Canadian HR Reporter

Canadian HR RepoRteR September 8, 2014 12 News of HR programs at Ceridian in Toronto. "ey're not professional in- terviewers so they might not ask the right questions — they might ask questions that might not be legal and they might be focus- ing on maybe one particular skill set, or their questions might take them down one path," she said, adding that there's an opportu- nity for HR to help them learn those skills. Hiring managers can make a number of common mistakes in the interview process, from failing to prepare properly to not devel- oping a rapport with the candi- date, said Cameron. "In conducting the interview it- self… they'll make a few mistakes. ey'll start with a behavioural- based interview question but they won't keep the candidate... on task, if you will, as they start to answer the question. ey'll let the candidate kind of wander," he said. "Or, on the other hand, some- times what they'll do is they'll ask a question and then they'll answer the question for the candidate." Assessing candidates Another factor that's tied to inter- view skills is hiring managers of- ten don't assess candidates against the same criteria, said Graham. "(ere could be) three can- didates and each of those three candidates would have a very different interview experience and very different questions. "So hiring managers lack a stan- dard set of questions that they are always using, and if you're not do- ing that then you can't really com- pare apples to apples — you've got different information on each candidate and you haven't neces- sarily assessed the same areas with each candidate," he said. ere's also the risk that hiring managers may oversell the role, which could lead to disillusion- ment once the candidate is hired, said Allder. "Sometimes, hiring managers might market the opportunity, as it were, and they might over- sell the role. So there's a nuance around training where they can describe the role and the culture in a practical, honest way — with- out trying to oversell. I think there's an opportunity for training there," she said. e major obstacles are time, training, practice and skills, said Cameron — and tied to that is the manager's comfort level with the hiring process. "We've got this situation where we've got people who are super busy, they've got this task in front of them that they haven't had a lot of training in, they haven't had a lot of practice because they're not hiring people all the time," he said. "So it's kind of foreign to them and it's not comfortable so — hu- man nature — you sort of try to avoid what you don't feel comfort- able with." Importance of cultural fit Another key piece of the recruit- ment process that challenges HR and hiring managers alike is the difficulty of finding the right cul- tural fit, found the survey. Almost two-thirds (61 per cent) of respondents said a lack of skills is not to blame when a new hire doesn't work out — which high- lights the importance of cultural fit, said Cameron. "From the HR professional's point of view, they're seeing that it's not that they don't have the skills, it's that they don't have some other things. "One is cultural fit with the or- ganization — we hear that quite a lot: 'We thought they were going to fit in but, six months down the road, they're just not fitting with our culture.' And that can cause all kinds of challenges for vari- ous people in the organization," he said. e problems and conflicts that can arise from that often result in the employee exiting the organi- zation — sometimes by choice, sometimes not, said Cameron. "Over time, you've got a bunch of people trying to work in a cer- tain way based on the culture of the organization, and then some- one who's working in a different way," he said. "If there isn't effective coaching around that — communication and seeing if the person can adapt effectively to the culture — then the culture's going to spit them out… or they're going to run out — one or the other." Survey respondents reported they expect a full 10 per cent of new hires to be gone before the end of their first year of employ- ment. So are some organizations still underestimating the impor- tance of fit? "is is underestimated and I think the reason why it's under- estimated is sometimes we're rushed to hire because of an im- mediate need, so we opt for skill instead of potential and fit," said Graham, adding there are many different factors and pressures at play. "Organizations unknowingly miss the cultural fit piece for many other reasons — not because they don't want to make a strong cul- tural fit but because there's too many outside reasons that are re- ally pressuring them." Mirror image ere's also the issue that hiring managers often tend to hire in their own image — hiring some- one like themselves, even if it's not the best fit for the role or the team, he said. "Oftentimes when I ask a man- ager to define fit, they look at you like a deer in headlights. ey don't know themselves and I think that this uncovers a bigger under- lying challenge when the manager can't speak to fit." At times, the cultural fit piece can get lost in the cracks when there is a high volume of can- didates or openings, and a lot of pressure to fill the spots, said Allder. "When they're in a bind and they want to fill the position, or sometimes even if it's a timing perspective — I want to get a body (in the position), because of my budgeting timing within the calendar year… there's so many other considerations with hiring that lend themselves to poor fit. It's not always a bad job on the hir- ing manager's part, it's not always a bad job on the recruiter's part," she said. "People think recruiting is easy — they look at is as the happy side of HR. You get to go out and talk about how great your company is, how great the job is, and you get to talk to people who are re- ally excited because they want a new job, for whatever reason. But there is an art to it, there is a skill to it." HIRING < pg. 1 Tight timing, lack of training partly to blame focused." In addition, Charan's concept doesn't make sense because of the strategic challenges that em- ployers are facing and will face, especially over the next three to five years with an "emerging tal- ent decade," skills shortages and the importance of integrated HR into the strategic nature of the business, said Cullwick. "e