Imagine working in tourism, and you start posting ads for seasonal jobs a month before the beginning of the season? We all know it will be a disaster. Because we all know that finding and hiring good seasonal workers takes time and money, and if planned poorly, you can experience significant losses.
But why should any other industry be any different? When you look at it that way, you'll soon realize it shouldn't.
Hiring is much more than posting your job online and finding your future colleagues. It requires good planning and a strategic approach all the way to the C-level to have good results. However, if you manage to create a strategy that will make good guidelines for the entire HR and talent acquisition teams, not only will it allow you a more structured approach to hiring and knowing your goals, but it will also introduce significant savings.
At first glance, a hiring plan is no more than a spreadsheet with budgeting and an expected headcount for the following year. But to get to these numbers, the leadership needs to make some significant strategic changes.
Therefore, you need to create a strategic hiring plan if you don't want to make your hiring process wishful thinking.
But each strategy needs solid ground and suitable steps to kickstart your efforts.
Here are some core steps you should take to create a strategic hiring plan:
Gather relevant data about your current hiring process
Determine goals for your annual hiring plan
Determine timeline: When should we fill these positions
Having insights into relevant data and knowing how to turn that data into actions is the key to success. When creating a hiring plan and determining your hiring strategy, the rules are the same - you need data to plan your hiring.
The first step in making a good hiring plan requires a good understanding of the current time to hire, the resources that are currently spent, and the average headcount. Once you have the numbers for two essential steps in the hiring process - cost per hire and time to hire, you can move forward to making a plan for future improvements.
After carefully analyzing the current state of your hiring process, it is time to move a step forward in your hiring plan. What are your hiring goals? Is your company spending too much money hiring and has a high turnover rate? Is your time to hire too long and make the process inefficient?
Only once you have your goals can you move forward to achieving them. For example, suppose your time-to-hire is too long, and you spend too many resources. In that case, you can consider setting better hiring procedures, plan more in advance or allocate hiring resources more wisely.
For example, suppose you know that you're expecting to hire two new people in the marketing department in the next six months. Based on your current hiring data, you know that it will take two months of sourcing and promoting your jobs to attract enough relevant candidates. In that case, your hiring plan should take these elements into account and push you to get all the approvals and budgets to make those two hires.
Similarly to making hiring goals, your hiring plan needs a timeline. There is no good planning without a proper timeline. For many recruiters and managers, hiring works in cycles with months when it almost feels like there is no spare minute and months with too much free time on their hands. But with a coherent annual plan, good goal setting, and a realistic timeline for all future hiring, you can spread your budget and time to ensure your hiring process is highly efficient.
Once you have your hiring plan in place, you can formalize it with job requisitions. A job requisition represents a formal document that department managers use to request the hiring of new employees.
Job requisition is important because it states the department managers’ need for new employees. It serves as a request for the new hire and provides an explanation of this need and determines the budget needed to make a new hire.
Oftentimes, the problem with job requisitions is waiting for approvals, especially when there are many stakeholders involved in the process. Luckily, we solved that problem for you. Check out this article to get a complete understanding of job requisitions and how you can use them to streamline the hiring process!
Use job requisitions the right way: Approvals Made Easy: Solving the Problem of Job Requisitions for Recruiters
Setting in place a hiring plan with predetermined actions will improve the success of your hiring process in several elements:
Align all departments
Identify your hiring needs
Plan & track your budget
Plan recruiter's workflow
Save time & money
Strategic hiring requires involvement from management, and the responsibility of executing it goes all the way to a specific recruiter. Therefore, having all levels of the organization aligned on the goals and objectives will lead to more structured and goal-oriented hiring. Once the management sets goals for the upcoming year with predefined resources, talent acquisition can move forward to plan hiring for each department and prioritize their hiring needs based on a reasonable timeline.
When the management and the rest of the organization aren't aligned on the goals and hiring needs, confusion quickly occurs, and dissatisfaction creeps in. Therefore, avoiding practicing ad hoc hiring and having plans change every few months by having everyone aligned on priorities and goals will improve the success of your hiring department and the entire organization.
A critical benefit of a well-planned and executed hiring plan is identifying future hiring needs. Once you have all elements gathered in one place, including turnover rate, cost per hire, the average time to hire, headcount, and organizational goals for the upcoming year, you will confidently identify your future hiring needs.
A plan that was originally set in place may change once you have all those numbers in front of you. For instance, your organization might initially allocate a budget to increase the headcount by 20% of the development department. Still, once all expenses are calculated, you realize that the budget leaves space for hiring additional people to the team (or to another team in need of personnel). Therefore, a hiring plan helps you allocate your resources wisely and maximize your time and budget.
Planning and tracking your budget is one of the core benefits of an annual hiring plan. Having a clearly defined budget and a timeline for spending this budget makes this plan successful. Only once your departments are aligned, budgets for different roles are defined and approved, and everyone is spending hiring budgets accordingly can your HR and TA departments do their job uninterruptedly.
Does your company experience high-volume hiring each year? Or are you looking to hire seasonal workers during the summer or the Christmas period?
All this affects recruiters' workloads if these hiring surges aren't planned accordingly. There is no sense in having your recruiters working overtime a month before seasonal hiring and having too much free time on their hands the rest of the year. Additionally, having structure and a plan for periods of high-volume hiring due to graduates hiring drive will decrease and optimize recruiters' workload.
Ultimately, such a plan leaves no space for different interpretations and doesn't leave recruiters in the dark. That leads to better performance and improves the recruiters' and hiring managers' well-being since everyone knows what and when to focus on which task.
Ultimately, the more organized your processes are, the more money your company saves and the less time everyone needs to spend on implementing the hiring plan. In addition, the management level can make sure to have a unique strategy that all levels of the organization are aware of, which saves their time otherwise spent on reassessing and reevaluating different situations.
Similarly, thanks to a coherent hiring plan, the hiring managers from all teams and recruiters can be sure to know the company-wide goals and their personal goals to make sure to reach them in a year. Finally, as you establish a hiring plan that works, you will be able to increase the hiring quality and boost recruiters' productivity while saving their time and money for the company!
What are the key elements of an effective hiring plan?
An effective hiring plan includes a clear identification of staffing needs, a timeline for recruitment, strategies for sourcing candidates, a structured interview and selection process, and a plan for onboarding and integrating new employees into the organization.
How can a hiring plan align with an organization's strategic goals?
A hiring plan aligns with strategic goals by ensuring that the recruitment of new employees supports the company's overall objectives, addresses future skill requirements, and contributes to growth and competitive advantage.
What role does diversity play in a hiring plan?
Diversity plays a crucial role in enriching the workplace, fostering innovation, and reflecting the organization's commitment to inclusivity and equality. A hiring plan should incorporate strategies to attract and retain a diverse workforce.
How can organizations ensure their hiring plan is adaptable to changing needs?
Organizations can ensure adaptability by regularly reviewing and updating their hiring plan based on current market trends, internal organizational changes, and feedback from stakeholders, allowing for flexibility and responsiveness.
What are some common pitfalls in creating a hiring plan, and how can they be avoided?
Common pitfalls include inadequate understanding of current and future staffing needs, lack of alignment with organizational goals, insufficient focus on diversity, and failing to evaluate and adjust the plan. These can be avoided through careful planning, ongoing review, and stakeholder engagement.
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