Four Things You Can Do to Hire Better and Head Off Resource Issues Early

Here’s something that gets me every time.  A department within the company gets really busy.  Projects start to mount up.  The product they’re selling gets hot.  Customers are demanding more.  It quickly becomes obvious that they need more staff.  Everyone talks about it.  Everyone quickly agrees.

So obviously, since everyone agrees, and they can see the problem, they immediately go out and hire someone, right?  Wrong.  Someone has to have actually cost-justify the new hire to HR, Finance, and depending on the company, who knows who else.  Then they have to define the job and write a job description.  Fill out paperwork.  Review resumes.  Interview.  Choose a candidate.  The whole time, they have to keep going at their regular job, where they are by now very short-staffed.

So what happens in the meantime?  Management often does not notice it, but in the meantime, they get a huge black eye.  Employees in the department become disgruntled at all the extra work and the apparent lack of action on management’s part, either because they don’t know about the bureaucracy involved, or even worse, because they know about all the bureaucracy involved.  Customers are getting short-changed because a) you’re shorthanded and b) the staff you do have aren’t doing as good a job because they’re overloaded.  By the time the new employee starts, he or she is brought into a culture of team members who will likely bad-mouth management for their lack of action to help, and to irate customers who have low opinions of your company.  In no time, they’re wondering if they did the right thing coming to work for you.

Does this always happen?  No, not always, but way too often for my taste.  I have seen this many times.  As management, none of us want to see it happen.

So what is your organization doing to prevent it from happening?  Here are a few things you can and should do to prevent this:

• Put a manpower forecasting plan in place for all your departments and project teams.  Require that each manager and PM give you a defined plan, ahead of time, that tells you how they plan to predict when they need employees.  Examine the plans and make sure the reasons are cost-justifiable. 
• Examine your process for justifying new employees.  Find a way to bring your forecasting plans into this.  Streamline it as much as possible so that once you know you have a need and a cost justification, you can get things approved quickly. 
• Meet with HR, Finance, IT and other organizations involved in getting a new employee approved, on board, and working.  Streamline your processes where possible and make certain that getting new employee requests processed, the employee on board and working is one of your top priorities. 
• Have your managers and PMs provide you with a hiring plan.  The hiring plan should provide how they plan to get job descriptions, resume reviews, and other tasks involved in hiring people accomplished.  Have them set time tables for it.  In reality, business may not allow them to meet these time tables; however, thinking out the plan and having it onhand will help them see what they need to do and help them get it done more easily when the heat is on.

Lack of resources when you need it are something that can cripple your company.  Having resources when you need them is a basic principle of maintaining business agility.  Don’t leave the hiring process out of your plans for maintaining a business edge.

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