In this article, we will describe what job enlargement is, review its benefits and drawbacks, explain some best practices, and share a few examples of job enlargement in the digital age that show its relevance in today’s and tomorrow’s world of work.

Contents
What is job enlargement?
What is the objective of job enlargement?
Types of job enlargement
Job enlargement vs. job enrichment
Job enlargement advantages and disadvantages
Job enlargement examples
How to implement job enlargement
FAQ

What is job enlargement?

Job enlargement is expanding the duties of an existing role while maintaining its level within the organization. This means that a person will handle new responsibilities that fall within the scope of their current job title. For example, an employee will now take over the work planning that was formerly done by their manager.

The goal of job enlargement is to enhance employee satisfaction and performance by expanding the variety of tasks and responsibilities within their role. It is a key technique in job redesign, along with job enrichment, job rotation, and job simplification.

Job enlargement was born out of the need to overhaul what the early 1900s wave of job specialization had generated. Job specialization means that employees develop specific skills to work on a narrow set of tasks. The thinking here is that the individual will be highly effective in executing these tasks. Although boring and repetitive, specialized jobs made good business sense at the time due to their increase in output and profit.

One of the most famous examples is the Ford Motor Company. Because of the highly specialized assembly line created at its factories, the company was a leader in the marketplace. As a result, the company was able to offer workers a much higher minimum wage and give them more time off.

Job enlargement was popularized in the 1960s and ’70s as the opposite of specialization job design. During that time, increased attention was on factors that made a job motivational. There was a realization that traditional mass production assembly lines were monotonous and deeply dissatisfying work situations.

Although the concept of job enlargement has been around for decades, it remains entirely relevant. Today’s business climate is filled with fast-paced growth and continual changes in the nature of work. Organizations now expect employees to adapt to new methods and shifting priorities and be flexible in how they do their jobs. A job enlargement model is one way to ensure that added and evolving responsibilities are covered.

What is the objective of job enlargement?

Job enlargement aims to boost employee engagement and organizational effectiveness by broadening the scope of an employee’s role, thereby increasing the variety of skills used and reducing job monotony.

Taking on the challenge of new responsibilities often results in higher job satisfaction and the capacity for more career path options. This strategy not only benefits employees by making their jobs more interesting and promoting their professional growth but also helps organizations build a more skilled and motivated workforce.

Types of job enlargement

There are two main types of job enlargement which are described as horizontal and vertical. Here’s what these mean: 

• Horizontal job enlargement: This involves assigning additional but similar tasks to a role that will keep the job at its current level of responsibility. For instance, expanding a salesperson’s territory to increase the company’s sales opportunities and boost the employee’s commission. Another example is giving an assembly-line worker more parts to install on a product to add variety to their job while consolidating production.

• Vertical job enlargement: This entails adding tasks to a role that will increase an employee’s scope of responsibility and autonomy. For example, authorizing an administrative assistant to propose and maintain the budget for team-building activities or putting a food service worker in charge of training new hires. By augmenting employees’ responsibilities and accountability, they can find more fulfillment and offer a greater contribution to the organization.

Job enlargement vs. job enrichment

Job enlargement is often confused with job enrichment, but they are not the same. Job enlargement involves adding more tasks to an employee’s role to increase the variety of work, while job enrichment involves enhancing a job’s responsibilities to make the work more engaging and meaningful.

This means that job enlargement is one way to execute job enrichment but not all job enrichment activities are also considered job enlargement. 

Here are examples of each to illustrate the difference between the two concepts:

Job enlargement advantages and disadvantages

Advantages

Enlarging highly specialized jobs can lead to a number of advantages for both the employee and the employer, such as the following:

1. Reducing monotony by creating a wider range of activities: In essence, job enlargement is about adding responsibilities to existing roles to combat boredom. Varied activities decrease monotony and make a job more interesting. Instead of doing one highly specialized task all day, employees are more involved from end to end. For instance, taking a single product through multiple production phases or even managing an automated assembly belt.
2. Promoting skill development and career growth: Additional job responsibilities require training and give employees the chance to explore new interests and expand their work experience. The skills and knowledge they acquire equip them to secure more career growth opportunities with the potential to earn higher wages.
3. Inspiring employee engagement and satisfaction: Additional and varied responsibilities can be motivational factors. Employees who are being challenged and learning often experience personal growth and find more fulfillment in their work. They may also develop a sense of loyalty to the organization when they view it as being committed to their development.
4. Improving efficiency and productivity: When employees are trained to handle extra tasks, they become more proficient, flexible, and inventive and can adapt as needs change. They’re able to come up with creative solutions, pick up the slack caused by absences, and pitch in when the workload increases. Job enlargement allows organizations to tap into their existing workforce for new or altered duties and avoid the cost of outsourcing or hiring.
5. Gaining more autonomy, accountability, and responsibility: Even though increasing the sense of autonomy isn’t the primary goal of job enlargement, being responsible for multiple related activities gives employees more freedom over how they do their work. In addition, when they have increased interaction with a single product or service, they become more accountable for product quality and mistakes. This drives them to take ownership of their responsibilities.

Disadvantages

Although job enlargement can certainly benefit employees and the organization, there are some possible drawbacks. HR needs to be aware of the challenges job enlargement poses and be prepared to meet them before deciding whether it’s the right technique for your workforce.

Some disadvantages of job enlargement you should deliberate include the following:

1. Lower efficiency: Job enlargement decreases specialization. When highly specialized workers do one activity all day, every day, they soon learn to do it very quickly. In some cases of job enlargement, adding tasks may hinder efficiency. This is especially true at the onset when employees are learning their new responsibilities. 
2. Lower quality: If workers are stretched beyond their capabilities, output quality can be affected. Also, reducing specialization can affect the level of expertise within your workforce. However, as we’ve already discussed, repeating the same specialized task all day can lead to boredom and a lack of attention to detail. Furthermore, if employees are only responsible for a small part of the product, they don’t have a whole product concept and may not have a sense of ownership and willingness to improve.
3. Job creep: Job creep is a continuous increase in workload as more and more tasks are added to a position. If this isn’t executed well or employees don’t find the new tasks meaningful, job enlargement can make the role feel overwhelming and potentially lead to stress and burnout. This is even more likely to happen if employees are not being recognized or paid more for taking on extra duties.
4. Increased training levels and costs: Because job enlargement involves the adding of tasks and responsibilities that the employee didn’t have before, it often requires an increase in training levels and training costs. In addition, employees need time to overcome the learning curve and reach their optimum productivity.

Since job enlargement has both advantages and disadvantages, organizations must individually assess whether or not it is the right option. An HR business partner or an organizational development specialist can consult with managers on what job redesign strategy the most sense according to the unique circumstances of the job.

Job enlargement examples

Seeing how job enlargement plays out in the real world is a good way to understand it better. Below are three examples of job enlargement in practice: 

1. In a hospital setting

As robotized surgeries increased, surgical procedures were affected. Surgeons began controlling a robot through a console, usually located in the corner of the operating room. When a major U.S. hospital implemented this, they found that having the surgeon away from the operating table hindered communication.

Traditionally, the surgeon dictated the procedure and given instructions. However, with the surgeons physically distanced from the operating table they didn’t have a full overview of what was happening on it and the area nearby. It became necessary for an operating assistant to take over part of the surgeon’s customary role. 

As a result, this assistant was trained in how to communicate with the rest of the team and in the execution of different activities that would otherwise be performed by the surgeon. 

2. In corporate communications

Another job enlargement example comes from the corporate communications team in a large multinational fast-moving consumer goods company. This firm had specialized advisors to manage communication around the implementation of new digital tools. Despite this, the adaptation of tools remained low. 

After looking into it, they discovered that corporate communications did not always align with the purpose of the tool and its functionality because the team was not always fully informed. They resolved this by enlarging the jobs of the communications team. The team was included in the initial conversations and research around the purpose and main functionalities of the tools, as well as user interviews and drafting design criteria. 

The expertise of the communications team proved helpful in this stage. It enabled them to draft a communication strategy earlier that connected with the user problems that the new software tool was solving.

3. For extending social media reach

A multi-location property management company wanted to make better use of social media for marketing purposes and communicating with its apartment buildings’ residents. Instead of hiring a full-time social media director, management selected one willing leasing agent from each location to create/film a few social media posts per week.

This increased the company’s social media presence while customizing content for each building individually. It also provided certain employees with the opportunity to take on an innovative responsibility that allowed them to be creative and develop new, transferable skills.

How to implement job enlargement

Each organization must take its own approach to job enlargement based on its industry, workforce structure, and business needs. While job enlargement may look different to every organization, there are some universal best practices HR can adopt. 

Here are several ways HR can effectively support the job enlargement process: 

• Communicate clearly and involve employees: Employees will be resistant to change that they don’t understand. With regular communication about the purpose of job enlargement and how it will benefit them and their career, employees will be more likely to accept and embrace the concept of taking on more responsibilities. Provide periodic updates, actively involve them in the decision-making process, and address their concerns and questions. When employees feel informed and included, they’re more comfortable giving their buy-in.

• Set employees up for success with thorough preparation and training: Job enlargement typically requires employees to acquire new skills and/or knowledge. Implement comprehensive training and development programs that will equip employees to navigate their expanded tasks and responsibilities effectively. These may include online courses, hands-on simulations, seminars, workshops, or mentoring.

• Take a measured approach to implementation: Introduce job enlargement gradually. Employees need time, support, and resources to get familiar with and adjust to juggling new responsibilities. Add new tasks incrementally, ensuring employees get up to speed without feeling inundated and frustrated. Managers should closely assess employees’ capacity and proficiency levels and provide supportive guidance as necessary.

• Keep the workload balanced: When left unchecked, job enlargement can make a role feel overwhelming. Added tasks must be balanced with existing responsibilities to keep the workload manageable and prevent burnout. The process must allow leeway for altering priorities, redistributing tasks, and supplementing resources.

• Monitor performance and outcomes: Job enlargement initiatives should be evaluated for effectiveness in achieving your goals, whether it’s reducing monotony or productivity. You can reveal the overall impact of job enlargement and identify improvement areas by establishing viable performance evaluation and feedback mechanisms that track employee progress and gather constructive input. Ensure there is flexibility for making necessary adjustments that will maximize employees’ success and satisfaction with the enlarged job roles.

• Recognize and reward employees: Acknowledging and showing employees appreciation for taking on job enlargement requirements goes a long way in keeping them motivated and fostering engagement. Put a reward system in place that salutes effort and showcases employees’ contributions, for instance, public recognition, celebratory events and activities, or gifts and bonuses.

On a final note

Job enlargement may have originated as a remedy for the tediousness of highly specialized assembly lines, but it is still pertinent in today’s digital world. With an increasing number of tasks being automated or digitized, roles will naturally shrink and become more specialized. 

With job enlargement that is well-supported by HR, employees can embrace new responsibilities and become more agile. Once they feel the reward of being challenged and growing their abilities it will reinforce their engagement and willingness to perform at their highest level.

FAQ

The post What Is Job Enlargement? [A Guide + 3 Examples] appeared first on AIHR.

In this article, we explain what a job requisition is and what its key elements are. We also provide two job requisition examples and a free template that you can use in your organization.

Contents
What is a job requisition?
Job requisition vs. job description vs. job posting
Key elements of a job requisition
Job requisition examples
Job requisition process steps
Streamlining your job requisition process
Job requisition form template
FAQ

What is a job requisition?

A job requisition is a formal request to create a new position or to fill a vacant role in a company. The requisition, usually a document or an online form, contains information about the need for the new position, whether it is full-time or part-time, and whether the position is temporary or permanent.

Completing a job requisition is the first step in the talent acquisition process. Once the hiring manager finalizes the job requisition form, it’s ready to be sent to HR for review and further steps. As soon as it is approved, HR finalizes the job req and assigns a job requisition number to the document or online form. Then, the job intake (an initial meeting between HR and the requesting manager) takes place, after which the visible recruitment process starts.

For example, Bill is the team lead for accounting. Because the company has grown a lot, his current team of three cannot cope with the work. Bill, therefore, talks with his manager and is asked to fill in a job requisition form.

In the form, he states the reason for expanding the team, that the position will be a permanent and full-time role, and that the person would ideally start within two months. He then forwards the form to his supervisor. A week later, the HR business partner for his department forwards the formal approval, and the same day, the recruiter calls to make an appointment for the job intake to start the hiring process.

Job requisition vs. job description vs. job posting

The job requisition is often confused with a job description or job posting. However, these are each very different. 

• The job requisition is an internal document used to get approval for a new position or fill a vacant role. It is a standard form filled in by the hiring manager and submitted to their supervisor or HR. The job req is the first step in the hiring process. 
• The job description is an internal document that specifies the requirements for a new position, including the required skills, role in the team, personality, and capabilities of a suitable candidate. The job description is based on the vacancy intake, usually written by the recruiter, and forms the basis of the job posting. 
• The job posting (or job advert) is a public announcement that the company wants to fill a new or existing position. It is also an essential marketing tool for recruitment. The goal of a job advert is twofold: i) to provide potential candidates with enough information to get them to apply and ii) to set realistic expectations about the job. In start-ups and small companies, HR usually writes and distributes job postings. In medium- and large-sized organizations, a dedicated team of specialists may be responsible for recruitment and talent acquisition.

As you can see, each document has a different role in the hiring process. This means that the job requisition should not go into too much detail about the skills and qualifications required for the job – this is what the job description is for.

Key elements of a job requisition

A job requisition form has several standard elements that aim to maximize the clarity of key information and streamline the recruitment process. Let’s take a look at these:

• Job title: The job title is the proposed title for the new or existing role. The final title is determined during the job intake. 
• Department: The name of the department or team the role will be a part of. 
• Hiring manager: The name or ID of the manager making the request. 
• Requisition reason: The role can be a newly created one, or the person leaving the role may be transferred, retired, promoted, leave without pay (e.g., go on a sabbatical), go on parental leave, etc. 
• Salary range and benefits: This holds the approximate salary range and benefits for the role and is relevant for budgeting purposes. Any signing bonus should also be specified here. 
• Start date: This is the proposed starting date for the role. 
• FTE/Weekly hours: This field specifies whether the role is full-time or part-time. In the case of a part-time role, either the number of hours or the Full-Time Equivalent (FTE) is defined (e.g., 20 hours per week or 0.5 FTE for a role of 2.5 days per week). 
• Duration: The assignment duration is either permanent or temporary. In the case of a temporary contract, the end date should be defined. 
• Contract type: The contract type is either an employee or a contract worker. The latter is usually only relevant if the duration of the job is temporary. The type of contract will also impact the required budget, as employees are generally eligible for benefits. 
• Required qualifications: Some organizations inquire about the (high-level) required qualifications of the new candidate, e.g., their education level or a minimum level of work experience. 
• Budget: Often, the question is also whether or not the required funding for the role is available. If it’s available, the job requisition can be approved quickly. However, if the budget is unavailable, there will be a more stringent analysis of whether or not the role is needed.  
• Location: The workplace location and whether or not the role comes with remote work possibilities.

Job requisition examples

Job requisition for a new role

Job requisition for an exisiting role

Job requisition process steps

What the job requisition process looks like may vary from one organization to another. As mentioned earlier, in start-ups and small companies, an HR Generalist may be tasked with most of the job requisition process, while in larger organizations, a dedicated team of recruiters may be in charge of this. 

Regardless of company size, though, the process will likely include some of the following steps: 

1. Initiation: The manager or department lead identifies the need for a new position or the need to fill an existing position and fills out the company’s job requisition form. 
2. Submission: The person making the request submits the completed job req form either directly to the HR department or via the organization’s Applicant Tracking System (ATS). 
3. Initial review: The HR department reviews the requisition to ensure all the necessary information is provided and verifies that the request is in line with organizational needs and policies 
4. Department head approval: The requisition is forwarded to the department head or senior manager for approval. They review the necessity and budget implications of the (new) position. 
5. Budget approval: If the position requires additional budget allocation, the job requisition is sent to the finance department or budget committee for financial approval. 
6. Executive approval: For higher-level positions or those with significant budget impact, the requisition may need approval from an executive or a hiring committee. 
7. HR finalization: Once all the necessary approvals are obtained, HR finalizes the requisition and gives it a job requisition number.
8. Communication: The HR department communicates the approval and next steps to the requesting manager and any other relevant parties. HR also sets up a job intake with the hiring manager to gather all the information necessary to create a job description and, based on that, a job advert.
9. Job posting: Once the vacancy intake is done and the job description and job posting have been created according to the hiring manager’s wishes, the former is posted internally and the latter externally. With that, the recruitment process officially begins.

Streamlining your job requisition process

Whether you’re an HR Generalist handling the job requisition process from start to finish or a dedicated team of recruiters handling it, a streamlined process will save you a lot of time and minimize inefficiencies.

