The Recruitment Function

‘HR needs to play a Strategic Role’ or ‘HR should be
a business Driver’ in any company has been a case
of more ‘talk the talk’ than ‘walk the talk’.

All these shortcomings of HR(perceived or otherwise)
need to be delinked from the Recruitment function and
this can be achieved by forming a separate department
for Recruitment which, I am sure, will find immediate
recognition and acceptance from the line managers –
as their own success depends upon finding the right
candidate for the job within their department..

As Human Capital actually becomes the core of every
organisation - and the main differentiator between
competitors which has the potential of creating and
sustaining competitive advantage- the importance of the
Recruitment Function rises manifold. Now the
Recruitment function needs to become part of the various
business processes that the company relies upon to
successfully and consistently deliver quality output,
competitively. Consequently, it has to start taking
responsibility, like any other line function, and stop
playing a supporting role.

Having said that, can we outsource such a Strategic
or ‘Core’ Function ? Outsourcing has increasingly become
Strategic and more and more companies are Outsourcing
different processes today than ever before, however, what
is being outsourced are non-core functions only and nothing
that forms the core activity of the Company.

The benefits of outsourcing I don’t think need to be
repeated here and it need only be said that some part
of the Recruitment process can definitely be outsourced
effectively and advantageously.

I believe that the way forward is in segregating the
sub-functions of ‘Search’ and ‘Selection’ within the Recruitment
process and further segmenting the hiring basket and adopting
a different approach, as well as hiring sources, for backend
or support staff and a different approach and sources for top/
critical/ strategic positions.