Defining Waterfall and Agile for Remote Recruitment

Simply put, the waterfall method follows a predetermined hiring process. It doesn’t lend itself well to hiring remotely since it’s not given to iteration the way agile is. The agile methodology incorporates teams that transcend and transform the hiring process. It’s lean, flexible, economical, and efficient. It’s also conducive to remote hiring because there are less likely to be bottlenecks in the process.

There’s no one size fits all. Human resource’s traditional waterfall method of hiring is drying up. It’s time to let go of convention and switch gears. Agile is no longer just a buzzword. It’s becoming an operating system all its own and it’s taking the HR industry by storm.

Is the Traditional Waterfall Approach Passé?

Somewhat. Human resource departments tend to be creatures of habit. Candidates apply. Recruiters screen, assess, and interview before eventually hiring and training a prospect. The process can take weeks, and the value of your new hire can take months to evaluate. It’s a legacy system that operates expensively with no guarantee that your investment was the right one.

Let’s talk about how agile can transcend and transform talent acquisition and lower the risk of an unfavorable return on investment.

Agile Recruiting in a Remote World

According to Global Workplace Analytics, five million employees work remotely at least half-time or more, saving an average of $11,000 per teleworker each year. With the hiring landscape changing faster than you can say telecommute, recruiters are forced to re-evaluate how they acquire new talent and how they view traditional recruitment methods.

Think of the agile hiring process as a project with the end deliverable being human capital. While the waterfall approach to that deliverable can feel like a 26-mile marathon, agile is like a 400 meter sprint in comparison. It’s scalable, transparent, and collaborative.

What’s scalability? You can keep refining and adding to the recruitment process to meet the changing needs of the recruitment team, the applicant, and the company. Agile recruitment is transparent because it is collaborative. It allows for continuous improvement and manages risk in short, manageable cycles.

For instance, if something’s not working within that cycle (or sprint, as its known in agile), it’s addressed then and there. The cycle is repeated until the job requirements are fine-tuned and the recruitment team has learned all they can from the applicant, before deciding whether or not to continue on to the formal interview process.

Agile’s Remote Recruiting Road Map

Agile recruiting allows for a diverse talent pool of applicants. How? It’s borderless. Remote tools of the trade include virtual job fairs, chatbots, online job boards and college recruiting, and social media. It’s possible to glean hundreds of applicants worldwide. Arguably, the best thing is that neither recruiter nor applicant has to travel physically to the company for an interview.

But how do you know if you’re hiring the right people when you haven’t met them? It can be a challenge weeding out applicants who aren’t self-motivated and aren’t able to work remotely on a team. You have to remember that not all remote applicants are the same.

Write transparent job descriptions to triage applicants. Your job description should include insights into what to expect from your company on a day-to-day basis. While applicants may like the idea of remote autonomy, some won’t want to mess with the necessary team communication that comes from remote work. Solution? Have a talk.

That conversational interface is critical to separating those who are applying because they like your company name from those whose work and other life experiences would add value to your remote work teams.

If you still can’t find any acceptable candidates, perhaps your job description needs to be tweaked before continuing with the recruitment process. After all, remote workers can represent your company anywhere on earth.

Meet Applicants Where They Are

We’re not just talking about location, but also being empathetic to where they are in the lifecycle of their job search. This takes a little more effort to engage them in their own hiring process by personalizing their experience. Once you’ve short-listed your candidates, the agile process of elimination goes into effect.

The Beamery suggests this framework for a 2-week sprint:

• The recruitment team works with the hiring manager to get the job requirements drawn up.
• Line up candidates for the job.
• Initial screening and calls.
• Decide whether to accept a candidate.
• Schedule interview(s).

Of course, this road map is fully adaptable to the changing needs of your organization. First and foremost, your recruiting efforts should support your company’s goals and objectives whether you want your remote talent representing your company regionally throughout the United States or across the pond.

Explaining the Benefits of Agile Recruiting

Agile recruitment methods involve building collaborative relationships. If your company has no agile experience within any working group, it may be hard to get management and C-levels on board to support it. If that’s the case, it’s best to evolve slowly into the agile mindset. Make sure it works within the walls of your company before venturing into its principles for remote recruitment.

If your company is amenable to a change-up, however, explain to the powers-that-be some of the main benefits of agile recruitment:

• Diverse remote applicant pool
• Diverse locales representing your company
• Focus on sprints, reducing time in the hiring process
• Hiring is both collaborative and accountable
• Data-driven metrics like cost-to-hire and length of hiring process
• New technology like artificial intelligence, i.e. chatbots
• Cost-effectiveness of hiring and training
• Low churn rates

Agile recruiting methods can transform your hiring processes by breaking out of the waterfall method of recruitment. It transcends tradition by making the best use of time and resources, whether you’re hiring onsite or remotely.

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Recruitment process outsourcing (RPO) can save your business time and money, eliminate many of the most common problems in the hiring process, and streamline your job, freeing you up to do more managing and less tedious paperwork.

