T1 Recruitment failure costs

The basis and bulk of this will be done in our first session:

We will need three teams of broadly equal size to look at costs of losing an employee (mid-line manager)and replacing him or her, from the point at which an employee decides to leave (even if he has not communicated it) until the new recruit is in place.

Remember these costs and negative impacts can fall into different categories:

Financial and immediately quantifiable (eg. the cost of an advert in a regional newspaper)

Financial but not immediately visible or quantifiable, yet non the less real (eg. lower motivation).

Assume:

1 x hour of a manager’s time = 100Euros

1 x hour of admin/secretarial time = 50Euros

For other costs – ask me and we will produce best-guesstimates!

The elements to be considered:

ALL.  Costs and negative impacts running from the point at which the employee manager becomes disillusioned and decides he is going to leave to the point at which he hands in his notice, works it and finally leaves and the action needed to replace him/her.   Tip.  You will find a limited amount of visible, financial costs but a lot of negative impacts which are not immediately quantifiable (but which will become visible and consequential later on). Severance

Team 1.  Costs and negative impacts running from the point at which the individual decides to leave (even if he has not yet notified HRM)to the point at which a shortlist of say 10 excellent candidates has been identified in priority order and will be made available to the interviewers. Tip: try to think of things that should be done to actually produce the best – not necessarily the largest- pool of candidates for interview.  Recruitment

Team 2. Costs and negative impacts running from the point at which the shortlist is available to the moment the ideal candidate is selected and offered the post . Tip: try to think of things that should be done to actually ensure the best fit between candidate and post: is the classic cv+interview enough? Selection

Team 3. Costs of retaining a good member of staff, running from the moment the individual is offered the post, through his notice period with the existing employer, arrival at the new company, induction etc etc right through to say, the end of a successful first year where an appraisal session reveals he is enjoying working for the company every bit as much as he had hoped. Tip. Salary is a Hygiene factor according to Hertzberg: it needs to be good and fair, but ceases to be a motivator post appointment.  You may need to look to other ideas to keep your employee motivated.   Retention

Output and Marking

Each team will present its findings in class.   I will be marking this in terms of criteria such as:

• ability to take-on and envision the task
• team autonomy and professionalism
• clarity of classification of costs
• creativity and feasibility & viability of ideas advanced
• presentation meeting expectations

The vast majority of all other marked work in this unit ( other elements may include: cv, covering letter, interview, interviewer, rapporteur’ are 100% individual, so this T1 exercise is to be marked according to team performance.

After the above, together we will attempt (and succeed!) to brainstorm a robust framework for excellence corporate:

• recruitment
• selection
• retention

We will then begin to reflect upon what this may mean for all of us (me included) in terms of job search, application, selection procedures and career development.

In terms of timing, the presentation should take place in our first class and the brainstorm described above in our subsequent class.

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