Human Resource

Hiring consultant or employees in any organization is the most difficult task, if over looked then it can be detrimental to the company’s future. After working in many companies I have noticed certain policies are totally missing or severely misused, some time I feel most of the companies

should look into next generation HR policy or else they will face zero growth and no innovation.

Companies which is looking for innovation, growth and interests of its employees and consultant should look some or all of the below points as applicable.

               Referral Program :

o   Referral programs are great when you want to hire good candidates into the company. But the same referral program are being used to bring in friends, relatives, family member and other mediocre people into the company. Once these people are hired they either waste the Company resources or time. By the time any good manager takes action against mediocre people significant budget is lost. And many times non techno manager do not get the different skill set and capabilities, they keep trying to get the output from the available resources. So my suggestion to this is to abolish referral program for mediocre jobs. And also try to avoid referral programs as much as you can until and unless you are going for very critical resources/skill sets.      

           Interviews and Hiring :

o   Make sure there are minimum of 3 member team in the interview panel with equal authority/designation. And have an evaluation sheet to evaluate candidates and document the results in a database accessible to Project Managers and upper management.

o   Give quarterly points to the panel members If they select good candidates and cut points if they have choose not so good people.

o   Next publish basic information about the newly joined employee such as previous companies, skill set, company their coming through, rehired etc.

o   Record all interview proceedings (at least of voice recorded) and then do yearly audits on recorded interviews and penalize people who gave provide undue advantage and remove them from interview panel

                Vendor Management :

o   Have minimum of 3 Vendors who could provide resources and skill sets and for every opening, Each of the vendors should provide at least one candidate. This way you are getting options and variety of people to choose from and in turn you create a competition between vendors.

o   Have same set of rules for every vendor, do not provide undue advantage of one particular vendor over the other when getting or retaining the candidates.

o   Allow candidates to jump vendors as long as candidates work for you. This way  you will be retaining lots of good candidates. But make sure you control this too like minimum number of jumps allowed per candidate.

o   Have a Vendor management system and a specific  module to store all kinds of resume, candidate information and their skill sets and other details. Plus have a proper inventory of rejected candidates. You do not want same candidate applying again and again in spite of rejections.


Conflict of interest :

o   Have a policy on conflict of interest. One such policy  can be not to have any spouses/children work in the same organization. No matter what the skill sets are it would look like unfair to many of the people. If it happens at the top of the food chain then it looks even worse.

o   Many people run companies and also work as consultants. Make sure you do not have them in the interview panel or influence the panel by any means. Have a zero tolerance policy of any misuse.

              Consultant Management :

o   Some consultant would like to be consultants forever. Sometimes organization will benefit more if they hire the consultants into the organization, it will be good idea if you can have a mechanism of hiring the candidates who are important to organization.

o   Make sure you have onsite consultant manager or mangers who can monitor the consultants. Many issues could be resolved by having a consultant manager or managers.

                  Products and Procurement :

o   Many time consultants push for some products which would provide financial gain to the individual rather than to the company. Make sure you go through proper assessment and analysis before purchasing any products.

o   Have a proper distributor to buy products, Do not go through individuals.

There could be many steps which HR, Project Manager, Management could think

of and improve the process. They way any organization would improve and thus

all the stake holders will be benefited.