Here are six reasons your business needs to embrace recruitment process outsourcing.

1. RPO Attracts the Most Qualified & Eager Candidates

One of the most dramatic ways recruitment process outsourcing will help your business is by providing you with the most talented and best-suited candidates for each position. Recruitment process outsourcing companies have access to deep talent pools of truly interested, engaged, and qualified candidates, as well as thorough and effective screening processes.

Instead of wading through cover letters from a hodgepodge of Craigslist candidates, you will only have the cream of the crop to choose from. The candidates who you like but aren’t quite the perfect fit for a specific position can go back into the future hiring pool if you choose, making future hiring decisions even easier.

2. RPO Is Flexible & Scalable

Your recruitment process outsourcing package can be scaled and adjusted to suit your budget and your business needs. Some clients start off with limited project-based RPO and then have RPO handle all of their hiring needs down the road when their business expands.

You can adjust and scale your recruitment process outsourcing at any time, so that you’re never left in a lurch without enough help, or stuck paying for more RPO services than you actually need.

3. RPO Saves You & Your Staff Time

At any given point, you and your HR staff probably have a long to-do list of projects that need attention, but that you don’t have quite enough time for. Once you are no longer tied up with posting job ads, marketing open positions, reading through hundreds of cover letters and resumes, fielding emails and calls from interested candidates, and scheduling interviews, you will be amazed at how much more time you have. You will feel more productive and successful at your job and be able to focus on the responsibilities you are most interested in.

4. Recruitment Process Outsourcing Saves Your Business Money

Now let’s get to the bottom line: switching to recruitment process outsourcing not only saves you time, but it also saves your business money in the long run. Leaving a position vacant for an extended period of time costs your business money because it results in lost productivity and revenue as well as excessive overtime payments as other staff members pick up the slack. When your business is short-staffed, your work suffers, your company is less productive, and you risk your client business and reputation.

RPO providers have extremely efficient and streamlined hiring processes, and can generally have a position filled with the best candidate as soon as you need it. And because your staff won’t be spending their time screening job applicants and reading resumes, you can assign them to more productive, revenue-generating tasks as needed.

5. RPO Creates an Organized & Consistent Hiring Process

If your hiring process is chaotic and inconsistent, this sends the wrong message to job candidates. You may lose out on great applicants because double-booked interviews, taking weeks to get back to them about their resume, or an overall harried and chaotic vibe give them the impression that this is not a very professional place to work. When you outsource your recruitment process to a company who specializes in making recruiting as streamlined and professional as possible, you get better candidates, keep them interested through the entire hiring process, and boost your company’s reputation at the same time.

This degree of consistency and organization is not only reassuring to job applicants, but it helps out your current staff as well. The recruiting process will become predictable and consistent across departments, allowing any staff involved in the hiring process to know exactly what to expect when hiring. They will be able to more effectively manage their schedules, predict how quickly a new team member will be hired, and feel less anxious about staff vacancies.

6. RPO Is Compliant & Legal

As an HR professional, you know that the recruitment and hiring process is regulated by strict and sometimes complicated state and federal regulations, laws, and compliance rules. Your recruitment process outsourcing service takes full responsibility for your compliance, saving you time and headaches as well as providing peace of mind. Compliance adherence can also save your company money in legal fees since you won’t have to worry about unknowingly violating a compliance regulation or law during the hiring process.

Once you transition to an RPO system, you will wonder how your business ever survived without it. For more information about our recruitment process outsourcing services and how they can make your life easier, get in touch today.

The post 6 Reasons Your Business Needs To Embrace Recruitment Process Outsourcing appeared first on Verblio.

According to The Harvard Business Review, as much as 80 percent of all employee turnover is due to poor hiring decisions.

There are the obvious financial implications associated with losing an employee during the first 18 months of employment plus many other, non-monetary costs. Fortunately, new solutions exist to help companies, of all sizes, make better hiring decisions and streamline HR processes through recruitment process outsourcing.

The Financial Costs of a Bad Hire

How much does making a bad hiring decision cost your organization? The Department of Labor estimates the amount to be roughly equal to 30 percent of that employee’s salary their first year. CareerBuilder data shows that 41 percent of the employers they surveyed admitted that each bad hire costs as much as $25,000, while 25 percent believed it costs them at least $50,000.

These figures don’t even take into account the non-monetary losses such as damaged reputation, declining morale, and overall loss of productivity. Research by GlassDoor indicates that a bad hire can negatively impact the company culture as well, causing widespread employee disengagement.

The Crippling Non-Monetary Costs of a Toxic Employee

You have worked hard to create a great company culture. Your employees are engaged. They work with passion and you know they feel profoundly connected and loyal to you, the company, and its mission. You have carefully assembled this team and you are confident they will bring innovation and drive your enterprise forward.

When things begin to shift, you hardly notice. Soon, though, your once engaged employees start to slack. They seem “checked out” and disconnected. Lately, they are not just unhappy at work; they are busily acting out that unhappiness by sabotaging the productivity of their co-workers. Morale isn’t just dropping: it is plummeting, and you have a real problem.