Here are seven tips to optimize the job requisition process in your organization: 

• Standardize the job requisition form: This is the starting point for the entire process. What the form needs to include will depend on your organization’s needs and policies, but you can use the job requisition template we’ve included in the next section as the basis.
• Train managers on creating job requisitions: A standardized job requisition form should already minimize the risk of misunderstandings. However, to further reduce the chances of confusion, you may want to give managers brief training on using clear language, being specific, and avoiding bias.
• Work with timelines: Create a clear timeline for each stage of the requisition process to avoid delays and ensure everyone involved knows what to expect and when.
• Establish a straightforward approval process: Approvals could (should) also be integrated into the timeline just mentioned. Examples of approvals needed throughout the requisition process include:
  • HR approval of the initial request, followed by
  • The department head giving their go, followed by
  • Potentially the finance department saying yes.
• Centralize documentation: Keep all job reqs and related documents in a central, easily accessible location for easy reference and tracking. 
• ​​Maintain open communication: Ensure open communication lines between HR, managers, department heads, and other relevant functions in the organization to keep everyone on the same wavelength regarding the process and their expectations.
• Fine-tune where necessary: Consider regularly asking those involved, for instance, every quarter, what they think of the job requisition process. What goes well, and what could be improved? You can tweak the process to further optimize it based on that feedback.

Job requisition form template

The job requisition form template below is designed to make your hiring process a breeze. You can use the form as a printable document or utilize it as the basis for creating your own online job requisition form. 

Ready to get started? You can download the job requisition template here: 

On a final note

Job requisition isn’t just a formality; it’s the foundation of a successful hiring process. When done well, the job requisition process creates a solid inter-departmental collaboration and the best possible start of an organization’s recruitment process.

FAQ

The post What Is a Job Requisition? A Full Guide + FREE Form Template appeared first on AIHR.

In this article, we will take a closer look at the selection process for hiring and share some best practices for designing one that will help you find top-quality employees while also delivering a good candidate experience.

Contents
What is the selection process?
Importance of a strategic selection process
7 selection process steps
Metrics used in the selection process
How to improve the recruitment and selection process: Best practices
FAQ

What is the selection process?

The selection process involves evaluating job candidates’ skills, competencies, and experience to identify the most qualified individuals for the role and the organization.

The selection starts once a job opening is advertised and candidates flow in. The process follows a funnel structure, starting with multiple applicants and progressively narrowing down the candidate pool through interviews and assessments until the best fit for the role is found.

It typically includes the following seven stages, which we will cover in more detail later:

1. Application
2. Screening & pre-selection
3. Interview
4. Assessment
5. References and background check
6. Decision
7. Job offer & contract

Importance of a strategic selection process

Organizations usually have some type of hiring procedures in place that they may or may not consistently follow. However, having a well-thought-out strategy for the process helps you not just fill each vacancy but also contribute to the lasting success of the business.

A strategic selection process offers the following advantages:

• Supporting long-term organizational goals: Incorporating strategic objectives into candidate selection systems puts the focus on finding individuals with the skills, experience, and mindset to carry out what the organization is aiming for currently and in the future. For example, a company that is rapidly growing or facing a merger can look for candidates with attributes such as resilience and adaptability, which indicate the ability to successfully navigate change and uncertainty.

• Creating a positive candidate experience: A structured, consistent selection process helps candidates know what to expect. You can inform them of the forthcoming steps, so they feel in the loop and gauge what’s coming next. Holding candidates’ interest and providing a positive experience can make all the difference in convincing top talent to work for you. According to a PwC study, 49% of job seekers in highly competitive fields claimed to have rejected a job offer due to a bad experience in the hiring process.

• Ensuring job and culture fit: Evaluating candidates on more than just their knowledge and specialized skills helps identify who will thrive in the position and work environment. For instance, someone with the ideal technical expertise yet prefers to work alone may not do well in an organization that functions in teams with shared tasks and constant collaboration.
  
  Starbucks provides a clear picture of its culture and values on its career page. This gives potential employees a better idea of what Starbucks would expect from them and the type of atmosphere they’d be working in. 
  
• Boosting employee performance and satisfaction and reducing turnover rates: Effective candidate vetting and selection produces a stronger likelihood that new hires will be the right fit, perform well, and find contentment in their positions. Not only will they be productive and contribute to business success, but they are also apt to stay with the company longer. 

• Building a competitive advantage: A thorough and strategic selection process can support an organization’s competitive advantage by bringing in the most qualified and productive employees for improved business outcomes. It also creates a better candidate experience which, in turn, improves your employer brand. This earns you a wider and higher quality applicant pool for every job opening. 

7 selection process steps

Although the specifics differ according to each organization and position, the selection process happens in a series of steps that candidates move through.

Let’s take a closer look at each step:

1. Application

Once you’ve published a job advert, candidates begin to apply. That’s the first step in your selection process. However, the number, quality, and diversity of applications will vary. Here’s what you need to about the different aspects of the application stage:

Application process

The application process itself is crucial. Is it mobile-friendly and quick? Or do you require candidates to manually fill in all the info from their CVs into your system? Requiring applicants to create a profile on your career site but failing to optimize the site for mobile are practical elements of web design can hinder HR’s success in the candidate selection process. 

Test your application process yourself to understand where applicants might struggle. That way, you can ensure you’re providing a smooth application experience that won’t turn away potential employees.

Advertising channels and tools

Where you post and promote your job ads matters too. Here are the five most popular sources for jobseekers:

• Online sites: Job boards, such as Indeed, and postings on social media such as LinkedIn and Facebook. 
• Company websites/career pages: If you work in HR for a large enterprise, such as Walmart in the U.S. or the NHS in Britain, many people will come directly to your site. For smaller companies, job seekers may not target your website for job announcements. However, they may refer to the website once they learn about the opening elsewhere. 
• Recruitment agencies and sites: Jobhunters may register with one or several recruitment agencies or seek out field-specific recruitment sites.
• University and college career departments: Consider holding promotion and recruitment events at local, national, or international educational institutions. In Britain, the Civil Service and armed forces host many events like this, often visiting campuses with more socially and ethnically diverse populations. 
• Word of mouth: Many people will ask their family and friends for advice on where to apply and for any leads on job openings.

Optimizing job ads

Digital tools can create more efficient job postings that bring in diverse applicants. Textio uses data and AI machine learning to help companies optimize their job adverts. The tool makes sure the text reflects not only what your business is looking for in a candidate, but also what culture and values matter to your company.

According to Michaela Schütt, SVP and Head of Global Talent Acquisition Ecosystem at Siemens, Textio has had a positive impact on their talent attraction efforts. At an HR tech event, Schütt mentioned that job ads with high Textio scores, meaning they follow inclusive language guidelines, brought the company 23% more qualified applicants and 11 days faster hiring times.

Why does inclusivity matter? To increase the diversity of your workforce, you must take concrete steps to expand inclusivity. Diversity matters not just from an idealist or moral perspective but also for maximum success and profit. A report published by McKinsey & Company found that ethnically diverse companies were 39% more likely to outperform competitors.

Other factors impacting the number and quality of applicants

The size of an application pool is influenced by many factors, including the following:

• External issues: These are the matters taking place outside the organization and beyond HR’s scope. Namely, the economic climate, unemployment rates, demographic trends, and social and cultural factors. 
• Industry conditions: An organization’s industry also impacts the size of its applicant pool. For instance, if you’re trying to recruit candidates with specific qualifications like teachers, law enforcement, or hospital nurses, your recruiting department’s role will be more challenging than those that hire for less specialized roles.
• Internal factors: The size of an organization and its employer brand will draw in varying numbers of applicants. Google, for example, receives around 3 million applications a year. This means that, on average, more than 400 people apply per job opening. What an organization offers in the form of pay, benefits, and opportunities for progression has a considerable impact as well.
• Sourcing strategy: The number and quality of applicants also depend on a compelling job posting and where you publish it. How informative, engaging, and widely appealing it is directly impacts who you will attract. Job adverts should always use gender-neutral and inclusive language.
• Your requirements: For example, you can also assess whether higher education is a necessity for certain positions. If it’s not, you’ll increase the number of available candidates. The recent SHRM State of the Workplace report found that 28% of HR departments are relaxing their education/degree requirements. For example, The Spectator is a widely read British weekly magazine. The publication does not require a university degree or even a CV for its internships. 

2. Screening & pre-selection

The goal of the initial screening phase is to reduce the pool of candidates from a large number to a manageable group of between 3-10 people who are eligible for an interview. This can be done in various ways, such as the following:

Resume screening

The most commonly known technique is resume or CV screening. Resume screening helps to assess if candidates comply with the criteria needed for the job. If you require 5+ years of work experience, a recent college graduate without this experience can be easily ruled out.

U.S. grocery chain Trader Joe’s looks for applicants who express a certain sentiment. As one store manager put it, “People who express their love for Trader Joe’s in the application are the ones that really catch our eye. They put a couple of sentences about why they wanna work here. They’ve shopped with us for years, or they grew up on Trader Joe’s. That’s a big one.”

CV reviewing in large companies can be time-consuming for HR. Software is an efficient and cost-effective way to manage this challenge. Options range from resume screening tools built into an ATS to resume screeners that use artificial intelligence to predict the quality of hire.

Be careful not to overuse this kind of technology, though. You need to ensure that it is regularly reviewed for bias. You can also consider implementing a “blind review” policy by removing all personal characteristics from resumes, such as name, age, and gender. This aims to counter implicit bias.

Phone screening/chatbot

After the resume screening, a phone (or video) screening interview is next. This helps align expectations between the candidate and employer. The recruiter can ask candidates any questions they have following the screening of resumes. The recruiter can go through a checklist that may include topics like pay expectations, full-time or part-time hours, flexible working options, starting date, and other potential deal-breakers. Since this is a fairly standard procedure, having a chatbot ask these questions is also an option.

As mentioned above, technology now enables us to do these screenings in an automated way. Chatbots ask candidates questions and make the interview interactive. An example is a large engineering company that implemented a chatbot intended to optimize the recruitment process and keep candidates engaged. The data showed that after implementing the chatbot, completion rates went up from 74% to 96%. 

Pre-selection or pre-employment assessments

Pre-selection is a powerful screening method that helps eliminate potential mismatches. The SHRM State of the Workplace report (mentioned earlier) showed that 35% of HR departments rely on pre-employment tests/assessments to identify qualified candidates.

Dedicated pre-selection tools provide assessments that can include cognitive testing, a job simulation, or other tests that help to predict the quality of the new hire. Sometimes, resume screening is included in these tools. 

A job simulation provides a realistic job preview. This shows both the most enjoyable and interesting aspects of a role but also the challenging elements, resulting in authentic insight for the candidate. This helps align expectations between employer and employee and leads to hires who are a stronger fit. Pre-selection tools are another aspect of the increasing role of AI technology in the recruitment landscape.

These pre-selection tests are often used for high-volume recruiting (roles with large numbers of applicants), for example, assessing a customer service rep on their active listening skills. These screening tools eliminate the obvious misfits so the most suitable candidates remain. 

Be aware that not all pre-selection tools and screenings are fully accurate, so choose your vendor with care. We’ll cover other types of assessments below in stage 4.

3. Interview

The third step in the candidate selection process funnel is the most visible one, the job interview. Its purpose is to assess how well-suited candidates are for the role and gain insight into their verbal fluency and sociability. 

A job interview involves the candidate being asked questions by the direct manager or the recruiter (or both). It provides the structure for posing job-related questions to the candidate and presents the opportunity to sell the job to them.

Interviews may take place virtually or in person. Many companies conduct a first-stage interview remotely for more efficient time management. Some of them then choose to do the final interview on-site to promote a stronger personal connection and allow the candidate to experience the workplace culture and environment. 

Informing candidates upfront about how the interview process works can make it more productive. American software company Salesforce has an “Understanding the Interview Process” page on its website that explains who candidates will meet with and provides resources to help them prepare. 

Types of interviews

There are two main types of interviews: structured and unstructured. In a structured interview, a standardized set of questions is prepared in advance and posed to all interviewees. This provides the interviewer with a uniform method of recording information and standardizing the rating of each applicant’s qualifications. 

An unstructured interview does not adhere to a pre-determined list of questions. The questioning works more like a conversation, and the interviewer can improvise according to what comes up during the discussion.

In academic literature, the structured interview has proven to be almost twice as reliable as the unstructured interview (Schmidt & Hunter, 1998). The structured interview enables the interviewer to accurately compare candidates and to make the best decision based on data.

Other interview types include candidates being interviewed by peers or a panel. These dialogues aim to gain insights into a candidate’s personality, behavior, and approachability among team members, or with those they will be supporting in a job.

Evaluating interviews

A common interviewing technique is the STAR method which is a systematic way to retrieve information from the candidate. STAR is an acronym for:

• Situation: Have the candidate describe a particular situation they were in.
• Task: What goal was the candidate working towards?
• Action: Have the candidate describe in detail which actions they took to make the best of the situation and complete their task.
• Result: Have the candidate describe the outcome of the action and ask what the candidate learned.

The STAR method works well to see if the candidate has the key competencies necessary for the job. If the role calls for dealing with various types of shareholders, an example question could be: “Describe a situation in which you had to manage multiple shareholders.” 

Using an interview evaluation form makes the evaluation of candidates at this stage of the selection process more consistent and fair. Also, implementing interview guides will help the interviewers conduct productive interviews.

4. Assessment

While screening and pre-employment assessments can roughly weed out the least suitable candidates, a full assessment is usually more accurate.

Commonly used assessments are a General Mental Ability (GMA) test (also known as an IQ test) and a Five-Factor Model of Personality test. Higher IQ is associated with faster learning and higher top performance. While these assessments can be a part of your pre-selection process, many organizations choose to conduct them in later stages of the hiring process.

Multinational technology corporation IBM has designed “scientifically validated assessments to be engaging, fair, and relevant to each role.”  With these assessments, IBM recruiters can measure skills and abilities that may not be revealed during interviews. This provides candidates with the opportunity to showcase all that they have to offer. 

When it comes to conducting personality questionnaires, research shows that conscientiousness is the strongest noncognitive predictor of job performance. More conscientious candidates perform better in their jobs. Candidates who score high in conscientiousness are often described as hard-working, dutiful, achievement-oriented, and detail-oriented.

Other assessments include work sample tests, integrity tests, and job knowledge tests. The scientific literature shows that assessments in the form of work sample tests are among the best predictors of job performance.

It is good practice to have candidates do a case study or solve a real problem during their interview. This makes it possible to compare the quality of a candidate’s work with the other applicants, as well as against the expected or ideal performance. What’s more, a practical assignment also gives applicants an idea of what they’d be doing in the role.

Work sample tests can bring the most value in roles where practical skills, problem-solving abilities, and job-specific tasks are critical to performance. For example, you can give candidates for a software developer role a coding task or ask them to debug a piece of code to demonstrate their programming and problem-solving skills.

Assessments should be reasonable in scope and accurately reflect the job’s requirements without imposing undue burden on candidates.

5. References and background check

By this point, you have reduced the long list of applicants down to one to three candidates. Reference checking is the essential next step in the candidate selection process.

Ask the candidate to provide references. Reference checks confirm the accuracy of what a candidate has told you and your impressions of them. If, during the interview, you have doubts about a certain competency or skill, the reference check is an excellent way to gather more information from a different perspective. 

A background check is commonly used for government departments and other jobs that involve access to highly confidential information, such as healthcare roles. It can also be a prerequisite before applying and taking part in the pre-selection.

An example is a confirmation of good conduct or criminal record checks for teaching positions and other roles that involve a high responsibility for others. These investigations help eliminate people who may abuse their duty of care over vulnerable people. However, unless absolutely necessary, you should conduct background checks later in the selection process.

Requirements and practices for background checks vary by country. In the U.S., employers typically use private companies to conduct background checks. Background checks in hiring are subject to the federal Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) and they need to fulfill the requirements of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC). Selecting an FCRA-compliant provider to conduct the background checks on your behalf ensures it is done correctly and consistently.

6. Decision

The next selection process step is deciding on a candidate with the greatest potential for the organization. Pre-defined criteria by which every candidate is rated during the selection process will reveal the best candidate. 

Usually, the hiring manager makes the final decision. It may also involve input from other managers and colleagues. Sometimes, the optimal choice is someone less qualified at the moment but who is committed to growing and staying with the organization for a long time.

7. Job offer & contract

Once the decision is made, the selection process has one last phase. The chosen candidate still needs to accept the offer. At this point, you should have gleaned enough information from the various screenings and job interviews to have some confidence that the candidate is likely to accept the job. 

The offer is then made to the candidate. You can send an offer letter outlining the main job details and employment conditions. If they accept the offer, you can proceed to issue a formal employment contract. Once that is signed by all parties are the selection process steps complete.

