Headed For Excellence: 4 Ways Talent Operations Can Transform Your Hiring

Role of talent operations in creating excellence in hiring

Operational excellence sounds like something we should all be striving toward – it’s aspirational and connotes a winning business process. But what does it mean in a recruiting context?

We can start by consulting our colleagues across the company – product and engineering teams have agile, an approach to work that ensures they tackle problems in small increments and get feedback on what's working right away. Sales organizations have revenue operations teams that do revenue forecasts, analyze sales data and identify areas for improvement and training.

It’s not nearly as common to see this type of expertise and rigor in action in the hiring process. Many companies don’t have tools or systems in place to measure their ability to hire, let alone mechanisms and teams responsible for improving future performance. Too often, this issue is left unresolved because all the recruiters are too busy hiring people, and they do not have the time to focus on logistics, systems and data.

That’s where talent operations comes in. Talent ops is a critical part of your talent organization. You need to help your recruiters think smartly about processes, tools and data so they can be as effective and efficient as possible. As companies grow and improve in hiring, they move up the hiring maturity curve. Those at the top of the curve are strategic -- they make recruiting a competitive advantage, and they invest in dedicated talent operations teams who make excellence in hiring possible.

So what are the guiding principles of talent operations that companies can use to create excellence in hiring? They are:
 

Let’s consider each one in a bit more detail.

Data can help you measure and improve all elements of the hiring experience. The most savvy business leaders know you can also use data to find and fix the right problem. Beth Steinberg, a talent acquisition leader who has led teams at Nordstrom, Nike and Facebook (to name just a few), says, “I recently had a situation where I could show that we had plenty of people at the top of the funnel, but conversions were the problem. We were not converting people after the first interview to the second interview; therefore, we were not achieving what we needed to achieve. It’s crucial to have the data so you can break it down and find the actual root problem.”

So what type of data should you collect? That’s a whole other discussion, but I’d recommend choosing a few key metrics like qualified candidates per opening (to get an internal benchmark for how soon you’re likely to fill a role), candidate survey results (to measure your brand reputation), source to close (to see how quickly or slowly candidates move through your hiring process) and quality vs. quantity by source (so you can make informed decisions about where to spend your hiring dollars).

Don’t leave important, frequent processes like interviewing, offer letters and rejection letters to chance. They should be scripted and scrutinized so you know how every step of the experience works. You want to feel confident that candidates across teams, departments and even office locations will have a consistent experience that respects their time and effort.

Steinberg recommends asking yourself, “Do you have repeatable systems and processes in place? Are you balancing short-term with long-term? Are you proud of the process? If you went through the process, would you think, Wow, I want to join this company!” Ask yourself these questions as a leader in the business and the key driver of hiring operational excellence.

With all the data that you’ve started collecting, your recruiting team can now begin producing regular reports for people throughout your company, serving up timely and helpful insights that give you the flexibility to make adjustments in real time to improve all aspects of hiring. Regular reporting on performance is key to effective talent operations. Leaders should know who you hired each month and which source they came from. Hiring managers should get a quick sense of open roles and where they currently have candidates in the process, and where they may need to pick up speed.

Another person synonymous with impressive people practices is Pattie Money, former Chief People Officer at Twilio and SendGrid. When it comes to the importance of hiring performance reporting, Money says, “Pipeline is everything. It’s just like any other sales cycle: If your funnel isn’t good then you won’t get down to the end of the funnel where you’re going to close that candidate within the timeframe that you need to. I’m constantly assessing the funnel and the pipeline.”

There are a few common symptoms that indicate a company still has work to do to become operationally strong. First: Their systems and tools don’t mesh. Everyone does their own thing. Data is duplicated. Reporting is a nightmare. Second: People don’t live in the central tools. This may be because people have their own favorites or because they’ve never been trained on central tools. Third: There’s too much red tape. Processes are inefficient and frustrating, which is problematic for candidates and employees.

On the flipside, skillful teams ensure that everyone is trained to use the same set of tools. They input and report on data consistently. As a result, the central tools become a “source of truth,” so everyone knows to frequently update and rely on them. And you can avoid the data messiness (and rampant compliance issues) when different folks are housing information all over the place.

Operational excellence is a strategic competency in hiring maturity, and can only come to fruition when you focus on creating a sustainable first-class hiring process. This requires focus from leaders and a commitment to measuring, auditing and designing intentionally. It may sound hard – and it is. Don’t expect an immediate transformation. But a continuous improvement mindset will help your organization take those first critical steps and win big when it comes to your most important asset – your people.