How Companies Are Bringing A Customer Approach To Employee Hiring

How companies are bringing a customer approach to employee hiringBy Mr. Ranjan Sinha There is an ongoing war for talent globally. Even with the economy cooling from 10% to 7% compound annual growth rate (CAGR), the need to find and win high quality talent will be unabated because only 10% of the 2 million students graduating each year are considered immediately hirable. Finding high quality talent is going to be as hard as getting customers in a very competitive market. Good customers do not give you a good organization but a great organization will get you good customers.In a recent discussion with CEOs and Head of HR, everybody was able to clearly and crisply define their products’/services’ USP. However, most of them fumbled or rambled when I asked them what their USP is to their employees or potential talent. Not surprising, many of them struggle with high attrition rates, relatively unsophisticated approach to talent supply chain management and very high cost of candidate acquisition.Most successful companies have an evolved sales and marketing processes and technology. These companies spend significant amount of resources and money to understand their markets, develop products to address them, craft clever messages to attract customers, service them well to retain them and thoroughly analyze when they lose customers. Most companies have very effectively transformed themselves from license raj era of shortages - where a customer was at the mercy of the company (some of us remember the pay now and wait for a two years Maruti era) to a free market ‘customer is king’ economy. Many of the same companies are struggling to transform their talent strategy from a job constrained economy to a talent constrained economy and have devoted minimal effort to upgrade their methods, systems and thinking to be competitive companies. This single reason can significantly benefit the human resources of the company by bringing some of the best and proven practices of marketing into talent management.Here are few of the common marketing practices that companies use to attract and retain customers, which can be effectively applied to attract the best talent and retain them:Market Segmentation – It has been one of the revolutionary concepts of the past quarter century - the realization that consumers can be broken into subgroups of people sharing one or more characteristics that cause them to have similar product needs. A true market segment meets all of the following criteria: it is distinct from other segments (heterogeneity across segments), it is homogeneous within the segment (exhibits common needs); it responds similarly to a market stimulus and it can be reached by a market intervention. While companies have a very good handle on the demographic, psychographic, characteristic and product attribute preferences of their consumers i.e. market segments and how to differentiate against their competition they are unclear about what talent segments find appeal in their company. Regarding my work, I have spoken to companies that have 20-60% attrition rate (these are obviously unofficial numbers) and they all had a very fatalistic attitude towards controlling attrition. When asked if they knew what is common among the 80-40% of the employees that stay back, are productive and engaged, they are unable to provide an answer. Global Talent Metrics (www.stargtm.com) a psychometric assessment company recently published a report on ‘Attrition in India’ that segments the Indian white-collar work force into eight segments based on individual’s preferences and motivators for selecting an employer. The segments range from Cash and Brand i.e. people, motivated primarily by salary and need to work in a brand name of the company because of social gratification issues to Start –Ups segment where people are motivated primarily by exciting challenging work and flatter organizations. The company provides a tool that measures the attributes of a company and matches them with individual preferences to predict attrition risk for the potential candidates.Do you know where the talent is? Cell phone companies and credit card companies very effectively acquire customers through e-mail and one-on-one marketing. They have built elaborate systems to track prospects, switch them from their competitor and stay connected with them. Many of the same companies struggle to apply those principles towards Talent Acquisition. Handful of leading companies has tapped executives from sales, business development or process management background to lead their talent acquisition efforts. These people bring a background of systematically mapping the talent pool, targeting them proactively as against waiting for them to respond and manage their hiring pipeline with the same discipline and passion as a sales funnel.Web Site - A company’s web site is the single most important tool to communicate with the customers and prospects about companies’ product offering. Marketers want their site to Inspire, Inform, Communicate, Put the consumer in charge so they can browse at their pace. This way, they qualify the interest level of prospective consumers and then customize a communication to pull them along the sales process. I would ask our readers to do a simple test about their company’s job page/site. Does the page Inspire, Inform and Communicate, Put the prospective job seeker in control to browse through beyond "stock" job titles but discusses the USP of the company or the job and allow the candidate to qualify themselves so that the recruiter can be more informed when he/she engages with them? This just proves how effective the role played by a company’s web site is in talent acquisition, amongst its other uses. It is not just about price (or salary) - Companies like Starbucks, Singapore Airlines, Jet Airways and others have built successful businesses by selling not the cheapest products but by delivering value that attracts and retains customers because they know everyone is not looking for just low prices. The Global Talent Metrics’ Attrition report busts the myth that everyone is a mercenary and most people stay or leave a company because of salary. Only 10% of the Indian workface is driven by ONLY salary. Companies need to define what they provide to their employees beyond salary and build a culture and organization that seeks those values. One of India’s largest IT services company is not the best paymaster nationally or globally but retains employees significantly better than its better paying peers. Companies must find these values and effectively communicate and assess talent for those values, to ensure strong talent engagement. The author is a member of the Board of Directors, Global Talent Metrics, Chairman and CEO, Summit HR Worldwide and a HR thought leader