Metrics used in the selection process

Tracking certain recruiting metrics helps you evaluate the outcomes of the candidate selection process. The following benchmarks are commonly used as indicators of an effective selection process:

• Application completion rate: This metric shows what percentage of candidates that complete and submit an application form after accessing it. A low completion rate may mean the application form is cumbersome or has technical glitches.
• Time to fill: This measures the time it takes to hire a candidate from the moment of approving a job requisition until the candidate accepts your offer. A lengthy time to fill metric indicates a prolonged and inefficient selection process.
• 90-day and 1-year attrition: Attrition within the first three months signals a weakness in the selection process steps. The estimations of the cost of a bad hire differ between sources but are estimated to be between 50% to 200% of their annual salary. It is recommended to treat every case of 90-day attrition as a critical HR incident and analyze it closely for what went wrong. Then, you can prevent it from happening again through better communication, selection, onboarding, and management. A high first-year attrition rate can also be attributed to an inadequate selection process. 
• Candidate experience: How do candidates rate their experience in this selection process? If it is an agreeable experience for them, your process is on the right track. In addition, they will have a positive outlook on the organization whether they are hired or not. Satisfied candidates won’t be deterred from applying again in the future and will advocate for your business and employer brand.
• Selection process funnel effectiveness: Because selection goes through a funnel with multiple steps, knowing the effectiveness of the funnel helps. You don’t want 50% of your 100 applicants to pass through to the interview stage, otherwise, you’ll be interviewing too many people. Yield ratio is a recruiting metric that indicates the percentage of candidates that move from one stage of the recruitment process to the next.
• Offer acceptance rate: The offer acceptance rate is the percentage of job offers that candidates accept out of the total number of offers your organization extends. It indicates the attractiveness of the job offers and the overall effectiveness of the recruitment process in aligning with candidates’ expectations and needs.
• Quality of hire: This metric measures how well a new hire is performing after a year in their job. This is usually rated by their manager in the annual performance appraisal. If the quality of hire is consistently good, it suggests that the employee selection process works.

For more information regarding the candidate selection process or recruiting metrics, check our Sourcing & Recruitment Certificate Program.

How to improve the recruitment and selection process: Best practices

We’ve explained the different stages of the selection process, but other dynamics are always in play behind the scenes. 

Here are some best practices to consider as you try to create more effective methods of selection: 

Build a solid job intake process

A clear understanding of a role is the key to finding the right candidate for it. This starts with a function profile based on the job description, i.e., what type of work experience, educational background, and skill proficiencies are needed. Open communication between hiring managers and recruiters will provide the insight needed to effectively kick off the selection process.

In many cases, recruiters should dig deeper than what is on a job intake form. Speaking directly with hiring managers helps clarify the job requirements. Recruiters who practice active listening will glean valuable details on what personality types and soft skills suit the role and will balance out a team. 

Strengthen hiring manager-recruiter relationships

A strong partnership between hiring managers and recruiters helps the selection process flow more smoothly and improves the candidate experience. Emphasize that recruiters should build a good rapport with hiring managers, keep them informed, and ask for their input. This will allow the candidates who are the closest fit to make it to the end.

Working side-by-side with recruiters means hiring managers’ needs are more clearly understood. This, in turn, builds trust that recruiters are doing their best to fill positions sufficiently.

Standardize the selection process

Every organization will have its own approach to the selection process for hiring, but it should always be standardized. By following the same structure for each job opening, the process remains consistent. This leads to more reliable outcomes and a satisfying hiring experience for candidates. 

A standardized selection process will include:

• Reliable or automated screening methods
• Structured interview formats
• Use of interview guides
• Consistently applied assessments
• Established criteria and scorecards for evaluating candidates
• Thorough documentation and checklists.

Train hiring managers/decision-makers

Ensure that whoever is doing the hiring is equipped to carry out their role in the selection process. This includes explaining the steps in the process and preparing them with interview checklists.

It may also be necessary to train decision-makers in how to conduct structured interviews, as well as unconscious bias awareness and interpreting body language.

Use a data-driven approach

Utilizing data throughout the selection process enables you to combat bias and speculation. Information gathered from resumes, assessments, and interview scorecards can be the basis for moving candidates through the selection funnel. Although hiring decisions shouldn’t be made only on data, it can help get the most qualified applicants to the interview stage.

Moreover, analyzing this data can reveal bottlenecks and inefficiencies in the selection process, allowing for continuous improvement.

Continuously evaluate and improve the process

Your employee selection process will evolve as the needs and circumstances of the organization change. You should also update it regularly to match your hiring standards and business goals.

As we’ve just mentioned, using data helps you identify which parts of the process need attention. Gather feedback from candidates and hiring managers to ensure the process remains effective.

Implementing these improvements not only optimizes the selection process but also enhances candidate experience and strengthens overall recruitment outcomes.

A final word

Employees are the cornerstone of any organization’s long-term viability. This makes high-quality talent acquisition one of HR’s most crucial functions., as bad hiring decisions cost companies time and money.

A strategic and thorough recruitment and selection process ensures the placement of the best employees who can contribute to swift organizational success and competitive advantage.

FAQ

The post Selection Process: 7 Steps & Best Practices To Hire Top Talent appeared first on AIHR.

Contents
What is job enrichment?
Job enrichment examples
Job enrichment theory
Advantages of job enrichment
Disadvantages of job enrichment
13 job enrichment techniques
How to implement job enrichment at your organization
Job enrichment vs. job enlargement
FAQ

What is job enrichment?

Job enrichment is the process of adding motivators to existing roles to increase employee satisfaction and motivation, improve work quality, and make jobs more engaging. 

Examples of job enrichment include adding tasks and responsibilities (job enlargement), increasing skill variety, creating autonomy, giving feedback, and making the jobs more meaningful through a job design process.

The job enrichment concept is based on the idea that, due to technological developments and increased job specialization, many jobs have become monotonous and uninspiring. Enriching those jobs is one potential way to solve this issue.

Job enrichment examples

Let’s look at what job enrichment could look like in practice. 

Job enrichment example 1

Caroline works at a contact center. Her role involves, among other things, managing incoming customer service phone calls, managing online chats, and keeping track of cases or issues discussed. She recently started picking up additional tasks by becoming a buddy for new hires via the company’s buddy program, hence developing her mentoring and coaching skills.

Job enrichment example 2 

HR assistant Ahmed fills his days ensuring that the HR department’s operations run smoothly. During the latest one-on-one with his manager, Ahmed discussed his desire for more autonomy. As a result of that discussion, his manager will assign him a project, deadline, and some guidelines from now on and trust that Ahmed will get the job done or reach out when necessary.

Check out our Learning Bite to learn everything you need to know about the Job Enrichment!

Job enrichment theory

To understand where job enrichment came from, we should quickly examine the history books. 

In 1959, Frederick Herzberg published his two-factor theory of motivation. He proposed that some job factors result in employee satisfaction, which, in turn, helps increase retention. These are motivators. Examples include recognition, responsibility, and a sense of achievement. A satisfying job should have sufficient motivators.

In this motivational approach, job enrichment is crucial; jobs are created to satisfy employees and their needs, in other words, to motivate them. This approach gives people autonomy, responsibility, the ability to do a job from start to finish, and performance feedback. Essentially, job enrichment is the process of adding motivators to existing jobs to increase job satisfaction. 

A few decades later, this approach was refined in Hackman and Oldham’s Job Characteristics Model. They proposed that there are certain job characteristics that lead to meaningfulness, motivation, and performance. These are:

• Skill variety
• Task identity
• Task significance
• Autonomy
• Feedback

The validity of this model was assessed through a meta-review of nearly 200 studies. The analysis results supported the different job characteristics, although there was some debate about the exact number of dimensions. Psychological states were confirmed as mediators between job characteristics and outcomes (Fried & Ferris, 1987).

Advantages of job enrichment

As we’ve already discussed, the main goal of job enrichment is to motivate employees, increase their satisfaction, and improve their work quality.

Enriching jobs has numerous benefits for both employees and the organization, including: 

• More motivation and better performance: When employers strive to give their people more critical tasks and responsibilities, this can boost their motivation and improve their performance. 
• An increased sense of fulfillment: If an employee accomplishes a challenging task they once thought was too difficult for them, this will likely boost their confidence and give them a sense of fulfillment and satisfaction.  
• An opportunity to learn new skills: For employees, job enrichment often means doing something they are unfamiliar with and don’t necessarily have the right skills for (yet). As such, it allows them to broaden their skill set. 
• A better employee experience: When job enrichment is successful, it leads to more satisfied and happier employees, which, by extension, creates a more pleasant work environment and a better overall employee experience.
• Lower turnover: All the benefits mentioned above naturally lead to less employee absence and lower turnover rates.

Interestingly, job enrichment does not necessarily lead to greater productivity. Although employees experience the work as more meaningful, they don’t necessarily generate more output.

Disadvantages of job enrichment

There are also some potential drawbacks to the implementation of job enrichment in an organization, including:

• Potential for overload and stress: Adding more responsibilities can overwhelm some employees, leading to decreased satisfaction, stress, and potential burnout if not managed properly. Interestingly, this has not been found in the literature. Instead, increasing intensity and scope are experienced as a motivational variable. However, the exception is employees with low growth needs or low knowledge and skills. For these employees, job enrichment was more likely to produce frustration than satisfaction (Cummings & Worley, 2009). 
• Mismatch with employee preferences: Not all employees desire the increased responsibility or complexity of job enrichment; they prefer stability and predictability in their roles.
• Barriers to implementation: Organizational systems, such as technical HR, control, and supervisory systems, can limit the degree to which jobs can be enriched. Negotiations with labor unions and changes to job descriptions may be required, complicating the process.
• Increased training needs and costs: Training may be required to enable employees to handle their new responsibilities effectively, as they will probably not have the right skills to take on those new tasks right away. This can be time-consuming and temporarily decrease their productivity.

13 job enrichment techniques

Job enrichment interventions aim to increase skill variety, task significance, broadening roles, and increasing autonomy. Here are some interventions that you can implement at your organization:

1. Creating natural work units: The formation of natural work units is about grouping interrelated tasks. This creates ownership of the tasks and allows the employee to see the result of their work, leading to an increase in ownership, task identity, and perceived task significance.  

An example of interrelated tasks could be managing a project from inception to completion, where an employee is responsible for planning, executing, monitoring, and closing the project. This could involve coordinating with various departments, tracking progress, and ensuring deliverables meet the required standards.

2. Combining tasks: You can combine tasks that are now divided across multiple jobs to create broader, more rewarding jobs. Cummings & Worley mention Corning Glass Works, a laboratory hotplate assembling plant. Separate tasks were combined so that each operator would completely assemble, inspect, and ship a hotplate. 

This meant that each assembler could identify with and self-inspect a finished product, leading to greater task significance, autonomy, and feedback. This resulted in an increase in productivity of 84%, a drop in controllable rejects from 23 to less than 1%, and a drop in absenteeism from 8 to less than 1%.   

3. Quality circles: Quality circles, or Kaizen groups, are groups of employees who regularly meet to consider ways of resolving problems and improving productivity in their organization. These small groups increase participatory management, leading to more task identity and autonomy. 

4. Suggestion programs: In line with quality circles, Employee Suggestion Programs (ESPs) encourage employees to offer suggestions that improve the performance and quality of their work. Usually, HR oversees the ESP. Sometimes, cash awards are given to employees whose ideas are implemented or result in savings or revenue. 

5. Job rotation: Job rotation is the practice of laterally moving people between jobs in an organization. It is a technique that is used to boost employee learning and motivation. For example, an employee can work in the marketing department for six months and then rotate to the sales department to gain broader organizational experience and develop new skills.  

Job rotation can be an excellent way for employees to develop new skills, learn from each other, build camaraderie, and perhaps even consider a (slightly) different role in the organization.  

6. Feedback: The simple act of giving regular feedback may be the easiest job enrichment intervention of all. 360-degree feedback from one’s direct manager and peers, for example, helps the employee grow and develop and is a key way to enrich one’s job. 

7. Autonomy: Autonomy is another critical part of a job’s motivating potential. Any interventions that can increase autonomy in the workplace will increase this potential. 

Examples include employees being able to determine their working hours, making certain decisions independently, and people being involved in setting their own goals and KPIs.  

8. Purpose: Purpose as a job enrichment intervention is about connecting employees’ daily tasks and responsibilities to the broader mission and goals of the organization.

When employees understand how their work contributes to the overall success and impact of the organization, they are more likely to find their roles meaningful and fulfilling. This sense of purpose can significantly enhance motivation, job satisfaction, and engagement.

9. Establish client relationships: Another job enrichment intervention is to establish client relationships. Workers have little to no contact with or knowledge of the ultimate user when jobs are split up. By establishing client relationships, task identity and task significance increase. 

Cummings & Worley recommend three steps: 

1. Identify the client
2. Ensure that the contact between the employee and the client is as direct as possible
3. The criteria by which the client judges the product or service should be clear, and their judgement should be shared with the employee. 

10. Vertical loading: Vertical loading refers to giving employees additional responsibilities and tasks traditionally reserved for higher-level positions, thus significantly increasing autonomy. It may be the most crucial job enrichment and design principle.

Vertical loading is often lost when a mistake is made. At this point, a supervisor removes the responsibility, leading to lower vertical loading and a decrease in autonomy. However, rather than immediately removing someone’s responsibility, it could be more valuable to discuss what happened and how to avoid this in the future.  

11. Horizontal loading: Horizontal loading is also referred to as job enlargement. Job enlargement is increasing job duties by extending the range of job responsibilities. Contrary to vertical loading, where the degree of control is increased, job enlargement focuses on simply adding duties to the job without necessarily increasing autonomy or control.  

Job enlargement thus enables an employee to do more, have a wider range of activities, increase their skill variety, and improve their earning capacity.

An example is an office secretary who now also welcomes occasional guests who visit the office. This gives her a welcome break from her daily work, as she likes to make people feel at home and chat with new people, which boosts her motivation.

12. Running a job crafting trial: Job crafting refers to people proactively making small changes to their jobs. They take the job they already have and make changes that are improvements to them and make it a better fit for them as an individual. By doing so, they are more satisfied, more engaged in what they’re doing, and more likely to perform better.

Strictly speaking, job crafting is not a job enrichment intervention because it is employee-driven, while job enrichment is top-down. However, as with any new HR initiative, chances of success are probably much higher if the organization and its people work together to co-create. 

So, it might be worth testing the concept and running a job crafting trial, as this might be the future, more modern version of job enrichment. 

13. Creating an employee recognition program: This is not a traditional job enrichment intervention, either. However, as we saw earlier, Frederick Herzberg had already identified recognition as one of the key motivators for job satisfaction back in 1959.

An effective employee recognition program can be a great way for a company to show appreciation for people’s achievements and positive actions. This creates, among other things, a more positive work environment and more satisfied and productive employees and has, therefore, a ‘job enriching effect.’

How to implement job enrichment at your organization

Let’s take a look at the essential elements for successfully implementing job enrichment interventions at your organization:

Involve employees in the process

As we’ve seen earlier, job enrichment might not be for everyone. Some employees will be happy with their role as it is, and others will prefer to tailor their role more to their liking using a technique like job crafting.

It’s crucial to recognize and respect these individual preferences to maintain overall job satisfaction. By offering a range of options for job design, organizations can cater to diverse needs and ensure that all employees feel valued and engaged.

Conduct a Job Diagnostic Survey (JDS)

The Job Diagnostic Survey (JDS) is a framework for calculating a motivating potential score. It assumes that motivation consists of meaningfulness, autonomy, and feedback. 

A score is identified and calculated for each of these factors per job. The figure below illustrates the motivating potential score as a function of these three states. 

In the figure, two jobs are compared. Job A scores around 6.5 on meaningfulness (the average of skill variety, task identity, which is the extent to which a job is done from start to finish, and task significance), 6.4 on autonomy, and 6.3 on feedback, making the motivating potential score 6.5*6.4*6.3 ≈ 260. Job B scores significantly lower, bringing its motivating potential score to less than 40.  

Leverage design thinking to refine job roles

Apply design thinking principles to the job enrichment process. This involves empathizing with employees to understand their needs and challenges, defining areas for improvement, ideating potential enhancements, prototyping new job elements, and testing these changes in a controlled environment.

Design thinking focuses on the human aspect of work and, as such, can help create more engaging and fulfilling job roles. 

Provide adequate training and resources

If people are willing to take on additional tasks and responsibilities, the employer must ensure they are well-equipped to take on this new challenge.
This often means offering them adequate training and resources to get the job done. As we’ve seen earlier, a lack of training can backfire and lead to frustration and dissatisfaction.

Monitor and support

Once you’ve implemented one or more job enrichment interventions, it’s important to monitor them. How are employees experiencing their additional tasks? What goes well, and what can be improved?  

Managers usually play a big part in this as they are the ones who are in contact with their team members on a daily (or almost daily) basis. 

Job enrichment vs. job enlargement

Job enrichment and job enlargement are two distinct strategies of job design, each with its unique approach to enhancing employee satisfaction.

Job enrichment focuses on adding motivational dimensions to a job, aiming to make it more fulfilling and engaging for the employee. This approach seeks to increase job satisfaction by enhancing the meaningfulness, autonomy, and feedback associated with the job roles. The goal is to improve the intrinsic value of the job to the employee, making it a more rewarding experience.

On the other hand, job enlargement is characterized by increasing the number of tasks an employee performs. It broadens the scope of their job horizontally without necessarily increasing their control or responsibility over those tasks.

The primary aim of job enlargement is to combat job dissatisfaction and monotony by providing a greater variety of activities within the same level of an existing role. While it increases the task variety an employee experiences, it does not inherently make the job more motivating from a psychological perspective.

An example is a warehouse worker who is typically responsible for packing and shipping orders but now also takes on inventory management tasks. This additional responsibility allows them to learn new skills related to stock tracking and inventory control, which they find intellectually stimulating and rewarding.

