Another very critical thing one must be careful while hiring is – listening and understanding.
Most consultants / hiring professional don’t really believe or provide requisite focus to sharpen this skills and understand its criticality. They believe that being result oriented or customer focused is much more important to business success than being a good listener. I shall not like to dwell on this too much – please do exercise your grey cells on this!!
Friends, it is important that we innovate and operate differently. As we all know that there are very low entry barriers (as low as in property dealing business) in the consulting business and people want to make quick bucks. 1000 and 1000 of consultancy company mushrooms. I am not sure how many of us will have a stomach to dream of creating a Mercer or Hewitt out of our organizations. Shouldn't we? yes we should, however - how many of us will dare to dream that big? and even if some of us do, how much ready we are to do what is needed (taking failures into stride and keeping a cool) to be at the top?
My dear friends, let us start dreaming more often than not, this is the first and important step before we start working on actualizing the dream. As it is said ;
“Rang laati hai heena, pathhar pe pis jaane ke baad,
Surkh hota hai lahu thokrein khaane ke baad”
I may not have understood this very well when i was young, however, having developed few grey hairs, now i do!
Hiring is one of the most important tasks of an HR manager and a critical retention strategy as well. But the job doesn’t end here. Re-recruiting your best hire is as critical as hiring them in the first place. Surely, you can’t offer a job for life but what you can offer is employability for life. Just remember one thing – don’t oversell..!!
What I have observed amongst hiring professionals in consulting organizations is the lack of training to their support staff. Let me share an example – when we pick up the phone and start calling the prospective employee, do we arm our staff well with the requisite information. Majority of us do not do that. For example, there is hardly any clarity amongst the staff on the revenue, staff strength, business model etc. of the organization they are catering to. I agree that some of us would be doing it well; however, most of us are not paying the requisite attention. Though it sounds too common to do this, however, my friends, it is a well know fact that “common sense is most uncommon”.
While there is a limitation of sharing the importance of certain things through means of writing, however, in case, there is any doubt I can help clarify, please feel free to mention in the comment section, I would be happy to help! All the very best!
“Hire for attitude, train for skills and reward for performance”
Most consultants / hiring professional don’t really believe or provide requisite focus to sharpen this skills and understand its criticality. They believe that being result oriented or customer focused is much more important to business success than being a good listener. I shall not like to dwell on this too much – please do exercise your grey cells on this!!
Friends, it is important that we innovate and operate differently. As we all know that there are very low entry barriers (as low as in property dealing business) in the consulting business and people want to make quick bucks. 1000 and 1000 of consultancy company mushrooms. I am not sure how many of us will have a stomach to dream of creating a Mercer or Hewitt out of our organizations. Shouldn't we? yes we should, however - how many of us will dare to dream that big? and even if some of us do, how much ready we are to do what is needed (taking failures into stride and keeping a cool) to be at the top?
My dear friends, let us start dreaming more often than not, this is the first and important step before we start working on actualizing the dream. As it is said ;
“Rang laati hai heena, pathhar pe pis jaane ke baad,
Surkh hota hai lahu thokrein khaane ke baad”
I may not have understood this very well when i was young, however, having developed few grey hairs, now i do!
Hiring is one of the most important tasks of an HR manager and a critical retention strategy as well. But the job doesn’t end here. Re-recruiting your best hire is as critical as hiring them in the first place. Surely, you can’t offer a job for life but what you can offer is employability for life. Just remember one thing – don’t oversell..!!
What I have observed amongst hiring professionals in consulting organizations is the lack of training to their support staff. Let me share an example – when we pick up the phone and start calling the prospective employee, do we arm our staff well with the requisite information. Majority of us do not do that. For example, there is hardly any clarity amongst the staff on the revenue, staff strength, business model etc. of the organization they are catering to. I agree that some of us would be doing it well; however, most of us are not paying the requisite attention. Though it sounds too common to do this, however, my friends, it is a well know fact that “common sense is most uncommon”.
While there is a limitation of sharing the importance of certain things through means of writing, however, in case, there is any doubt I can help clarify, please feel free to mention in the comment section, I would be happy to help! All the very best!
“Hire for attitude, train for skills and reward for performance”
Dear Raj,
ReplyDeleteGreetings!
I have received part IV of "New Avenues for HR....." and gone thru it with a lot of enthusiasm.
Its an amazing article ! Its very concise, explorative and full of information. The most amazing part is that you know the HR consulting business, too well at thread level, despite of you being primarily on the other side of it !!
Am very pleased of the fact that you have taken such an initiative in bringing out "HR Success Mantra". Also, am sure you must be receiving overwhelming response to your articles on daily basis.
Though, I prefer to go thru your earlier posted articles before I share my part of opinion/input but cant hold till such time.
So here I go...
- Listening & Understanding is undoubtedly a very significant skill for any one at any level in any business and more so in HR consulting business as mentioned by you. Any hiring professional going away from this basic aspect will have adverse impact on the performance resulting in heavy burden on self/service provider and of course, on the client's end as well.
THIS NORMALLY RESULTS INTO PRICE OF NON CONFORMANCE (popularly know as PONC) !!
Additionally (to listening and understanding), a consultant should act like a client ( or put himself/herself in place of the client) so as if he/she is hiring for his/her own organisation or business. A consultant can achieve this simply by understanding the client, its business, objectives and purpose of specific job requirements. A hiring professional must ensure at his/her own level that a proposed talent shall meet the requirement of the client in broader perspectives. And on the other side, he/she must ensure that a career an not another job is being offered to the prospective candidates. By default, it will bring in the fitment & suitability factor for the benefit of the prospective employer and employee.This aspect should be central to hiring along with strict focus on JD.
Let us start dreaming more often than not ..
"Rang lati hai heena ------ this couplet/sher is simply wonderful and very beautifully used by you. Incredible is the word !!
If I may add here something as the second step ( more as food for thought for everyone).....
That is to start believing in our dreams and believing in ourselves. Most of us do dream or have dreams but only those who believe in their dreams make the difference to realise them and Mercers and Hewitt are born !! Of course, there are third and fourth and subsequents dedicated steps to give shape to your dreams.
Making timely appropriate quality decisions, innovation, conviction and proactive approach etc. make the difference in our endeavours.
I wud love to revert with my opinion on the other aspects covered by you but in my next mail...kindly allow me to do so...
On a special note : I am completely floored by your incredible hold on the subject and your style of writing and of course the language.
I am wondering at your ENERGY to manage to do all this along with your other important responsibilities !!
Am sure you will keep guiding all of us and lead us in coming times. I will always pray for your good health, happiness, prosperity and the super energy !!
Raj - Logic Networks
Raj, appreciate your inputs and thoughts! As HR fraternity, I have no doubt that together we are making the differnce and we will continue to do so. It is the responsbility of all senior folks who brings in wealth of experiential learnig to give back / pass on the learings to our younger colleagues. Believe me, it provide a lot of satisfaction when you see your younger colleauge getting smarter and harder and making their presence felt!
ReplyDeleteMost specialists/employing proficient don't actually accept or give imperative concentration to hone this abilities and comprehend its criticality. They accept that being result situated or client centered is substantially more essential to business accomplishment than being a decent audience. I dislike to harp on this to an extreme – kindly exercise your dark cells on this!!
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