HROTodayGlobal

Recruitment helped HR identify noncore, ancillary activities that occupied their time, enabling HR to simplify and expedite the entire process. What exactly, then, is the Lean philosophy, and how can it be leveraged to improve corporate recruitment? Shop Floor to Back Office In essence, Lean manufacturing is a philosophy in which practitioners are committed to continuous improvements using critical tools to help them identify and eliminate waste and irregularities in their processes. Although it stemmed from the automotive shop floor, its fundamental tenets can be applied to the back office also, since all organisational activities involve some degree of waste or duplication. Just as this management approach is capable of turning out a better car, recruitment practitioners can expect a more efficient and responsive process when applying this to the pursuit of candidates. Ultimately, because practising organisations reduce waste and non-value-added activities, they also cut costs. It all starts with Value Stream Mapping (VSM), a process in which managers examine all activities that take place to produce a product or service. As part of the Lean philosophy, tasks that do not create value for the customer are considered wasteful, so in drawing up a VSM, practitioners identify "waste" to be targeted for elimination. In recruitment, for example, an organisation may duplicate efforts when a candidate slate is presented to the hiring manager. Some companies employ multiple applicant tracking systems that might require the same information to be input several times to meet customer needs, compliance requirements, for data retention, etc. This duplication clearly generates waste that adds no value to the hiring manager or the candidate. By drawing up a comprehensive VSM, Lean practitioners address all the unneeded efforts in the recruitment process. This allows team members to produce a future- state VSM free of the identified waste. Visually, it provides an organisation a map to follow. If a VSM is the roadmap for the journey, then the "Five S's" might be considered gas for the road. These are five essential principles for operating a Lean environment and to help ensure process consistency. They are: • Sort: separation of necessary items from unnecessary items (identifying waste); • Set In Order: arrange items according to how they will be used (an enabler of efficiency); • Shine: maintain work area for sorted and set-in-order items (maintaining workplace hygiene); • Standardize: ensure sort, set-in-order, and shine steps are consistently followed (reducing process variations); and • Sustain: maintain and improve sort, set-in-order, shine, and standardize steps (ensuring Lean efforts are ongoing). These five principles set the foundation on which Lean organisations execute their operational plans. Each step helps to ensure that workflow is not compromised by unanticipated problems. And when issues do arise, all team members pitch in to resolve them. When the "Five S" concept was first developed, it was aimed at improving production flow on the manufacturing floor. However, these ideas can be applied with equal success to recruitment, where unnecessary activities slow hiring and hinder delivery of services to customers. Each of these tools facilitates waste elimination and minimises process variation. Recruitment Specifics Let's think about the "Five S's" in recruitment. How do we take it from the manufacturing floor to the office? Well, the floor is your desk, where you do your work. It is a sustainable solution. The principles have been around forever, and it's a matter of how you apply them and how you challenge yourself to continue applying these principles. As the "Five S's" are implemented, organisations typically assemble "kaizen" teams—stakeholders who help sustain and administer continuous improvements. Kaizen, which simply means "improvement" in Japanese, "is the practice of making changes, monitoring results, and making adjustments as needed." Without this important component, Lean would be unsustainable. Because of the collaborative environment it creates, Lean encourages transparency for every team member's role, so that others can weigh in with suggestions on how to resolve a particular colleague's difficult issues. Furthermore, individuals are highly accountable for their work, but the culture is less about blame than about problem solving. As well, it allows for best practices to be visible and, thus, shared. Consider Lean, and learn more through a quality control organisation, a Lean consultant, or your outsourcing provider. Many companies have realised Lean can be a valuable and cost-effective tool within their HR organisations. Another option is to engage in a recruitment process outsourcing service provider with a strong Lean background capable of passing on their knowledge. This enables the hiring organization to observe Lean in practice without having to disrupt ongoing recruitment work. Using its Lean-embedded processes, such a provider can help clients to ease into the transition and eventually work in lock-step under the same Lean culture, sharing all lessons learned and a vision for a future state. When considering such a relationship, remember to ask the following about the vendor: • How long has the provider practiced Lean in its own culture? [36] HRO TODAY GLOBAL | SUMMER 2011

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