However, the effects of job enlargement diminish over time. Initially, the warehouse worker enjoys the new challenge, but eventually, they might find the additional tasks overwhelming and feel that their workload has become unmanageable, leading to increased stress and decreased job satisfaction as the excitement of the new responsibilities diminishes.

Job enlargement can be seen as a way to keep employees engaged by preventing repetitive work patterns, but it may not contribute to job satisfaction and motivation in the same depth as job enrichment does.

The continual increase of job enlargement is referred to as job creep. This happens when an employee gets an ever-increasing task load, leading to an unmanageable workload.

Both job enrichment and job enlargement are crucial strategies in organizational development efforts. While they both enhance employee engagement and performance, they operate on different aspects of job design to achieve these outcomes.

Wrapping up

Job enrichment can be a great way to keep people’s jobs engaging and retain employees. However, not everyone is open to having their job enriched. The interventions listed in this article can be a good place to start if you want to implement job enrichment interventions in your organization as long as you involve your employees.

FAQ

The post Job Enrichment: A Practical Guide + 13 Examples appeared first on AIHR.

What is talent management?

Talent management encompasses all HR processes and strategies to attract, develop, motivate, and retain high-performing employees. The primary aim is to drive performance through integrated people management practices. Let’s break this definition down:

• HR processes: Talent management is about a set of HR processes that integrate with each other. It goes beyond individual HR functions. A talent management strategy requires a holistic outlook on these processes to maximize its potential.
• Key focus areas: Talent management touches on all key functions of HR, including recruitment and selection, learning and development, performance management, tailoring the employee experience, rewards, and optimizing workforce planning and strategy. 
• Employee performance: The ultimate goal of talent management is to improve performance. This is best achieved by creating a system that motivates and engages employees to perform to the best of their abilities. When it’s done right, companies can build a sustainable advantage and outperform competitors through an integrated system of talent management practices that are hard to copy and/or imitate.

HR professionals are primarily responsible for leading talent management efforts. They must develop and implement talent management strategies that align with organizational goals, culture, and values. They must also identify, develop, and evaluate talent pipelines and provide ongoing training and development opportunities for employees at all levels.

Talent management, however, is a collaborative effort that requires the involvement of managers, supervisors, and executives. These individuals provide support and resources to enable the successful implementation of talent management practices.

Why is talent management important?

Here are some of the main reasons why talent management matters in an organization and can play a key role in its success. 

Driving organizational performance

Employees with the right skills and competencies in the correct positions are able to maximize their contribution to the organization, resulting in improved productivity and organizational performance.

By attracting and retaining top talent and creating a culture of performance excellence, organizations can achieve better results and gain a competitive advantage.

Attracting top talent

HR applies effective talent management strategies to help identify the specific skills and qualities they need in new hires, making the recruitment process more efficient and effective.

Boosting the employer brand

When employees feel valued, supported, and invested in, they are more likely to speak positively about their employer. This helps organizations enhance their reputation and employer brand and attract new talent.

Stronger organizational culture 

Implementing talent management practices helps foster a positive and supportive organizational culture, which boosts morale, productivity, and overall performance.

Therefore, HR professionals must prioritize talent management efforts and develop strategies that align with the company’s goals and values.

Better succession management

Effective talent management includes identifying and developing high-potential employees who will assume key roles in the organization in the future. Succession management ensures that critical positions can be filled quickly, minimizing disruptions to business operations and guaranteeing business continuity.

Promoting innovation

By challenging their employees to grow and develop, organizations create an environment where people can voice new ideas and innovate. This enables businesses to stay ahead of the competition by developing and improving their products and services.

Developing employee skills

According to the LinkedIn Workplace Learning Report, 94% of employees claimed they would remain at a company longer if it invested in their careers, while another report found that employees believe professional development is the number one way to improve the organization’s culture. 

Talent management focuses on skill transformation through training, mentoring, and coaching. By investing in employee development, employers encourage performance and career growth. This helps them not only to fill skills gaps and build a skilled workforce but also retain it.

Improving employee retention

Losing top performers is costly, both in terms of recruitment and lost productivity. Talent management practices that prioritize employee engagement, recognition, and career development help retain valuable employees and reduce turnover rates.

Enhancing agility

Businesses that effectively manage talent adapt to changing business circumstances and emerging possibilities more swiftly, which is becoming increasingly important as technology transforms the way we work.

Avoiding unnecessary costs

It can be expensive to recruit and onboard new employees. According to Gallup, hiring a new employee can cost between one-half to twice an employee’s annual salary. High turnover can also disrupt business operations and lower morale. Optimizing talent management practices can lead to significant cost savings and reduce friction.

What are examples of talent management?

Let’s look at how some companies approach talent management in practice.

World Vision

World Vision Canada is the country’s largest private relief and development agency. Their approach to work is centered around people and supported by data. They track a metric they call the “employee delight index” to understand talent health at their organization.

To support employee development, World Vision Canada has launched Agile 101. This program provides immersive training during onboarding, as well as agile tools and role-based training. The goal is to foster self-empowerment in learning rather than imposing a rigid structure. This approach enables individuals to be more adaptable and better equipped to handle any challenges that may arise.

The organization also aims to grow 80% of leaders from within with its performance and development program, “You Matter.”

Hyatt Hotels

With more than 120,000 colleagues across 875 hotels in over 60 countries on six continents, the Hyatt talent management team aims to provide a superior talent experience that would bring purpose to life for every colleague and potential candidate, ultimately benefiting every guest and customer in their hotels worldwide.

They developed and implemented a talent philosophy and mapped it onto a playbook. With a clear framework in place, they were able to optimize their HR processes, tools, and systems globally, eliminating inconsistencies and fragmentation.

A UK insurance company

Burley Consulting collaborated with a top UK insurance company to help them identify and nurture the talent required to thrive in a digital context while also managing the workforce needed to lead their business today. As a solution, Burley built a bespoke business simulation to give high-potential staff and future business leaders the experience of leading the company by embracing digitalization opportunities.

After a simulated three-year period, the hands-on program enabled the insurance company to identify employees who were eager to embrace digitalization. In the end, they managed to strike a balance between nurturing talent and delivering on current business goals.

Walmart

As the world of work began to shift and become increasingly digitized, Walmart recognized a need to create and recruit from new talent pools. In 2011, they acquired a huge mass of digital skills by purchasing a social media company, which became the hub of the retailer’s digital technology division – WalmartLabs. 

Mercy Health

Feeling the pressing need for healthcare workers, Mercy Health Hospital partnered with community colleges to create a paid apprenticeship program for medical assistants. This aimed to meet the talent needs and offered students the opportunity to learn on the job and make money. 

Talent management terms and concepts you need to know

Here are some of the most frequently used talent management concepts and how they can help your organization’s talent management strategy.

Talent management model

A talent management model helps you navigate and optimize your talent management process by visualizing its elements.

The AARRR model (Acquisition, Activation, Revenue, Referral, Retention), also known as the Pirate Metrics model, is a popular framework that typically outlines the various stages of the customer journey. It can also be applied to talent management to help HR professionals envision the employee journey within the organization.

There are five key stages of the AARRR model in talent management:

• Acquisition: In the beginning, HR professionals focus on attracting and sourcing top talent for the company.
• Activation: The next stage is to activate your candidates by selecting your new employees and then onboarding them. 
• Revenue: Getting your employees to bring maximum value to your organization.
• Referral: Leveraging current employees to be brand advocates and refer potential candidates who fit the organization’s culture and values through a rewards program. 
• Retention: Retaining top talent by providing them with meaningful work, opportunities for growth and development, and a positive work environment.

By focusing on each stage of the talent management model, an organization can build a strong workforce to succeed in today’s competitive business environment.

Talent management framework

A talent management framework is an outline or structure that addresses each area of talent management in an organization and details activities that HR can carry out within each area to maximize effectiveness. You can think of it as a talent management plan customized to the reality of your organization. 

A formal talent management framework can serve as a useful checklist when creating or updating your talent management strategy and executing processes. It can help HR professionals focus on the most impactful talent management practices that drive the most value for the company, which leads to greater long-term success.

A typical talent management framework may include the following areas:

1. Talent strategy and planning
2. Talent acquisition
3. Employee performance management
4. Training and development
5. Succession planning and identifying
6. Total rewards

It’s important to note that while beginning with a sample talent management framework is helpful, it must be tailored to fit your unique business, needs, and employees in order to be most effective.

Talent management software

Talent management solutions, such as talent management software or a dedicated talent management platform or system (TMS), help automate repetitive tasks, streamline processes, and offer valuable data on your current talent management strategies.

A talent management system has various features, allowing you to manage job postings, onboard new employees, oversee compensation and benefits, track employee performance, and generate data-rich reports that help you improve your talent management and succession planning over time.

Integrated talent management

Integrated talent management refers to a holistic approach to managing an organization’s employees. It aligns multiple HR functions to work cohesively toward the overarching goals of talent acquisition, retention, and development.

The objective is to ensure that talent management processes like hiring, onboarding, developing employees, and succession planning work together rather than in isolation, promoting a seamless employee experience that drives organizational effectiveness and strategic success.

Talent lifecycle

The talent lifecycle, also known as the talent management lifecycle, refers to the entire journey of recruiting and retaining the right people, developing them and their careers within the company, and helping them fulfill their potential. 

Here are the talent lifecycle stages:

1. Recruitment
2. Orientation
3. Engagement
4. Learning and development
5. Offboarding and outreach

HR plays a significant role in this cycle as it is their job to facilitate the talent management lifecycle. When the talent lifecycle is effectively managed, it leads to happier and more motivated employees (and therefore perform better) and, ultimately, a thriving organization.

Talent management strategy and process

Now that you understand the basics and importance of talent management, how can you develop an effective talent management strategy that benefits your people? Here’s a summary of talent management best practices to follow when creating your organization’s strategy.

Clarify organizational goals and strategic priorities

What is the organization focused on achieving this month, this year, and over the next five years? Understanding the business’s priorities enables you to guide HR talent management efforts in the right direction.

Your talent management strategy should always align with organizational goals and support them. Remember to make it feasible and in line with your industry, location, and budget. 

Review your employee life cycle

Take a closer look at every stage of your employee life cycle and identify the areas that need improvement, then rank these in order of importance. Below are some examples of what to consider:

• Sourcing and attracting talent: Are you attracting enough of the right candidates to your job postings? Do you need more targeted advertisements? Do you need to branch out where you look for candidates to grow your talent pool? 
• Selection: Are you selecting the right candidates for your vacancies, or are you hiring people who aren’t a good fit for your company’s values and culture? Structured interviews and work assessments can help you pinpoint your top candidates.
• Retention: Maybe you have no problem attracting and hiring top performers, but you struggle to keep them. Retaining your best talent should be a key priority. By compensating them adequately, nurturing their development, and rewarding good work, you can deliver a strong employee experience, hold on to your best employees, and motivate them to perform at their best. 
• Promotion & succession planning: You should identify your top performers and give them new challenges and responsibilities to keep them engaged and motivated at work. You also need to empower them to develop the skills they need to move to the next level within the company. Do you know who these employees are? Do you have a list of potential replacements for the key roles in your organization?
• Offboarding: Do you have an exit interview in place for all departing employees that helps you learn why people leave and what could have made them stay? This will provide valuable information that identifies your mistakes so that you can improve and retain your high-potential employees. 

Refine HR processes & workflows

The next step is to design the supportive processes and systems needed to carry out your talent management strategy. This may mean redesigning your current HR workflows.

For example, you might need to:

• Refine your recruitment funnel
• Improve your onboarding procedures so they effectively welcome and integrate new employees into the company’s culture and vision
• Create new development programs for employees to build skills that are integral to your strategy
• Streamline your performance management workflows so they reflect and support the business’s strategic goals.

Clarify roles and responsibilities

Create a strategic HR or talent management team to take the lead in designing and implementing your talent management strategy.

Use a RACI matrix to clearly define each person’s role and the tasks they are responsible for. This will ensure that all key areas of your strategy are covered and that the most qualified person is managing the right areas. 

Focus on training, development & performance management

Do you regularly offer employees the chance to learn new skills or develop existing ones? Do employees feel that the organization cares about their career growth? Training your employees so that they are equipped with the skills to perform at the highest level now and in the future is an investment in the company’s success and integral to a successful talent management strategy. 

However, you must track employee performance to ensure your learning and development initiatives are working.

Do you have the right performance management practices and policies in place that contribute to better performance for all employees at all levels? Many companies (including Adobe and Deloitte) are opting for a more continuous performance management approach (check-ins or touchpoints) rather than formal quarterly performance reviews.

Ensure your strategy is inclusive

Remember to be inclusive at all stages of your talent management strategy. From personalization learning and development opportunities to accommodate different learners to including different employee groups in your strategy who may often be overlooked, such as remote or part-time workers.

If you want a truly strong and empowered workforce, your talent management practices have to support a multitude of needs.   

Track relevant metrics to measure effectiveness

Once you have defined what success looks like for you within your talent management strategy, you can decide on the metrics you want to track that will help you measure how effective your processes are.

Below, you will find common talent management metrics you can use.

With this information, you can make well-informed, unbiased, data-driven decisions.

Leverage technology

A fundamental part of talent management planning today is focused on utilizing the new technologies available to enhance and streamline your processes. This is a great time to invest in your HR tech stack and use talent management software. 

Review and refine your strategy

A combination of relevant metrics, employee feedback, and emerging market trends should be used to regularly review your strategy and make improvements. This will ensure that your talent management plan is always effective and aligned with business objectives.

Talent management best practices

A successful talent management strategy is a dynamic and continuous process that requires a strategic, thoughtful implementation. A well-implemented strategy grounded in best practices becomes essential for staying ahead of the curve and achieving long-term success.

Following talent management best practices helps organizations not only enhance their operational efficiency but also create a motivated, high-performing workforce that drives sustained growth and success.

Here are some best practices to take your talent management strategy to the next level:

Talent management initiatives

In today’s job market, employees choose to join and remain with a company for reasons that go far beyond a lucrative compensation package.

More than ever, employees want to work for an organization whose values, goals, and social impact align with their own personal values and desired impact. Innovative talent management initiatives allow businesses to create a work environment that resonates with the personal and professional aspirations of their employees.

Here are some emerging talent management initiatives, along with examples of companies that are implementing them.  

New work arrangements

The pandemic forced a huge change in work expectations between employees and employers and brought work-life balance and flexible arrangements to the forefront.

More than ever, employees expect at least someMore than ever, employees expect at least some flexibility in their work arrangements, such as flexible working hours or a hybrid approach. Therefore, organizations have had to shift their work arrangement policies to accommodate more flexible working arrangements that still allow them to access this talent pool of workers.  

Microsoft conducted research that found many employees are productive outside of traditional 9-5 work hours. Following this, they introduced the Triple Peak Day which gives employees the flexibility to change their working hours based on their other commitments and still work during a period of peak productivity.

For example, an employee who has children can work from 9 a.m. until 2 p.m., then collect their children from school and spend the afternoon with them, and continue working after dinner from 7:30 p.m. until 10:30 p.m.  

Technology-empowered solutions

As technology evolves rapidly, talent management practices are advancing, too. Talent intelligence and insights are becoming integral to designing talent management initiatives throughout the employee life cycle. This includes the creation of talent-matching technologies, internal talent marketplaces, opportunity platforms, and AI-based coaching.

For instance, Cellular Sales, Verizon’s premier retailer in the U.S., uses an AI-guided learning and training platform to improve the performance of its employees. Employees who are highly active on the platform achieve over 50% more handset sales.

Enhancing the talent experience

Providing talent with new opportunities to gain skills, knowledge, and experience during their careers helps improve the organization’s overall performance and drives engagement and job growth. For this reason, more organizations are implementing talent exchange programs and talent sharing.

ICMA’s management talent exchange programs allow organizations to nominate high-potential employees and match them to assignments in other cities or districts that aim to “stretch” them. The organization that has nominated an employee will typically receive an employee from another agency in exchange for its own.

Talent management analytics

Talent management analytics is the practice of analyzing data to make better talent decisions. In the past, managers and leaders could only rely on their personal perspectives and instincts to make talent decisions and hope they were right. But today, this approach is far too biased and risky to gamble with your greatest asset – your people. 

Leading-edge companies, including Google, Best Buy, Sysco, and Starbucks, have all adopted the approach of analyzing employee data to boost productivity, engagement, and retention and increase their competitive advantage. And for good reason. Research by Bain & Company has found that the productivity of organizations that invested in talent analytics was 40% higher than those that didn’t. 

Talent management metrics and dashboards are integral parts of talent management analytics. Let’s explore these in more detail. 

Talent management metrics

Here are some of the most frequently used talent management metrics.

