether or not your CEO had any children. Children have the ability to change the CEO’s mind—if the CEO can see his or her children using the technology.