UNDERSTANDING HRM

TALENT ACQUISITION
Prof. Vasanthi Srinivasan
Room : C 001 Ground floor

Why is HRM relevant for you?

Shared responsibility between HR

department and line managers
HR department is responsible for
conceiving policies, procedures and
setting the organizational processes;
you are responsible for selection,
performance, development and
discipline of employees

What are the contextual elements that

impact HRM?
Changing role of work organizations -- fragmentation,
flexibility , outsourcing, alternate employment models .
Reality of Semi globalization (Ghemawat, 2007)
Cross border similarities and differences exist
Characterized by cultural, administrative, geographic
and economic distances
Intelligent managers recognize these distances and
engage both strategically and tactically with them.

Contextual Aspects
Supply chain networks and distribution networks HRM as
outside in rather than inside out.
PEST Political (visas, concessions to locate offices/sites in
the US) , Economic (downturn, boom, rapid growth ), Social
(demographics and the reality of aging) and Technology
(external Facebook and how to cope with this /internal
effectively using ERP to manage employees)

What are the factors at the

organizational level that impact HRM?

Objective/Mission
Strategy
Size
Age
Technology
Life cycle

HRM AND STRATEGY

IMPLEMENTATION ARE TWO SIDES OF
THE SAME COIN

ROLE RELATED BEHAVIOURS FOR DIFFERENT STRATEGIES

INNOVATIVE

QUALITY

COST LEADERSHIP

High degree of
creative behaviour
with knowledge
sharing

Relatively repeatable
and predictable
behaviours with
support

High learning curve

and consistent
behaviours

Longer term focus

Intermediate term
focus

Short term focus

Co-operative, inter
dependent and
helping orientation

Moderate to weak
interdependencies
with alignment and
co-ordination

Relatively individual
centered activities
with co-ordination

Concern for quality,

process and
outcomes

Concerns over Quality

and
quantity of output

Quantity of output
with minimum quality

Risk taking --high

Low risk

Low risk

Tolerance for
ambiguity

Adherence to goals of
the organization

Comfort with stability

TALENT ACQUISITION

Talent acquisition consists of

Human Resource planning

Recruitment or Sourcing
Selection
Induction, orientation and
socialization

HRP process will result in

Identifying the number of employees

needed
Nature of skills needed for present
and future
Skill gaps
Developmental plans and hiring
plans
Position changes (enrichment,
enlargement, redundancy, split )
Blue print for competence

Position analysis
Job description
Defines what are
the tasks, activities
and responsibilities
associated with a
job
A job is a series of
tasks and activities
with a definite
outcome in mind

Job specification
Qualities and
attributes needed in
a person
performing the job
Outlines the
relevant, education,
experience, skills
and capabilities,
attitudes and
behaviours that
drive performance
in a job

Any recruitment process begins with

Position description and a

specification
Recruitment is the process of
attracting applicants to a position in
the organization
Tapping in to the labour market to
get all the right candidates to apply
Recruitment processes are like
marketing..
Branding, promotion are all

Recruitment strategy

Where do we want to attract the

talent from?
Internal vs. external
Campus vs. lateral
Local versus regional
Diversity

Your role in recruitment

Building a solid referral process

Enabling HR to provide analytics on
campus vs. referrals vs. recruitment
firm data
HR analytics on stay behaviours
which group stays longer, more
productive and is a part of the
leadership pipeline
Media planning and reach strategy
for the positions

Selection --- a culture building

process in organizations

Selection

The moment you pick the first

application to reject, you have begun
the selection process.
Are you clear on the job description?
Are you clear on the Job
specification?

Attributes

Technical skills

team work

learning orientation
analytical/logical

willingness to

stretch
support others

Initiative

tolerance

Integrity
Mentorship
Communication
Adaptability
Positive attitude
Willingness to be
led
Commitment
Receptive to
feedback

Selection methods
Application blanks
Tests
(aptitude/personali
ty)
group task
interview
(structured/unstruc
tured/behavioural/s
ituational event)

Group discussion
case analysis
presentation
simulations
in basket exercises
group interview
essays/narratives

Interview as a selection method

Least reliable -- tests, weighted

application blanks for predictive
purpose
comforting to the assessor and
hence in 99% of the organizations
(across the world) usage
past behaviour a good predictor of
future behaviours
sample of representative
behaviours

Continued.

All errors of sampling possible

extent of homework done determines
the success of interview.
Identify the attributes and look at
past demonstration of that attribute
funneling process for question

Three stages to the interview

Clarity on job/role description

Clarity on attributes required
Prepare from the CV:
Education : consistent performance scholastic
achievement, knowledge on content, ability to
understand and apply concepts, knowledge of
related areas, willingness to extend thinking,
independent analysis
School: Nature of socialization, extent of
involvement in other activities, role models and
significant accomplishments, interests, likes
and dislikes

What will you probe

Travel/stay in multiple cities: cosmopolitanism,
adaptability, coping with change, self
awareness on likes and dislikes, change and its
impact on performance
Internship/summer projects : breadth of
understanding of the context and content
Work experience: interpersonal attributes like
communication, conflict, understanding and
assessment of situation and issues, mistakes
made, failures, attribution errors, self identity,
organizational understanding, ability to
contextualize the problem
Remote location experience: cultural sensitivity,

Sample situational interview

A customer comes in to the store to pick up a
watch he had left for repair. The repair was
supposed to have been completed a week ago,
but the watch is not back yet from the repair
shop. The customer is very angry. How would you
handle the situation?

Situational event interview

As project managers, all of us have experienced a
time when we had customer deadlines which we
knew we could not meet;we had resource crunch
and the critical person or equipment was not
available. Have you experienced such a situation?
If yes, what was it and when.

Behavioural event interview

Tell me one incident which if you look back you
would like to do it differently
all of us have handled conflicts in our work
places. How did you manage any one such
situation?
You say your strength is your perseverance. Can
you give me examples when you have
demonstrated this

Socialization

Is not induction or orientation

Begins from when an offer is made to when a candidate
joins
Not much is known about the process in between
Three kinds of socialization critical to networks:
Task, group and organizational socialization
Critical element of culture building process
Laterals: socializing even more critical
Buddies and mentors even more critical for laterals in
entrenched cultures
Value transfers happen through socialization not in
training