• Talent mobility: This metric helps you monitor the mobility of your employees internally and externally. You can measure the rate of internal promotions and lateral moves and track external departures, calculating the percentage of employees moving within and out of the organization annually.
• Talent turnover: Tracking turnover in your talent pool helps you see the percentage of high future potential talent you’re losing, which can be compared over time. 
• Talent distribution: Demographic variables such as age, gender, and nationality can give you a better overview of your talent distribution so you can create better talent strategies and focus your efforts where they’re most needed. 
• High-potential talent: Knowing what percentage of your employees are HiPos and who these employees are helps you retain your best people and nurture them as part of your succession plan.
• Employee engagement: Measuring employee engagement through surveys provides insights into job satisfaction, commitment, and motivation, which are key indicators of overall employee wellbeing and performance.
• Cost per hire: This measures the total cost of hiring a new employee, including job ad placements, sourcing costs, and the time of managers and recruiters interviewing all candidates for the role. 
• Time to hire: This metric is the number of days from the moment a candidate enters the recruitment process until the moment they sign their contract of employment. The longer your time to hire is, the more likely you are to miss out on top candidates. 
• Time to full productivity: A new hire will always take time to settle into a new role before they reach full productivity, and this metric measures how long that takes. The more effective your onboarding process is, the shorter this time is likely to be. 
• Training spend: You can track the total financial investment in training programs per employee annually, including external courses, internal workshops, and e-learning.
• Exit interviews: Exit interviews and questionnaires offer you qualitative and quantitative information that can help you determine why your talent is leaving and what you can do to prevent this.

Talent management dashboard

A talent management dashboard is a customizable tool that enables recruiters and hiring managers to effectively select and manage talent. 

It is built on five pillars:

1. Recruitment
2. Performance management
3. Succession planning
4. Learning & development
5. Compensation management

These pillars help HR professionals gain a comprehensive overview of their talent pool, which improves their communication efforts and ability to plan for the future. 

A typical talent management dashboard has five functions:

1. Reporting: Provides an overview of the entire talent pipeline from recruitment to outflow. 
2. Performance management: This allows you to measure employee performance to get the most out of your workforce and use this data to find new talent that aligns with your organization’s culture and goals.
3. Engaging with talent: Offers supporting data and information to initiate discussions with employees related to career growth, development, and training needs.
4. Learning and development: Depending on the potential and performance of an employee, different learning and development opportunities can be offered. For example, an employee with high growth potential might be sent to train as a manager, while employees who perform well but lack growth potential would be best concentrating on on-the-job training.
5. Talent pipeline: Knowing who your star players are and their potential allows you to build a talent pipeline to have a replacement plan for the top business functions. This is imperative if you want to retain knowledge and experience in the business and prevent open vacancies and disruption.

Talent management trends

Here are the current and emerging trends impacting talent management, which you should consider when designing and executing your strategy.

1. Defining a clear talent philosophy is a must

Is everyone in the business referred to as talent or just a specific group of high performers? If it’s the former, inclusive career practices that foster advancement are important. If it’s the latter, talent segmentation activities that recognize these different groups are essential. There is no right or wrong, but clarifying your talent philosophy allows you to develop the right solution for your organization and unique needs. 

Starbucks has pinpointed its baristas as critical to the business’s success as they directly shape the customer experience. Therefore, this talent segment is important to manage, and the company has a focused development strategy to upskill and retain these employees.

2. Talent management needs to become more proactive

Reacting to changes and problems as they arise in real time often leads to short-sighted thinking and poor decisions. However, anticipating future problems and then preparing scenarios for them allows businesses to respond more thoughtfully and appropriately.

Data and technology have transformed HR practices, including talent management, and must be leveraged to make informed decisions. 

Microsoft has used data and technology to recruit and redeploy skills and advance its talent management practices. It offers early career programs today, which aim to nurture the talent that the organization will need in the future.

3. Transcend maturity models

Striving for predefined levels of maturity in talent management is an outdated approach. To move into the future, organizations must adopt talent management strategies that deliver business impact rather than reaching the benchmark. 

For example, Apple drives innovation and creativity by frequently shifting teams, ditching predefined career paths, and often changing the roles and responsibilities of its employees. This approach has led to higher levels of innovation and performance.  

4. Be mindful of the human experience

Every talent decision has an impact on the career experience of every candidate and employee. Knowing this, we can design talent management practices that deliver the greatest positive impact. 

At Booz Allen Hamilton, an alumni program harnesses the value of returning talent. They partner with learning providers to build future-ready skills. In addition, their redeployment and referral programs manage and support careers while simultaneously creating access to talent. Together, this creates a strong employer brand that is supported by the lived employee experience. 

Improving the experience of your candidates and employees helps you retain top talent, boost productivity, and maintain a strong employer brand. 

5. Compliance and security of talent data

As the emphasis on data protection grows, HR professionals must ensure talent data is secure and changing legal requirements are met. This ensures the business remains compliant while building trust and loyalty amongst your candidates and employees. Regularly assessing and upgrading safety measures will be increasingly important.

For example, do you have a policy on how your HR employees can utilize public AI models to analyze data?

6. Remote and hybrid work models

Owl Labs’ U.S. hybrid work report found that people want more flexible working arrangements and feel more productive, balanced, and loyal to their companies when they have them. In fact, 62% of those surveyed claim they would rather take a pay cut of 10% or more to keep their flexible working arrangements rather than have them taken away.

While the pandemic accelerated flexible working options, the post-pandemic world has not seen a reduction in the demand for remote and hybrid work. Not only can employees find greater work-life balance and reduce travel and childcare costs, but organizations can access a wider talent pool, diversify the workforce and save on office costs by facilitating this growing demand. 

Talent management certification

There are numerous certifications you can obtain within the field of talent management. AIHR’s Talent Management Certificate Program is an entirely online, self-paced program that allows you to learn at your own pace and around your current responsibilities. It takes a total of 25 hours, which can be completed over 10 weeks by studying for 2.5 hours per week. 

In this program, you will learn:

• How to proactively manage the talent pipeline to support business continuity
• Methods to identify, develop, and engage tomorrow’s leaders
• How to use talent data and reports to optimize talent management practices
• Earn your certificate with the capstone project by completing a real-world case

As an AIHR member, you will also receive: 

• Hands-on learning: You can access simulated scenarios to apply your learnings. That will make it easier to transfer your new knowledge and skills into your job.
• A resource library: With templates, playbooks, guides, and extra tools, our HR resource library offers you on-the-job support with practical resources that are free for you to use.
• A personal coach: Every full-access member will be assigned a personal coach to help you reach your learning goals and succeed in your career. 
• Access to our community: You will gain access to our community of 25,000+ ambitious HR professionals from all over the world, where you can share ideas, participate in discussions, and network. 
• Live events: Our weekly live events help you stay up-to-date with emerging HR trends.
• Accredited education: AIHR has partnerships with the HRCI, SHRM, HRPA, and many other local HR organizations. All our courses are globally recognized. 
• Skill assessments: Future-proof your skill set by taking assessments to determine what you’re missing and then bridge your skills gaps. 
• Career center: Our career mapping and feedback tools help you plan out your career path and fast-track your growth.

FAQ

The post Talent Management appeared first on AIHR.

Contents
What is Human Resource Management?
What is a human resource?
The 7 HR basics
1. Recruitment & selection
2. Performance management
3. Learning & development
4. Succession planning
5. Compensation and benefits
6. HR Information Systems
7. HR data and analytics
How has Human Resource Management changed and evolved?
Human Resource Management skills
FAQ

What is Human Resource Management?

Human Resource Management (HRM) is a strategic approach to managing employees to achieve better organizational performance. It aims to attract, manage, and retain employees who contribute to the company’s success, ensuring their alignment with the organization’s strategic goals and culture. HRM encompasses various functions, including recruitment, compensation, and employee development, to support and engage the workforce effectively.

For example, if you hire people into a business, you are looking for people who resonate with your company culture as they will be happier, stay longer, and be more productive than people who don’t. Another example is engagement. Engaged employees are more productive, deliver higher quality work, and make customers happier. This means that if HR can find ways to make employees more engaged, this benefits the company.

The HR department aims to provide the knowledge, tools, training, legal advice, administration, and talent management crucial to supporting and advancing the company. 

This is what Human Resource Management boils down to: optimizing organizational performance through better management of human resources.

Explore the HR Management basics in the video below:

The logical next question is, who are these human resources?

What is a human resource?

Referring to people as ‘human resources’ in the business environment of today can feel weird and outdated. However, for clarity and the context of this article, we’ll continue to use this term. Besides, as one author rightly pointed out, ‘It’s not how you call it, but what you do’ counts. 

Human resources are all the people who work for or contribute to the organization in one capacity or another. Together, these people make up a company’s workforce. They can be full-time or part-time salaried or hourly employees, for example, but also contingent workers such as consultants, contractors, or freelancers. Ten years ago, 15% of the U.S. workforce consisted of contingent workers; today, they account for 35%.

Non-human resources 

And then there is a relatively new, non-human element to consider when we talk about human resources in the context of the workforce: robots. 

Machines and robots are increasingly involved in day-to-day work in all industries, and the interaction between the human and the machine is becoming increasingly important to the organization’s success.

While these machines are not considered ‘human resources,’ there is a case to be made that they should be included and taken into account in some way as they are a part of the workforce.

Why is Human Resource Management important?

HRM involves various activities, processes, and policies – tied together in an HR strategy – that aim to align a company’s workforce with its strategic (business) objectives. 

As such, effective Human Resource Management is integral to any organization’s success and plays a role in the following:

• Attracting and retaining talent: The HR department creates a comprehensive talent strategy that helps the organization recruit, develop, and retain the right people.  
• Enabling managers: Managers play a crucial role in employee retention and success. HR is there to equip managers with all the tools, resources, and support they need to help their teams flourish.  
• Driving strategic planning: HR works with senior leaders to keep the HR strategy in line with the organization’s objectives. This enables the HR team to identify talent gaps and create workforce plans to then proactively find the right talent for the right position.  
• Fostering organizational culture: HRM plays a vital role in shaping and cultivating the company’s culture by establishing the values, norms, and behaviors that correspond with the organization’s mission and vision. 
• Creating a productive work environment: A positive work environment is good for employee productivity, which, in turn, is critical to the success of the business. Various HRM practices, therefore, aim to implement effective performance management systems, set clear job expectations, and provide regular feedback, among other things.

The seven HR basics

When we talk about Human Resource Management, several elements are considered cornerstones for effective HRM policies. These cornerstones are: 

1. Recruitment & selection 
2. Performance management 
3. Learning & development 
4. Succession planning 
5. Compensation and benefits 
6. Human Resources Information System (HRIS)
7. HR data and analytics 

Let’s take a closer look at each of the seven HR Management basics.

1. Recruitment & selection

Recruitment and selection are the most visible elements of HR. Who doesn’t remember their very first job interview, right?

The goal of the recruitment and selection process is to find and hire the best candidate for the job, with the former focusing on attracting potential candidates to apply for the role and the latter focusing on evaluating and choosing the best candidate among the applicants. 

The recruitment process usually involves the following steps in some shape or form:

• Preparing:
  • Vacancy intake with the hiring manager
  • Write job description
  • Creating job adverts
• Sourcing:
  • Sourcing candidates
  • Checking the existing talent pool 
  • Keeping the hiring manager informed 
• Screening:
  • Screening resumes
  • Phone screening
  • Giving a realistic job preview

The last phase of the recruitment phase has some overlap with the selection process, which then continues as follows: 

• The job interview
• An assessment 
• References and background check 
• The hiring decision 
• Job offer and contract 
• (Preboarding and onboarding)

2. Performance management

As we’ve mentioned earlier, an organization’s performance management practices play an important role in creating a productive and positive work environment and keeping employees engaged. According to a report by the HR Research Institute, 67% of leading organizations in performance management experienced increased employee performance, compared to only 16% of so-called performance laggards.

Performance management is the second HR Management cornerstone. It is a set of processes and systems aimed at developing employees in a way that enables them to perform their jobs to the best of their ability. Employees who are empowered to their full potential, improve the efficiency, sustainability, and profit margin of a business.

The goal of performance management is threefold: 

1. To help employees build on skills that enable them to perform better in their roles
2. To reach their highest potential
3. To boost their success while accomplishing the strategic goals of the organization.  

Effective performance management is based on a continuous conversation between employees, their managers, and HR. 

A strategic and systematic performance management process combines verbal and written components that take place throughout the year. It involves the following actions:

• Establishing clear expectations
• Setting individual objectives and goals that align with team and organizational goals 
• Providing different types of feedback
• Regular performance conversations, such as performance reviews and performance appraisals
• Evaluating results.

Important decisions regarding an employee’s career, such as promotions, bonuses, and dismissals, should be linked to the organization’s performance management process.

3. Learning & development

Learning and development (L&D) is another HR fundamental and an essential part of an organization’s overall people development strategy. 

Put simply, L&D is a systematic process that enhances people’s skills, knowledge, and competencies to improve their work performance. 

Learning involves acquiring knowledge, skills, behaviors, and attitudes that result in better job performance. Examples of what learning activities can look like include: 

• Reading blogs, articles, or books 
• Hands-on experimentation
• Peer learning
• Lunch and learn sessions
• Attending seminars, conferences, or webinars

Development evolves around broadening and deepening a person’s knowledge in line with their individual, long-term professional goals. The idea here is to grow job-related abilities and expand someone’s potential for future opportunities. 

Activities focused on development include: 

• Coaching
• Job shadowing
• Leadership training
• Mentoring

L&D helps employees to reskill and upskill. It is typically led by HR, and a solid learning and development program can be very helpful in advancing the organization toward its long-term goals. 

This approach allows employees to bridge skill gaps and grow into leaders. A well-known framework that connects performance management with L&D activities is the 9-box grid. Based on people’s performance and potential ratings, HR and the manager can advise on various development plans in consultation with the employee. 

4. Succession planning

Succession planning involves planning contingencies in case key employees leave the organization. It is about proactively identifying top performers and potential leaders and getting them ready to fill (senior) positions as soon as someone leaves. 

While crucial for the continuity – and sometimes even the survival – of the business, many companies of all sizes still don’t have a solid succession plan.

Succession planning is a complex process and if you want to navigate it successfully, keep the following three things in mind:

• Critical roles only: Succession planning focuses on roles that are vital to the organization’s competitiveness and continuity, especially senior leadership roles.
• Key talent: Unsurprisingly, for those critical roles, only top performers and potential leaders (usually internal candidates) are selected to be mentored and developed. 
• Continuity: The ultimate purpose of succession planning is to ensure that someone else is ready to take over immediately when someone leaves to maintain business continuity.

5. Compensation and benefits

Another fundamental component of HR management is compensation and benefits, often called comp & ben. Fair compensation is critical in attracting, motivating, and retaining employees. 

Compensation and benefits consist of all the monetary and non-monetary rewards employees receive from their employer in exchange for their labor. Examples include: 

• Salary
• Bonuses
• Insurance 
• Retirement contribution
• Childcare benefits
• Flexible working options
• Etc.

Getting comp and ben right is important for two main reasons.

On the one hand, making a solid, attractive offer is key to attracting the best talent. On the other hand, comp & ben and related taxes can account for up to 70% of business costs, highlighting the importance of balancing this with the organization’s budget and profit margins. HR should, therefore, closely monitor the state of compensation and benefits at their organization.

A final thing to note here is that employee satisfaction is mainly driven by what they perceive as fair rather than by how much someone is paid. How employees feel about the company’s pay philosophy and process is more likely to impact their outlook than the actual pay.

So, in addition to offering decent compensation, HR teams may want to start paying more attention to how pay transparency works and how to manage compensation perceptions at their company.

6. Human Resource Information System (HRIS)

The two final HR Management basics are not HR practices but tools to improve HR. The first one is the Human Resources Information System, or HRIS. 

Most HRIS solutions support all the HR processes and practices we discussed above. Sometimes, however, the management of these functionalities is spread out over different HR systems. For example:

• HR professionals often use an Applicant Tracking System, or ATS, for recruitment and selection to keep track of applicants and new hires
• For performance management, a performance management system is used to keep track of individual goals and insert performance ratings 
• In L&D, organizations utilize the Learning Management System (LMS) to distribute learning content internally, and other HR systems are used to keep track of budgets and training approvals
• Compensation specialists often use a payroll system
• There are digital tools that enable effective succession planning.  

According to the annual Digital Employee Experience Audit, 30% of companies still use more than ten different HR systems.  The bottom line here is that there is a significant digital element to working in HR, which is why we need to mention the HRIS when talking about the basic components of HRM.

7. HR data and analytics

The final HR fundamental revolves around data and analytics. In the last decade, HR has made a significant leap towards becoming more data-driven. 

The HRIS we just discussed is essentially a data-entry system. The data in these systems can be used to make better and more informed decisions. 

An easy way to keep track of critical data is through HR metrics and/or HR KPIs. These are specific measurements showing how a company performs on a given indicator. This is referred to as HR reporting. 

This type of reporting focuses on the current and past state of the organization. Using HR and people analytics, HR can also make predictions. Examples include workforce needs, employee turnover intention, the impact of the employee experience on customer satisfaction, and many others.  

HR can make more data-driven decisions by actively measuring and looking at this data. These decisions are more objective, which makes it easier to find management support for them.

How has Human Resource Management changed and evolved?

What Human Resource Management looks like today – and what is expected of HR professionals – is vastly different from what it looked like a hundred years ago. 

From around 1900 until the 1940s, for example, HR teams were mainly expected to keep employees healthy so that they would remain productive.  

