Is there a misconception in the value of HR?

I’ve recently got to know the Talent Attraction Manager at Sky (as they posted an in-house job on our new ukrecruiterjobs).  I was talking with her yesterday and she mentioned a debate that was on our discussion board about in-house recruiters.  It started off with how recruiters can get on the PSL and ended up with an attack on in-house recruiters. By the end the postings were getting quite angry and vitriolic.  Emma was quite taken aback by this and so we wondered why HR is seen in this way.

She believes that people have a very old fashioned view of HR.  On the forum I see this quite a bit – recruiters suggesting that the recruitment person or team within HR are just about paying salary, getting timesheets signed off, etc and that they are a barrier to successful recruitment.  It’s not really considered as a strategic function; covering manpower planning, working with line mangers to define the people needs of the company and full service talent resourcing.  Also, what is probably not considered is that in many organisations 60% of recruitment is actually internal.  For these roles it’s not just about allowing someone to move from sales to marketing – it’s about proper succession planning.   

We talked about how the big blue chips (and probably many smaller companies) have moved on in the past decade and created an in-house resourcing function (some also with a talent management function).  Resourcing is about recruitment (filling of vacancies) whereas talent management spans  the full employee life cycle from recruitment through to retention – manpower planning and succession planning, through to sourcing and onboarding.  It’s about considering employer branding and creating supplier relationships that support the company objectives.  In many organisations it’s also about taking a certain element of headhunting in-house.  Resourcing also extends to equipping line managers with the tools to select the right candidates (teaching interview skills, etc) running psychometric testing and ensuring the process is legally compliant (eg, fulfilling discrimination guidelines).  All in a proactive manner. 

Emma says having a Talent Resourcing function isn’t about cutting out agencies – it’s about finding the most effective way to recruit.  Nor is it about stopping recruiters talking with line, it’s about creating strong partnerships with agencies across the business.  Talent Resourcing will be in the loop for every assignment not as a block to the process but as a facilitator.  In fact HR can be an ally in helping the recruiter!

We are planning on adding this as a regular "column" to my blog.  It'll be a sort of "conversation with HR" type feature.  My HR expert for this is Emma Mirrington who is Talent Attraction Manager at BSkyB.  Emma has over ten years resourcing experience within a variety of roles encompassing both graduate and experienced hire recruitment. Most recently she was with Unilever for five years as their European Talent Manager before moving to Sky in January this year.  In her role she is responsible for Employer Branding, Future Talent and developing new sourcing initiatives.  Emma has also seen recruitment from the "other side" (well, almost) as she spent two years with Best People in their managed services division.

Emma and I will be talking about all sorts of HR recruitment topics and in many cases how HR and third party recruitment agencies can/should work together.   If you have any topics that you would like me to discuss with Emma then please let me know.

If you want to know a bit more about Emma you can view her talking about engagement issues here and view (and connect to her) on LinkedIn.

Comments

[James Parr]

Louise, you're Queen of the Introductions at the minute!

Must remember to add Emma as a contact on Linkedin when I get chance.

And must remember to make some time to get back on the forum; reading that debate Emma mentioned brings back memories of all the good times I've had on there. I just love arguing with recruiters (the old fashioned, sell your first born for a placement type)!