CHRO needs to have an integrated line of sight on all stra- tegic and technical programs and processes," he said. "Good HR policy and strategy assessment and development also requires the CHRO to have that full scope of responsibility and to me there would be significant risks, for example, if a CHRO did not have process and administra- tive responsibility for things like compensation and benefits... ey wouldn't have access to the data analytics on those programs and processes, to effect better strategy and policy." You're potentially compromis- ing good process efficiency on the one hand and future policy strategy and development on the other, said Cullwick. "We're in this era of integration and productivity and… to disag- gregate the administrative and the processes from the organiza- tional development, strategic side of things would be extremely risky for the business, the talent man- agement agenda." Helen Lam has mixed feelings about Charan's proposal. e pro- fessor of human resource man- agement at Athabasca University in Alberta said she appreciates the intention to raise the HR profile by emphasizing its strategic role and having it report directly to the CEO, and she agrees a strategic HR person should have a good under- standing of various business areas. "However, I don't think the structural change of splitting HR is the answer to the fundamental issue of HR not getting the recog- nition it deserves or not contrib- uting strategically to adding value to the organization," she said. With integration and alignment key to organization success, why would further separation and silos be created for human resources? asked Lam. "HR is generally a small de- partment in an organization any- way and, hence, a further split may actually weaken rather than strengthen the overall HR func- tion and contributions." Lam also disagreed with Charan's suggestion the strate- gic HR position should be held by someone with a background in operations or finance, and hu- man resources is just a temporary stepping stone — this seems to undermine HR's role, she said. "HR is a profession and there are many theories and concepts involved. To have someone from other disciplinary areas jumping into the strategic HR role without a strong HR background is just as bad, or even worse, than having an HR person taking on the strategic role without knowing other busi- ness areas." e issue of a CHRO not being able to effectively play a strategic role can often be attributed to a combination of organization is- sues, such as a lack of recognition of HR's role or a lack of compe- tencies. Both these issues can be dealt with without splitting up HR, said Lam. And when it comes to com- petency, organizations need to select the right person for the right job and provide the proper developmental opportunities, she said. For example, HR individuals can be required or encouraged to complete both HR educational programs and general business courses, and be exposed to other departments' operations through cross-training or project work. "Now that the CHRP (Certified Human Resources Professional) designation requires members to hold a degree, the general busi- ness knowledge base of the HR profession will likely increase as most universities' HR programs are within the business faculty and students must usually take funda- mental courses in all core busi- ness areas before they specialize in HR," she said. But HR education is still lean- ing towards the process side of things because most people have to go through that before they get to the strategic side, and they need to learn the nuts and bolts of HR, said Margot Uson, president of AlternaSolutions in Kirkland, Que. ere should be more on the education side that deals with strategy — such as basic business knowledge and how other areas of business work, she said. "at's the drawback: If you stay only in HR and you don't know how other areas of the business work, it's very difficult to add in anything that's useful to the busi- ness, that contributes to the busi- ness' growth and development." Charan's idea is intriguing be- cause often people outside HR feel there's too much concern in that department around administra- tion and bureaucracy and dotting the i's and crossing the t's, said Uson. "ere's just a mass of data that has to be tracked… if you just fo- cus on gathering and managing that data all the time, you're not connecting with the needs of the business and helping to drive the business forward," she said. "It's a real challenge, I think, for HR practitioners to be good in both those fields, so you either split things up, which I think is a bit extreme for Canadian organi- zations because I don't think we're perhaps as big as some of U.S. or- ganizations to be able to handle that sort of thing. We're having enough trouble just maintaining a reasonable size HR department to begin with." If an employer has enough re- sources to have a larger depart- ment, then it needs some people to have access to the strategic side of the business, as well as having other practitioners who worry about data management and ma- nipulation, said Uson. "I don't think splitting it com- pletely is the answer because then I think you're divorcing the two groups that still have to work to- gether. Even if you're concerned with strategy, you can't be doing that in a vacuum — you still have to do it within the context of the HR role within the business." e challenge for human re- sources is finding the time and resources, she said. "Maybe we're not good enough at finding out how to stop doing … some of the processes and some of the work that's gone on for a long, long time in the organiza- tion and maybe we should be say- ing to ourselves 'Do I still need to do this or can I do it a little better or more efficiently, so it'll give me some more time so that I can actu- ally participate in the business at a higher level or a different level?'" 'Why would further separation, silos make sense?' splITTING HR < pg. 1 "If you just focus on gathering data all the time, you're not connecting with the needs of the business and helping to drive the business forward." "we've got people who are super busy, they've got this task in front of them that they haven't had a lot of training in or practice, so it's kind of foreign to them."

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