During the 1980s and 1990s, HR departments ought to focus on motivating and engaging the workforce while modernizing their HR practices through technology implementations. 

What we’ve seen from 1990 onwards, and still see today, is that HR is expected to be a strategic partner and able to align the business agenda and the HR agenda.  

As for the (near) future, and as we enter the digital-human era of work, things will shift further, and even more will be expected of HR teams. They will have to guide the organization to adapt to workforce changes and redefine the working relationship between talent and employers.   

Human Resource Management skills

To strategize and execute HR initiatives, HR professionals need to possess the following skills:

1. HR specific skills, including:
   • HRM knowledge and expertise 
   • Administrative expertise
   • Employee experience expertise 
2. Business acumen, including:
   • Commercial awareness
   • HR strategy creation and execution 
   • Advising 
3. Soft skills, including:
   • Communication skills 
   • Active listening
   • Proactivity  
4. Digital & data literacy, including:
   • HR reporting skills 
   • Being analytical and data-driven 
   • Command of technology

However, as we’ve already pointed out, the field of Human Resource Management is continuously evolving, and the skills and competencies of HR practitioners have to evolve with it.

If we go beyond what’s currently expected of HR practitioners in terms of skills and competencies and look at what they need to develop they can start to future-proof their skill set, we get the following picture:

On a final note 

If there is one thing to take away from this article about the 7 Human Resource Management basics, it’s that all of these HR fundamentals are connected. 

Think of these HR components as building blocks – strong management of each core element contributes to the strength of the next. Collectively, these HR fundamentals enable a workforce to perform at its best.

FAQ

The post 7 Human Resource Management Basics Every HR Professional Should Know appeared first on AIHR.

Contents
What are recruiting metrics?
1. Time to fill
2. Time to hire
3. Source of hire
4. Sourcing channel effectiveness
5. Sourcing channel cost
6. First-year attrition
7. Quality of hire
8. Hiring manager satisfaction
9. Candidate job satisfaction
10. Applicants per opening
11. Selection ratio
12. Cost per hire
13. Candidate experience
14. Offer acceptance rate
15. % of open positions
16. Application completion rate
17. Recruitment funnel effectiveness
18. Cost of getting to Optimum Productivity Level (OPL)
19. Time to productivity
20. Adverse impact
21. Recruiter performance metrics
22. Fill rate
23. Recruitment ROI
Recruiting metrics template
FAQ

What are recruiting metrics?

Recruiting metrics are measurements used to track hiring success and optimize the process of hiring candidates for an organization. When used correctly, these metrics help evaluate the recruiting process and whether the company is hiring the right people.

Additionally, recruiting metrics provide you with data that will allow you to make improvements to your recruitment process. They are an integral part of a data-driven recruitment funnel, which you can explore in-depth in our Sourcing & Recruitment Certificate Program.

Making the right recruiting decisions is important. This image (based on Greenhouse’s image) shows the employee’s lifetime value as the sum of all the HR decisions made about that employee.

Using this image, we can see that hiring someone who is more suited for the job has the potential to create an enormous return on investment (ROI).

This is why recruiting the right people is so important. Whether you’re starting off by measuring recruitment data or fine-tuning your recruiting metrics, this list will give you a great overview.

Now that we’ve set the stage, let’s look at the 23 most relevant recruiting metrics.

1. Time to fill

Time to fill refers to the number of calendar days it takes to find and hire a new candidate, often measured by the number of days between approving a job requisition and the candidate accepting your offer. Several factors can influence time to fill, such as supply and demand ratios for specific jobs, as well as the speed at which the recruitment department operates.

It’s a great metric for business planning and offers a realistic view for the manager to assess the time it will take to attract and hire a replacement for a departing employee.

2. Time to hire

Time to hire represents the number of days between the moment a candidate applies or is approached and the moment the candidate accepts the job. In other words, it measures the time it takes for someone to move through the hiring process once they’ve applied. Time to hire thus provides a solid indication of how the recruitment team is performing. This metric is also called ‘Time to Accept’.

A shorter time to hire often enables you to hire better candidates, preventing the best candidates from being snatched up by a company that does have a short time to hire. It also impacts your candidate experience, as nobody likes a recruiting process that takes a long time. You’ll be able to see where the bottlenecks are in your hiring process, and you can work to remove them.

For example, the data might show you that there is a long time between resume screening and the phone interview. This can be an issue of scheduling, which recruiting teams can solve by implementing automated scheduling programs.

This metric is heavily influenced by your recruitment funnel. If you are hiring for jobs that have a relatively straightforward recruitment process of one interview, the time to hire will be shorter than when you have a phone intake, assessment day, and three rounds of interviews. For that reason, you should be a little bit careful when interpreting the time to hire benchmark we included below.

3. Source of hire

Tracking the sources that attract new hires to your organization is one of the most popular recruiting metrics. The source of hire metric also helps to keep track of the effectiveness of different recruiting channels. A few examples are job boards, the company’s career page, social media, and sourcing agencies. 

Having a clear understanding of which channel works and which doesn’t, you’ll be able to double down on the channels that are bringing you the most ROI and decrease spending on those that aren’t. For example, if you see that most of your successful hires are not coming from sourcing agencies but from your company career page, then that’s the channel that you want to be focusing on.

4. Sourcing channel effectiveness

Sourcing channel effectiveness helps measure the number of potential candidates each of your recruitment channels is bringing in, and the conversion rate. By comparing the percentage of applications with the percentage of impressions of the job postings, you can quickly judge the effectiveness of different channels.

A simple way to do this is by using Google Analytics to track where the people who viewed the job opening on your website actually came from. Maybe the people coming from LinkedIn don’t apply, but the people coming in from Facebook do.

HR pro tip

Ask your colleagues from the Marketing department to help you set up and navigate Google Analytics for your careers page.

5. Sourcing channel cost

You can also calculate the cost efficiency of your different sourcing channels by including ad spend – the amount of money spent on advertisement – on those platforms. By dividing the ad spend by the number of visitors who successfully applied through the job opening, you measure the sourcing channel cost per hire.

Sourcing channel cost = Ad spend per platform / Number of successful applicants per platform

6. First-year attrition

First-year attrition or first-year new hire turnover is a key recruiting metric and also indicates hiring success. Candidates who leave in their first year of work fail to become fully productive and usually cost a lot of money.

There are two types of first-year attrition: managed and unmanaged.

Managed attrition means that the contract is terminated by the employer. Unmanaged attrition means that they leave on their own accord (this is also referred to as voluntary turnover). The former is often an indicator of poor first-year performance or bad fit with the team.

The second is often an indicator of unrealistic expectations, which cause the candidate to quit. This could be due to a mismatch between the job description and the actual job, or the job and/or company has been oversold by the recruiter.

This metric can also be turned around as ‘candidate retention rate’.

7. Quality of hire

Quality of hire, often measured by someone’s performance rating, gives an indicator of the first-year performance of a candidate. Candidates who receive high performance ratings are indicative of hiring success, while the opposite holds true for candidates with low performance ratings.

Low first-year performance ratings are indicative of bad hires. A single bad hire can cost a company tens of thousands of dollars in both direct and indirect costs. To read more about how to assess these costs, check out our article on HR costing.

When combined with the channel through which the candidate was sourced, you can measure sourcing channel effectiveness (see recruiting metric no. 4).

Quality of hire is one of the most common but also most complex recruiting metrics, as you can measure it in multiple ways. You can get an overview in our detailed guide.

Quality of hire is the input for the Success Ratio. The success ratio divides the number of hires who perform well by the total number of candidates hired. A high success ratio means that most of the hired candidates perform well. However, a low ratio means that you need to fine-tune your selection process.

Success ratio = Number of hired candidates considered satisfactory / Total number of candidates hired

The success ratio is used as input for recruitment utility analysis. This analysis enables you to calculate an ROI for different selection instruments.

8. Hiring manager satisfaction

In line with quality of hire, hiring manager satisfaction is another recruiting metric that is indicative of a successful recruiting process. When the hiring manager is satisfied with the new employees in their team, the candidate is likely to perform well and fit well in the team. In other words, the candidate is more likely to be a successful hire.

9. Candidate job satisfaction

Candidate job satisfaction is an excellent way to track whether the expectations set during the recruiting procedure match reality. A low candidate job satisfaction highlights mismanagement of expectations or incomplete job descriptions.

A low score can be better managed by providing a realistic job preview. This helps to present both the positive and negative aspects of the job to potential candidates, thus creating a more realistic view.

10. Applicants per opening

Applicants per job opening or applicants per hire gauges the job’s popularity. A large number of applicants could indicate a high demand for jobs in that particular area or a job description that’s too broad.

The number of applicants per opening is not necessarily an indicator of the number of qualified candidates. By narrowing the job description and including a number of ‘hard’ criteria, the number of applicants can be reduced without reducing the number of suitable candidates. You can also focus more on sourcing from channels that have brought qualified candidates in the past.

11. Selection ratio

The selection ratio refers to the number of hired candidates compared to the total number of candidates. This ratio is also called the Submittals to Hire Ratio.

Selection ratio = Number of hired candidates / Total number of candidates

The selection ratio is very similar to the number of applicants per opening. When there’s a high number of candidates, the ratio approaches 0. The selection ratio provides information such as the value of different assessment and recruitment tools and can be used to estimate the utility of a given selection and recruitment system.

To calculate the utility of these tools, take a look at this article by Sturman (2003) on the ROI of selection tools.

12. Cost per hire

The cost per hire recruitment metric is the total cost invested in hiring divided by the number of hires.

Cost per hire consists of multiple cost structures which can be divided by internal and external cost. Internal costs include compliance costs, administrative costs, training & development, and hiring manager costs. External costs would be background checks, sourcing expenses, travel expenses, or marketing costs. 

By quantifying all of them, you can calculate the total recruitment cost and divide it by the total number of hires:

Cost per hire = (Internal recruiting costs + External recruiting costs) / Total number of hires

Here are some examples of how you can quantify the costs:

• Time spent by recruiter = Average wages x Hours spent
• Time spent by manager = Average wages x Hours spent
• New hire onboarding time = Average wages x Hours spent

13. Candidate experience

When we talk about recruiting metrics, candidate experience shouldn’t be overlooked. Candidate experience is the way that job seekers perceive an employer’s recruitment and onboarding process, and is often measured using a candidate experience survey. This survey uses Net Promoter Score and helps to identify key components of the experience that can be improved.

Keep in mind that you can measure candidate experience in different stages of the recruitment process. And don’t rule out unsuccessful candidates. You should measure them along with the ones you’ve ended up hiring to get a more accurate picture of the state of your candidate experience.

14. Offer acceptance rate

The offer acceptance rate compares the number of candidates who successfully accepted a job offer with the number of candidates who received an offer.

A low rate might be indicative of potential compensation issues. When these problems occur often for certain functions, the pay can be discussed earlier in the recruiting process in an effort to minimize the impact of a refused job offer. An example is by listing pay in the job opening or by asking for the candidate’s salary expectations.

Offer acceptance rate = Number of offers accepted / Number of offers made

15. % of open positions

The % of open positions compared to the total number of positions can be applied to specific departments or even to the entire organization.

A high percentage of open positions in a specific department can mean those positions are in high demand (for example, due to fast growth). It can also mean that there’s currently a low supply of workers in the market for those positions.

This metric can offer you insights into the current trends and changes happening in the labor market, which can be valuable when you’re building your talent acquisition strategy.

% of open positions = Total number of open positions / Total number of positions in the department or organization

16. Application completion rate

This is a talent acquisition metric that shows how many candidates who started a job application finished it. You can also measure the other way around as “Applicant drop-off rate”, ie. the share of candidates who did not finish the application.

Application completion rate is especially interesting for organizations with elaborate online recruiting systems. Many large corporate firms require candidates to manually input their entire CV in their systems before they can apply for a job. The drop-off in this process is indicative of problems, e.g. web browser incompatibility with the application system or a non-user-friendly interface.

HR Pro Tip

A simple way to check for any issues that might happen during your application process is to test it out yourself. This will help you understand what your applicants might struggle with and how you can improve it. 

17. Recruitment funnel effectiveness

The recruitment process can be seen as a funnel that begins with sourcing and ends with a signed contract. By measuring the effectiveness of all the different steps in the funnel, you can specify a yield ratio per step.

Yield ratio = Number of applicants who successfully completed the stage / Total number of applicants who entered this stage

For example:

• 1:15 (750 applicants apply, 50 CVs are screened)
• 1:5 (50 screened CVs lead to 10 candidates submitted to the hiring manager)
• 1:2 (10 candidate submissions lead to 5 hiring manager acceptances)
• 2:5 (5 first interviews lead to 2 final interviews)
• 1:2 (2 final interviews lead to 1 offer)
• 1:1 (1 offer to 1 hire)

The recruiting funnel has changed a lot over the last few years due to advances in HR tech. The first few steps are often atomized: software helps to automatically screen CVs and select the best fits. Some companies opt to go for video interviews to change submittals and even first interviews.

In other words, expect this funnel to change over time.

18. Cost of getting to Optimum Productivity Level (OPL)

The cost of getting to Optimum Productivity Level (OPL) is the total cost involved in getting someone up to speed. This includes things like onboarding cost, training cost, the cost of supervisors and co-workers involved in on-the-job training, and more. Usually, a percentage of the employee’s salary is also included in this calculation until they hit 100% OPL.

On top of this metric, there is also the “logistical” cost of replacing an employee. These are also called the cost per hire. Research estimates the OPL cost in retail at approximately $23,000 and in IT at over $37,000.

19. Time to productivity

Time to productivity, or time to Optimum Productivity Level, measures how long it takes to get people up to speed and productive. It is the time between the first day of hiring and the point where the employee fully contributes to the organization.

According to the same research mentioned above, the average time a new employee takes to reach their OPL is 28 weeks. Employees from within the same industry usually take less, while employees from outside the industry take significantly longer (32 weeks). University graduates (40 weeks), school leavers (53 weeks), and unemployed (52 weeks) take the longest time.

20. Adverse impact

Adverse impact is the negative effect biased and unfair employment practices have on members of protected groups. These practices can include hiring, learning and development, promotion, transfer, and performance appraisals. 

Tracking this metric is the key to ensuring that your HR practices and activities can contribute to building a more diverse and inclusive workforce, that you have a fair hiring process, and that you comply with (local) legislation. 

The four-fifths rule is a useful tool to determine whether or not there is an adverse impact in your selection process and other employment practices. According to this metric, the selection rate of protected groups — which include race, sex, age (40 and over), religion, disability status, and veteran status — should be 80% or more of the selection rate of non-protected groups to avoid adverse impact against the former. 

For example, if 7% of female job candidates and 19% of male candidates are moved to the interview stage, you can divide 7 by 19 to get the impact ratio of 37%. This is less than 80%, which means that female candidates are adversely impacted in this case.

21. Recruiter performance metrics

Just like how it’s important to track the performance of your recruitment channels or process, you also need to measure how well your recruiters are doing. You can do this through various metrics, most of them focusing on the channel that your recruiters use to communicate with candidates, which is email. 

For example, you can look at email open rate, which is the percentage of sent emails that candidates opened.

Open rate = Number of opened emails / Number of emails delivered

The response rate is also a good metric to look at, which measures the percentage of emails that candidates reply to.

Response rate = Number of replies / Number of emails delivered

Another metric is the conversion rate, which is the percentage of emails that lead to interviews.

Interview conversion rate = Number of candidates interviewed / Number of cold emails delivered

22. Fill rate

Fill rate helps the recruitment team determine how many jobs have been filled over a specific period compared to how many jobs are currently open and work to minimize the number of open vacancies at any given time.

Fill rate = Total number of jobs filled / Total number of job openings

The higher your fill rate is, the more it suggests that the recruitment team is effectively filling vacancies at pace. However, if you also have a low new hire retention rate, this may suggest that not enough time or care is being spent during the interview process to ensure the right people are being hired for the right roles, which is why metrics must be used in tandem to gather a full picture.

A low fill rate suggests issues in your recruitment strategy and a potential inefficiency or lack of effectiveness in the recruitment channels being used. 

23. Recruitment ROI

Recruitment ROI (Return on Investment) helps measure the overall effectiveness and financial return of your recruitment strategies. This includes your activities to attract, hire, and retain your top employees. In other words, it measures the value generated from hiring efforts relative to the costs involved.

A positive ROI suggests that your recruitment efforts create more value than they cost. In contrast, a negative ROI indicates that you spend more on recruitment than the value those activities create. 

To calculate your recruitment ROI, you must track key metrics (like the first-year attrition rate, offer acceptance rate, application completion rate, time to hire, and quality of hire), in addition to the monetary value of new hires (their revenue and productivity impact) and your hard costs (such as internal hiring costs, onboarding and training costs, replacement costs, technology costs, etc.).

Recruiting metrics template

A recruiting metrics template with a comprehensive list of key metrics, definitions, and formulas helps talent professionals efficiently track and evaluate their recruitment processes.

This essential tool allows you to easily calculate metrics such as time to fill, cost per hire, and application completion rate and enables data-driven decision-making in recruitment. That way, you can identify areas for improvement and optimize the overall recruiting strategy.