Experts warn this is what can happen when one bad apple makes it through your hiring process —someone whose vision never actually aligned or one whose expectations were unmet. The viral spread of a disgruntled unsatisfied employee’s attitude is so insidious, that it can infect your workforce with disengagement. These toxic hires can pose a danger to any organization.

What is Recruitment Process Outsourcing?

Hiring isn’t easy. Even the most seasoned human resource professional is occasionally fooled. For those companies unable to staff a full-time HR department, these mistakes happen even more frequently. It is no surprise then, that enterprise is turning to a unique recruiting concept called RPO.

RPO, which stands for recruitment process outsourcing, is a type of business process outsourcing where a company turns over all or part of its recruitment activities to an external third-party provider.

The firm works directly with you or your team to develop a clear and comprehensive hiring strategy. The goal is to create greater accountability throughout the hiring process from recruitment through onboarding, which ensures that expectations of the prospect and management are both reasonable and attainable. The result is a more efficient process with quicker fill times and decreased hiring costs.

How RPO Works

The process will vary according to the provider and the amount of HR that is being outsourced to them. However, the following guide represents the most common arrangements between a small to medium-sized business and an RPO provider.

Steps in the Pre-Hiring Phase

Strategy

• Design a custom recruitment process and comprehensive hiring strategy.
• Collaborate with you to develop an employment brand.
• Establish both general and specific hiring criteria.
• Develop best practices for future HR processes.

Sourcing

• Begin the recruitment for each position, including all research, data mining, job postings, marketing, headhunting, and procurement of talent from colleges and universities.
• Find key candidates for your most critical roles.

Screening

• Conduct initial phone interview.
• Ensure that the basic hiring criteria are met.
• Conduct any applicable background checks and testing (drug screening, personality testing, behavioral screening, etc).

Scheduling

• Perform interview preparation if indicated.
• Utilize video and other remote meeting technology. Gather feedback from management and prospect.
• Provide feedback to both parties post-interview.

Supporting

• To further the employment brand and company culture, the RPO team will provide support throughout the hiring process.
• Facilitate a positive candidate experience.

Steps in the Post-Hiring Phase

Offering

• Conduct market research to determine salary norms.
• Negotiate and extend offers.

Onboarding

• Complete background checks, testing, and complete all HR and benefits enrollment paperwork.
• Schedule or provide any training that is required before starting.
• Provide a six to eight-week workplace assimilation plan.

Follow-up

• Conduct a post-interview with the employee to assess progress, answer questions, and assure all parties are meeting expectations. 

Is Cloud-Based HR & RPO Right for You?

Due to an ultra-competitive market, the recruitment process has become more complex and sophisticated. Companies seeking to differentiate can now develop and run their HR processes and recruitment infrastructure from the cloud through RPO. This is especially important for companies that are unable to staff a full-time HR department.

Technology has made it possible to find and obtain the best talent, regardless of the location—theirs or yours. If your company is doing a large volume of hiring, needing to compete in the current “talent arm’s race,” you will want to consider partnering with an RPO. Find a firm that is positioned to help you by finding the best talent, reducing your bad hires, and eliminating the risk of toxic employees.

The post The True Cost of a Bad Hire: A Business Case for RPO appeared first on Verblio.

EEOC Files Restraining Order

The most recent case involves the EEOC asking a Minnesota federal district judge to grant a temporary restraining order against Honeywell. The order would not allow the company to penalize employees that do not submit to biometric testing for its wellness program.

The EEOC argues that Honeywell’s program violates the ADA because it forces employees to undergo a non-job-related involuntary medical examination. While Honeywell asserts the program is voluntary, the EEOC says non-participation penalties can cost employees up to $4,000 a year, penalties that make participation involuntary. Employees that are deemed eligible have the option of participating in Honeywell’s High Deductible Health Plan and the wellness program.

Results and performance in the wellness program can directly affect claim costs. Employees that earn less than $100,000 annually and participate in the wellness program can also become eligible for the company’s Health Savings Account (HSA), receiving contributions from Honeywell between $250 and $1,500 per year. Employees that refuse the testing do not qualify for the HSA, must pay a $500 surcharge toward their health insurance contribution and are charged $1,000 per person for nicotine use, even if they don’t actually smoke.

In the Company’s Defense….

Honeywell has countered the EEOC arguments by saying its program is in ADA compliance because it falls under the law’s “safe harbor provision.” The ADA’s safe harbor provision protects companies that are gathering data for a benefit plan based on “underwriting risks, classifying risks, or administering such risks that are based on or not inconsistent with state law.” Honeywell also countered that legislation such as the ACA has given incentive-based wellness programs Congressional approval.

As this case illustrates, legislative compliance is not always clear-cut. Health care reform has allowed for even more gray areas. The professionals at [Your company] are experts in all HR areas, including employee benefits. We’ll be watching this case and others closely to see how they develop. Contact us for more information about how our services can help your company.

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