Over to you

These 23 recruiting metrics form the basis of recruitment analytics.

And how do you know what the results mean? You can set internal recruiting metrics benchmarks, track your progress, and/or compare your results to industry benchmarks.

If you want to read more about different organizational metrics, check out our articles on the 21 employee performance metrics or 19 HR metrics.

FAQ

The post 23 Recruiting Metrics You Should Know [+ Free Template] appeared first on AIHR.

In this article, we will explain what job evaluation is, discuss key methods of job evaluation, take you through the full job evaluation process, and share some job evaluation examples. Let’s dive in!

Contents
What is job evaluation?
Benefits of job evaluation
Job evaluation methods
Job evaluation template to download
Job evaluation process: 4 phases
Job evaluation examples
FAQ

What is job evaluation?

Job evaluation is the systematic process of using internal and external data to determine the relative value that specific jobs bring to an organization. This ensures that compensation is commensurate with the worth of individual roles and that each has appropriate entry and performance requirements. 

The goal of job evaluation is to compare jobs with each other to create a pay structure that is fair, equitable, and consistent for everyone. 

Job evaluation is often used for purposes such as:

• Designing competitive and equitable salary range structures
• Determining pay for newly created positions
• Ensuring fair compensation for related positions.

HR is responsible for job evaluation but may partner with a consulting company that conducts the process. In any case, there must be collaboration with leadership teams and workers’ unions or other partners to confirm the evaluation criteria for each position. For instance, these can be working conditions, required skills, degree of difficulty, and supervision needed.

Job evaluation determines the relative worth of a job based on the role itself and not the individual skills of the person performing the job. According to a European Commission report on pay transparency, “(t)he determination of the worth of a job is assessed irrespective of the qualities of the specific job holder.” 

The relative worth corresponds to a ranking, which then corresponds to pay scales (called wage grids). Based on this evaluation, the job is added to the job structure. The resulting structure ensures pay transparency and equity between various groups of employees.

Personal qualities of the job holder, including seniority, education level, and tenure, are rewarded by an entitlement to higher steps within the applicable pay bracket. 

The European Commission actively encourages the use of job evaluation. According to Cordis, which coordinates EU-supported R&D activities, 49% of European organizations in the private sector use a formal job evaluation scheme, with small and mid-sized businesses at less than 3%. This lack of evaluation leads to unstructured wage payment practices and a lack of requirement-based career and skill development for employees.

Check out our Learning Bite to learn everything you need to know about the Job Evaluation.

Job evaluation vs. job analysis

Job evaluation and job analysis, though closely related, serve distinct purposes within an organization. While job evaluation assesses the relative value of positions within an organization, a job analysis provides the foundational information necessary for the evaluation. Job analysis determines a position’s duties, responsibilities, and environment, as well as which skills, credentials, tools, and equipment are needed to perform the job.

Essentially, job analysis outlines what a job entails and the environment in which it is performed, serving as a critical input for creating accurate job descriptions. These descriptions, in turn, are instrumental for job evaluation, as they offer a comprehensive overview of each role, enabling organizations to accurately assess and compare the value of jobs to the company.

Benefits of job evaluation

While job analysis is a resource-intensive process, it’s worth investing in for the following reasons:

• Ensures fair and equitable compensation: Job evaluation helps establish a compensation system that is fair and equitable, aligning pay with the relative value of each job within the organization.
• Helps create competitive salary structures: By assessing the worth of different roles, organizations can design competitive salary ranges that attract and retain talent.
• Promotes pay transparency: The process contributes to pay transparency, making it clear how salaries are determined and reducing the potential for disputes over pay equity.
• Streamlines payroll budgeting: Job evaluation allows you to take a systematic approach for budgeting salaries and wages, helping to manage payroll costs effectively.
• Aids in compliance with legal standards: It helps organizations comply with legal and regulatory requirements related to pay equity and non-discrimination.
• Supports strategic HR management: Job evaluation aligns with strategic HR goals by ensuring that compensation practices support the organization’s overall objectives and culture.
• Enhances employee satisfaction and morale: Fair and transparent compensation structures improve employee satisfaction, morale, and trust in management.

Job evaluation methods

There are a variety of methods for job evaluation, and all of them involve comparisons derived from either qualitative or quantitative data. Qualitative methods draw comparisons from a subjective review of each position’s characteristics. Quantitative methods assign numerical values to each position and depict the comparison in numbers. 

Here is a look at how four common job evaluation methods fall into these two categories:

Each type has its advantages and disadvantages. The qualitative methods are usually faster while the quantitative methods are more objective and account for required skills and responsibilities. The best approach is typically a combination of techniques.

Next to the four above-mentioned methods, market pricing and Hay job evaluation system are also often used to conduct job evaluations.

Following is a brief explanation of six job evaluation methods:

Job evaluation methods are selected depending on organizational size and complexity. The paired comparison method (choosing the more impactful job of a pair, as displayed below) works well for smaller organizations, while a factor comparison or a point method of job evaluation works better for larger companies.

Point factor method in more detail

The point factor method is probably the best-known of all job evaluation methods. On a high level, the steps for this approach are as follows: 

1. List jobs.
2. Define evaluation factors and factor subcategories.
3. Determine scoring degrees on these factors.
4. Assign a weight to each factor.  
5. Allocate points per job for each factor.
6. Define a new wage structure.
7. Adjust the existing wage structure.

Here is what a sample point factor job evaluation method could look like for an individual role:

Once you’ve collected the data for individual jobs, you can create an overview of all the jobs within your organization or a certain department.

Based on that, you can visualize the spread of points and a salary range per job, similar to the image below. Any outliers can be calculated and need to be dealt with on an individual basis, as we discuss in the next section.

Job evaluation process: 4 phases

Implementing a job evaluation demands significant time and planning. While each method has its own procedures, there are some general phases involved in every job evaluation process. We’re outlining the following four phases to guide you through executing an effective job evaluation:

Phase 1: Planning & diagnosis

A job evaluation project starts with an initial workshop to decide on the scope and approach.  

In terms of scope, you need to make decisions on the following:

• How job evaluation will be used to support equal pay
• Cost/budget
• Time constraints
• Degree of rigor applied 
• Who are all the stakeholders?
• Who will be responsible for administration? 
• Data sources, tools, and software
• External help required
• How to build on previous projects

The next decision is which job evaluation method you will use. It’s also important to consider the degree of customization your organization needs for the method. For example: 

• Proprietary. This is an existing framework created by consultants. It has been tried and tested, is easy to implement, and requires low internal effort. The con is that it may not suit every organization and creates dependence on the supplier.
• Customized. This builds upon an existing framework. It provides a good starting point, leads to faster implementation, and helps to create employee buy-in. This may require sufficiently revising a framework that is not entirely suited for the organization.
• Tailor-made. This is a fully customized scheme developed in-house with the help of external advisors. The participatory process leads to buy-in and enables alignment with a competency framework. Although it will be a great fit for the organization, the process will take longer and cost more.

Next comes identifying benchmark jobs, planning the data collection, and forming a communication plan for the job evaluation team. 

Bear in mind that this phase will require multiple meetings to cover everything. Rushed planning can result in more roadblocks and inefficiencies that slow or stall the process.

Phase 2: Design & development

The second phase involves determining which evaluation elements and levels to incorporate as benchmarks. This often happens through a workshop to discuss how various roles impact the organization. 

It is important to identify relatively timeless elements because the job scheme is relevant only for as long as the elements it is based on are relevant. 

Once this is complete, it’s time to collect and analyze data on the different roles in the organization, such as:

• Organizational chart or hierarchy with grade classifications
• Current salaries
• Job descriptions
• Workforce demographics

Phase 3: Validation & modeling

The third phase starts with discussing the collected data and the weightings of the different elements. This may require some fine-tuning as initial definitions often skew the results.

Next comes drafting a pay grade structure and categorizing jobs. It is likely that certain jobs will not fit perfectly within the pay grade structure. For example, these can be specialist roles in artificial intelligence and machine learning that are in demand and crucial for the company’s future. These jobs may have to be ranked higher on the salary scale than their titles correlate with. As qualified candidates for these roles become more abundant in the future, their placement on the pay scale may need to be revised.

Phase 4: Communication & roll-out

The final phase of the job evaluation process is where the new pay structure is implemented. It is crucial to explain to everyone affected why their pay grade may have changed. 

This phase goes smoother when there is buy-in throughout the organization. There should be an opportunity for employees to appeal decisions they perceive as unfair. Investigating these circumstances will help employees feel heard, ensure transparency, and uncover potential discrepancies in the system that need to be remedied. 

As a note of caution, lowering current workers’ salaries is not advisable. This will cause unrest, lower morale, and prompt people to leave the organization. Furthermore, certain wages are protected under labor laws.

Job evaluation examples

There are all kinds of scenarios where conducting a job evaluation is a good idea. Here are three job evaluation examples that demonstrate how it can be put into action.

1. Job evaluation for a merger

When Scotland’s regional and specialist police forces merged, Police Scotland/Scottish Police Authority (SPA) became the second-largest law enforcement group in the U.K. Since each agency came in with its own compensation program, a job evaluation was needed to create a fair and consistent pay and grading system for the combined staff.  

Police Scotland/SPA hired a consultant to conduct the process with the help of a factor-based job evaluation software program. After a thorough assessment of over 800 staff roles, they were able to create an appropriate pay and grading structure. 

2. Job evaluation for recruitment

In this hypothetical example, a mid-sized e-commerce company was struggling to fill entry-level customer service positions that were crucial for its growing business. The hiring managers noted that applicants often desired higher starting pay than was offered. 

The HR director used the market pricing job evaluation method to gather external market data and compare its salaries to those of similar-sized organizations. The comparison showed that their starting salary was roughly 15% lower than average. This information incentivized the leadership team to approve an increase in starting pay and expand the salary range for these roles.

3. Job evaluation for an initial pay structure

In another speculative example, a locally owned landscaping business offered a range of services from lawn maintenance to tree removal. The company was expanding and needed to formalize how employees were paid. Despite handling different responsibilities, most were earning the same hourly wage.  

The owner devised a basic compensation structure by reviewing the typical duties carried out by various employees and classifying them into the following four titles:

1. Specialty team leader
2. Team leader
3. Specialty landscaper
4. Landscaper

These categories were based on the level of responsibility and expertise needed to handle tasks and operate specific equipment. With clarification of what each role contributes, employees were paid appropriately via a justifiable method. 

Over to you

Job evaluation is the basis for making informed decisions about distributing pay effectively and achieving equitable compensation for employees. The process requires a significant commitment of time and resources. However, understanding each role and assessing its compensatory value is well worth the effort.

A transparent and coherent pay structure promotes pay satisfaction by showing employees how they are paid for what they do. It can also increase their motivation to be productive and improve their skills to achieve career growth.

If you’d like to learn more about job evaluation, we recommend the Hay Job Evaluation Manual and the book Job Evaluation by Armstrong and colleagues, which we used as one of the resources for this article.

FAQ

The post Job Evaluation: Your 2024 Guide [+ Free Template] appeared first on AIHR.

In this article, we will explain what HR analytics is, its benefits, as well as how to get started and grow in your HR analytics capabilities.

Contents
What is HR analytics?
What is HR analytics used for?
Importance of HR analytics
HR analytics examples
Key HR metrics
Data analytics in HR: How to get started
How to transition from descriptive to predictive and prescriptive analytics in HR
HR analytics certification
FAQ

What is HR analytics?

HR analytics, also referred to as people analytics or workforce analytics, involves gathering, analyzing, and reporting HR data to drive business results. It enables your organization to better understand your workforce, make decisions based on data, and measure the impact of a range of HR metrics, ultimately improving overall business performance. In other words, HR analytics is a data-driven approach to Human Resources Management.

Although the term “HR analytics” is widely used, there is a growing trend of referencing “people analytics” as well. The two may often be used interchangeably, but technically there is a subtle difference. HR analytics originates from data housed within Human Resources and is aimed at optimizing HR functions. People analytics expands beyond HR to incorporate data from other sources within the organization, such as marketing, finance, and customer statistics, to address a wider scope of business issues. 

In the past century, Human Resource Management has made a dramatic shift from an operational discipline to a more strategic one. The popularity of using the phrase Strategic Human Resource Management exemplifies this. The data-driven approach that characterizes HR analytics is in line with this development.

Analytics enables HR professionals to make data-driven decisions instead of relying solely on instinct and opinions. Furthermore, analytics helps test the effectiveness of HR policies and interventions.

Types of HR analytics

Different data analysis methods provide insight and identify trends within data. Being familiar with these methods helps you understand how analytics can contribute to HR planning and decision-making. 

Here’s a brief overview of the four types of HR analytics:

• Descriptive HR analytics: Examines historical data to see what has occurred during a specific time. (Example: Annual employee turnover rate.)
• Diagnostic HR analytics: Investigates data to ascertain the causes of past occurrences and behaviors. (Example: Examining unplanned absence data to identify absenteeism drivers.)
• Predictive HR analytics: Explores current and historical data and uses statistical models and forecasts to predict future behaviors and events. (Example: Exploring recruitment data to discover the key attributes of an ideal candidate for a particular position.)
• Prescriptive HR analytics: Suggests potential future outcomes and scenarios and proposes recommendations for addressing them. (Example: Developing an algorithm that predicts what type of onboarding a new hire will need according to their experience and skill level.)

What is HR analytics used for?

Analyzing your HR data helps you draw conclusions, uncover insights, and make predictions. Data analytics in HR is used to improve HR functions in a variety of ways. 

Here are a few examples:

• Identifying patterns in voluntary and involuntary employee turnover
• Assessing the recruitment effort through candidate and process data
• Evaluating talent management effectiveness with metrics such as engagement and absenteeism rates
• Determining training and development needs from a skills inventory
• Optimizing compensation and benefits through analyzing market trends, internal equity, and effectiveness of current compensation packages
• Predicting future workforce needs by analyzing current workforce demographics, skill sets, and retirement projections.

We discuss more real-life examples below.

Importance of HR analytics

Leveraging data has become essential to expanding HR’s role within organizations by moving it from an operational function to a strategic partner. Knowing the impact of HR policies helps HR align its strategy with business goals and quantify the value it adds. Increasing what HR has to offer benefits employees and makes a positive impact on business results. 

Engaging in HR analytics enables HR to:

• Make better decisions that impact employees and the organization using the evidence data reveals
• Uncover and remedy inefficiencies to improve employee and organizational productivity and reduce costs
• Create a business case for HR interventions
• Evaluate the effectiveness of HR interventions and people policies
• Assess and strengthen DEIB efforts
• Be proactive in navigating change, disruption, and uncertainty.

At AIHR, we see HR analytics as identifying the people-related drivers of business performance. It takes the guesswork out of employee management and is, therefore, the future of HR. Or, to put it in the words of Edwards Deming: “Without data, you’re just another person with an opinion.”

HR analytics examples

To get an idea of how HR data analysis can make a difference in your organization, here are three companies that have successfully put HR analytics into practice:

1. HR analytics in recruitment at Google

Multinational technology company Google embraced predictive analytics in its recruitment efforts to reduce costs and shorten the hiring process. 

Google had previously required candidates to endure 15 to 25 rounds of interviews and testing. However, an analysis of the hiring process revealed that successful candidates could be predicted with 86% confidence from just four interviews. This reduced the number of hours and staff required to screen applicants effectively.

In addition, Google formulated an algorithm that analyzes resumes that had been rejected for one position to source potential candidates for another opening.

HR tip

If you’d like to read more about how data can change hiring practices, we recommend Laszlo Bock’s book ‘Work Rules’. Laszlo Bock was the senior VP of People Operations at Google and describes in more detail how hiring practices changed at Google after analyzing recruitment data.

2. HR analytics in employee attrition at Under Armour 

American athletic footwear and apparel company Under Armour wanted to reduce its employee attrition rate. They used an integrated workforce analytics tool to sort through data and detect the top causes of attrition. They were also able to forecast departures at Under Armor’s different locations and predicted that within the next six months, 500 out of the 5,000 employees would resign. 

With the attrition drivers identified, Under Armour was able to make improvements to its employee retention efforts with enhanced people strategies, including incentives and rewards. With these interventions, the employee attrition rate ended up being 50% lower than the initial prediction. 

3. HR analytics in absenteeism at E.ON

German electric utility provider E.ON needed to address an elevated absenteeism rate within its 78,000-person workforce. A team of analysts worked with the available data to find the main factors contributing to the increase in unscheduled absences. 

They discovered that absences were more frequent among employees who didn’t take their allotted vacation time. With this insight, E.ON made policy changes to support and accommodate employees in planning their time off. The company encourages employees to take at least one longer period of time off per year, as well as multiple shorter breaks. 

For more real-world HR analytics examples, you can refer to the case studies we published in the past. Here are links to three of them:

• Case Study 1: Key Drivers of Retail Sales Performance
• Case Study 2: Reducing Workplace Accidents Using People Analytics
• Case Study 3: How We Determined Optimal Staffing Levels

Key HR metrics

HR metrics are essential data points for tracking human capital and measuring the value of HR initiatives. There are numerous HR metrics used in HR analytics, but here is a brief overview of a few of the more common ones:

Data analytics in HR: How to get started

HR data analysis has several phases. You must understand the process to be able to apply HR analytics effectively. 

Here is a simplified overview of the five steps:

1. Asking a relevant business question

Your goal for using HR analytics should be to enable HR to impact business outcomes. For this reason, you need to start with the end goal in mind.

Clarify which area you’re focusing on and what you need the data to tell you and then put it in the form of a question. For example, if you want to optimize succession planning, the right question could be, “Which employees have the highest potential for progression and leadership?” 

2. Data selection

The second step is to identify which information you need to answer the question and where you will find it. Your HR tech stack or other internal data sources should house most of what you need. However, certain circumstances may require incorporating external benchmarking data. 

This stage will be cumbersome without a system that can sort and organize the data. Ideally, it should also be integrated with a reporting system.

3. Data cleaning

Once you’ve collected the right data, you’ll likely have some that are duplicated or incorrectly formatted. Without identifying and correcting this you may end up with a faulty analysis. 

The data cleaning process depends on the data set, but it typically involves removing or fixing duplicate, corrupted, incorrect, or incomplete data. You should also review it for any missing data and structural errors.

4. Data analysis

Next comes summarizing and analyzing the data to reveal trends, correlations, and patterns that help you draw conclusions. This can be done using various analysis techniques or tools such as Excel, ChatGPT, R, or Python. 

The results of your analysis will show what the data tells you about your original question.

5. Actionable insights

Now it’s time to interpret what the data is telling you and turn that into courses of action. Based on the findings, you can evaluate the impact of HR processes and policies and make decisions or recommendations for improving them.

How to transition from descriptive to predictive and prescriptive analytics in HR

With data now at the heart of business operations, organizations must learn to take full advantage of what it offers. It’s time to move beyond simple descriptive analytics and harness more advanced data analysis capabilities, yet the level of analytics maturity varies by company. (There are HR analytics maturity models that can assess your organization’s status in this area.)

An Oracle report that surveyed HR executives on trends in HR analytics showed the most sophisticated type of analytics being used by their organizations was as follows: 

• Novice = 6%
• Descriptive = 17%
• Diagnostic = 26%
• Predictive = 32%
• Prescriptive = 19%

Organizations can choose to put their data to work more effectively by making data analytics a priority and embracing the use of diagnostic, predictive, and prescriptive analytics.

Following are some ideas for developing your organization’s HR analytics maturity: 

• Develop analytical capabilities: Invest in training and development programs that will enhance the data literacy and statistical knowledge of HR employees and HR analysts. Incentivize staff to pursue external education and certification in HR data analytics.
• Assess data infrastructure: Ensure that your data infrastructure is capable of handling predictive and prescriptive analytics. It should be able to integrate data sources, clean data, create reports, and establish data governance protocols.
• Invest in the right tools: If necessary, invest money and effort in the tools it will take to ensure you can collect quality data and conduct predictive modeling. Examples include data visualization and analysis tools like Visier and Tableau, advanced HRIS, and statistical analysis tools like R and Python.
• Pilot projects and iterate: Start with small-scale pilot projects for testing predictive and prescriptive models. Gather feedback on the project and then iterate based on the insights and outcomes. Then you can scale up with initiatives that impact the entire organization.
• Establish a data-driven culture: Foster a culture that values the use of data in achieving success. Equip employees with the skill set required to use data while carrying out their responsibilities. Ensure everyone has access to data through transparency, collaboration, and experimentation across departments. Leaders should champion and set an example of data-driven decision-making.

Put simply, HR data analytics holds enormous value for an organization. By applying complex statistical analyses, HR can predict and change the future of the workforce and create real financial impact of Human Resource practices.

HR analytics certification

With HR Analytics Manager being one of the fastest growing jobs, becoming adept at HR and people analytics is a great way to expand your career opportunities. According to Global Market Insights, the worldwide HR data analytics market size was valued at $3.7 billion in 2023 and is projected to grow to $11.1 billion by 2032.

Upskilling yourself with an HR analytics certification gives you the knowledge and credentials you need to develop and succeed in this evolving HR field.

AIHR’s People Analytics Certificate Program delivers the core analytics comprehension, skills, and experience it takes to leverage HR data for improved talent decisions and initiatives that render strategic value.

Highlights of what this program equips learners with include: 

• An understanding and application of key statistical concepts and analyses
• The ability to capitalize on what HR data reveals to improve business outcomes
• How to create interactive HR dashboards and reports using Microsoft PowerBI
• How to assess an organization’s analytics maturity.  

This engaging, in-depth course is 100% online and self-paced. It includes competency assessments to apply what you’ve learned and case studies that bring HR analytics to life.

As an AIHR member, you’ll also have access to a community of worldwide HR professionals and our vast HR resource library of tools, templates, and playbooks.

In closing

The contemporary HR environment is both people-focused and data-oriented. HR data holds unbiased information and insights for crafting strategies and best practices that lead to more efficient and valuable HR services. This promotes higher employee engagement and productivity for better overall business achievement.

HR professionals who embrace the role of HR analytics and can decipher its insights help their organizations thrive and set themselves up for success in the future of HR. 

FAQ

The post What is HR Analytics? All You Need to Know to Get Started appeared first on AIHR.

In this article, we take a closer look at the Human Resources Information System, share best practices for HRIS management, and provide ideas to take your HRIS analytics efforts to the next level. 

Let’s dive in! 

Contents
What is an HRIS?
HRIS vs HRMS vs HCM
HRIS functions
Benefits of an HRIS
HRIS examples
HRIS implementation in 6 steps
HRIS management best practices
How to get the most out of your HRIS data
The HRIS analyst role
HRIS certification
FAQ

What is an HRIS?

A Human Resources Information System, or HRIS, is a software solution that is used to collect, manage, store, and process an organization’s employee information. Essentially, HR teams use an HRIS to work more efficiently and make more data-driven decisions.

In most cases, an HR information system includes the basic features needed for end-to-end HR management. This system helps companies manage and automate core HR processes, such as: 

• Employee data management
• Benefits administration
• Payroll processing
• Time and attendance management
• Reporting and analytics
• Employee self-service

In the past, HRIS software used to be on-premise, meaning that it ran on the company’s own technical infrastructure. Nowadays, it’s almost always cloud-based, making it much easier to update, among other things.

HRIS vs HRMS vs HCM

The terms HRIS, HRMS, and HCM are often used interchangeably. And while there is some overlap in core HR areas that run on basic employee data, they aren’t the same thing. Rather, they build upon one another and offer increasingly sophisticated features as the company’s needs evolve.

Put simply, an HRIS offers basic data and workflow automation. An HR Management System (HRMS) offers all the functionalities of the HRIS and, on top of that:

• Recruiting & applicant tracking 
• Onboarding 
• Performance management
• Employee engagement

A Human Capital Management (HCM) system offers all the functionalities of the HRIS and the HRMS, as well as additional features. It offers a complete suite of HR applications to improve the employee experience and is focused on strategy and planning. 

As such, it usually includes: 

• Learning and development 
• Compensation management 
• Succession planning 
• Industry data and benchmarks 
• Advanced data & analytics 
• Business intelligence 

Bear in mind that the exact features and functionalities of an HRIS, HRMS, and HCM differ per provider. The ones listed in this article are just a basic example of what the different types of HR software can look like.

HRIS functions

Depending on the HRIS provider, the exact functionalities of the system will differ. For clarity and consistency, we will discuss the features listed in the section explaining what an HRIS is, which are the core HRIS functions.

Employee data management

Employee data management refers to the collecting, organizing, and storing of employee data and is arguably the number one feature of any HR information system and the reason why so many organizations use one.

It allows businesses to reduce paperwork, keep the information up to date, as well as enhance searchability and accessibility of information.

Benefits administration

Another feature of the Human Resources Information System is benefits management. Employee benefits are an essential aspect of compensation and are also managed in this system.

HRIS simplifies benefits management by automating enrollment processes and tracking employee eligibility. It serves as a centralized platform for managing various benefits plans and enables employees to easily access and modify their benefits selections.

Payroll processing

The payroll feature automates the pay process of an organization’s employees. Contractual data and information about new hires is often entered into this module of the system – sometimes combined with time and attendance data – and at the end of the month, payment orders are created. 

Time and attendance management

This module gathers time and attendance data from employees. These are especially relevant for shift workers who clock in and out. 

Back in the day – and as we’ve seen earlier, in some companies still today – employees often wrote down their working hours on a piece of paper. Their manager would then manually enter the data into a time-tracking system. Based on this data, payment orders were generated and paid to all employees. 

In today’s more digitalized work environment, workers often check into work by fingerprint or with a card synced with the company’s HRIS. This gives an exact time for people’s arrival and departure. Any issues with lateness can easily be detected.   

Reporting and analytics 

This feature enables the creation of automated HR reports on various topics like employee turnover, absence, performance, and more. Analytics involves the analysis of these insights for better-informed decision-making. 

Employee self-service

As we’ve mentioned above, companies are increasingly focusing on having employees and their direct supervisors manage their own data. 

Employees can, for example, request PTO themselves. Once approved, these requests are then immediately saved into the system (and registered to track for payroll and benefits purposes).

Benefits of an HRIS

Using an HRIS has multiple benefits for the organization, HR, and the employee.

Working with this kind of software typically becomes interesting when the company has between 30 to 50 employees. Managing the basic employee information in Excel becomes cumbersome at this point and simple procedures like approving employee time off need to be standardized.

Using an HRIS is especially beneficial for large organizations, which typically use more advanced HRIS systems to support different HR functions. Small businesses would suit a more basic HRIS.

Let’s look at some of the main benefits of working with an HRIS:

• Improved record-keeping: An HRIS is a record-keeping system that keeps track of changes to anything related to employees. As such, the HRIS can be seen as the single source of truth regarding personnel data.
• Compliance: Some employee data is collected and stored for compliance reasons. Think, for instance, of material for the identification of employees in case of theft, fraud, or other misbehaviors, first contact information in case of emergency, citizens identification information for the tax office, and expiration dates for mandatory certification. Organizations can store all this information in the HRIS. Data must be stored safely and securely, in line with GDPR regulations.
• Efficiency: Having all this information stored in one place benefits accuracy and saves time. Some companies still keep a lot of data about employees as physical paperwork. Finding the correct folder and locating the right sheet can take up a lot of staff time. In the US, for example, around 38% of employees still use paper timesheets and punch cards. In Canada, this is 58%.  
• HR strategy: The HRIS permits the tracking of data required to advance the HR and business strategy. We’ll discuss examples of how to leverage HRIS data later in this article. 
• Self-service HR: Another benefit of the HR information system is its ability to offer self-service HR to employees and managers. This enables employees to be more autonomous and manage (most of) their own affairs, like updating their information or requesting leave.
• An improved employee experience: When done right, the self-service opportunities and easy access to HR information that an HRIS offers can positively impact your digital employee experience and, with it, your overall EX.

HRIS examples

The HRIS software market is fiercely competitive. There are many vendors to choose from depending on your organization’s needs.

Gartner lists the most popular Human Capital Management suites for organizations with 1,000+ employees. These include:

• SAP SuccessFactors
• Workday
• Ceridian Dayforce
• Oracle
• UKG

Other well-known HRIS vendors for large companies are ADP, Cornerstone, and Cegid.

Examples of Human Resources Information Systems for small and medium-sized businesses include: 

• BambooHR
• Paycor
• TalentHR
• Zoho People 
• Personio

HRIS implementation in 6 steps

HRIS implementation is a complex process that involves not only a lot of research and multiple stakeholders but also requires a significant amount of change management.

We’ll have a look at a high-level, 6-step overview of the HRIS implementation process.

1. Search

Find out what your different stakeholders need from an HRIS. Based on these requirements – and after you’ve checked out our HRIS requirements checklist, you can shortlist potential providers.

You can then ask these providers for a proposal. Ideally, you’ve chosen a suitable HRIS provider at the end of this phase. 

2. Plan and align

In this phase, you select an implementation partner and create a steering committee and an implementation team. The steering committee usually consists of senior delegates from your chosen HRIS provider, the HR director from your organization, the internal project manager, and preferably a senior user from your business.

The implementation team’s primary responsibility is working on the day-to-day tasks that come out of the implementation.

3. Define and design

At this point, you need to specify your user groups and map out your processes and workflows. Define the functional and technical requirements for your HRIS infrastructure and security.

Also, note that you might need to build an integration between your HRIS and other existing systems during this phase. This is why it’s essential to have an HR Information System with integration capabilities to accommodate existing and future systems.  

4. Configure and test

In this phase, you need to create a core test team to test your new HR Information System and provide feedback for potential improvements. After this, you should also create a user acceptance test, where you can bring in a number of users to provide final feedback.

5. Train and communicate

Before the go-live, you will need to prepare training for your technical staff, a communication plan, a Frequently Asked Questions page, and other support documents. 

6. Deploy and sustain

Once all your support processes are in place, you can officially launch your HRIS. Remember to constantly collect feedback and update your training material in line with the evolving systems. Constant, accurate communication is key here.

HRIS management best practices

Once you’ve implemented your HRIS, you need to make sure that it continues serving its users effectively. Let’s take a look at some best practices for HRIS management. Think, for example, of: 

• Customization for organizational needs: Customize the HRIS to align with the specific needs and workflows of the organization, such as configuring fields, forms, and workflows to accommodate unique processes and reporting requirements. Some systems (and vendors) will allow for more customization than others. This is something to keep in mind and ask about when selecting providers. 
• Regular data maintenance: Implement regular data audits and clean-ups to ensure the accuracy and integrity of HRIS data, including employee records, payroll information, and performance evaluations.
• User training and support: Provide comprehensive training sessions and ongoing support to HRIS users to maximize utilization and ensure employees are proficient in using the system for tasks such as time tracking, benefits enrollment, and performance management.
  This, too, is something to be mindful of when selecting an HRIS provider. Ask them what support will look like once the system is fully implemented, i.e., will there be a dedicated person you can reach out to for support, or will you have to first talk to a chatbot or go through a customer service team?
• Continuous data security: Implement robust data security measures, including encryption protocols, user access controls, and regular security audits, to safeguard sensitive employee information stored within the HRIS from unauthorized access or breaches.
• Performance monitoring and optimization: Regularly monitor system performance metrics, such as response times and user satisfaction surveys, to identify areas for improvement and optimize system performance through enhancements or upgrades as needed.
• Regular system updates and maintenance: Stay current with system updates and patches provided by the HRIS vendor to ensure optimal system performance, access to new features, and compliance with evolving regulatory requirements. Regular maintenance tasks, such as database and system backups, should also be performed to prevent data loss and system downtime.

How to get the most out of your HRIS data

Beyond easier workforce administration, HR departments can (and should) leverage their HRIS data to create more proactive talent management and retention strategies. Here’s how:

• Integrate your HRIS with other relevant systems, such as performance management, learning management, and recruitment systems, to consolidate data and gain a comprehensive view of employee life cycle data.
• Use historical HRIS data to identify patterns and trends in employee turnover, engagement, and performance. Analyze factors contributing to turnover, such as tenure, job level, department, and performance ratings.
• Leverage HRIS insights to develop personalized interventions for at-risk employees, such as targeted training, career development opportunities, or adjustments to workload or job responsibilities.
• Encourage collaboration between HR and line managers in leveraging HRIS analytics for talent management and retention strategies. Provide managers access to relevant HRIS data and insights to support data-driven decision-making at the team level.

The HRIS analyst role

In terms of job functions, there is one role in particular that involves working with the organization’s HRIS a lot: the HRIS analyst.
The HRIS analyst occupies the unique position of being the IT and data expert in the HR field.

Other job roles related to HRIS are HRIS manager and HRIS specialist.

What does an HRIS analyst do?

The HRIS analyst provides support for the HRIS. This includes researching and resolving HRIS problems and liaising with other parts of the business, like finance and payroll. 

Analysts also generate standard and ad-hoc HRIS reports and improve HRIS processes. This means improving the employee experience using the system, coming up with user-friendly adjustments, and implementing new policies to be reflected in the system. 

However, in today’s work environment, knowing the basics of working with an HRIS is an essential skill for all HR employees. This is especially relevant in small and medium-sized organizations without a dedicated HRIS team.  

HRIS analyst salary

The expected HRIS analyst salary differs based on location and seniority.

For example, a junior HRIS analyst in New York (NY) will have a salary ranging between $49,000 and $84,000, with an average of $70,300, according to Payscale. An experienced HRIS analyst will earn somewhere between $64,000 and $108,000.

Ziprecruiter reports that the average annual pay for HRIS analysts in the U.S. is around $90,000.

HRIS certification

If you want to learn more about HRIS implementation and building and managing a digital HR strategy, we recommend looking into our Digital HR Certificate program, which will provide you with a solid understanding of these topics. 

Depending on the HR information system your organization uses, at least one person in the HR team (and IT department) will probably want to opt for a vendor-specific certification. 

People interested in specializing in HRIS systems may consider studying IT and HRM. It is useful for understanding the complexity and particularities of the system, while HRM helps understand the processes that the HRIS is supporting. 

Combining both enables you to make better decisions regarding system implementation and operation. 

FAQ

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