Talent Acquisition Group At HCL Technologies Improving The Quality Of Hire Through Focused Metrics Case Solution

1. On the basis of the case provided, explain how the post-offer follow-up (POFU) gamification in regard of recruitment professionals help TAG improve its fulfillment, and discuss the consultancy process supported by examples. 

The Post Offer Follow Up (POFU) game was designed by the Recruitment and Talent Acquisition team at the company to increase the engagement levels with the job offered candidates through a gaming process. This was done because there was a long period between the release of the offer and the time when a candidate joined the company. Since this was an interactive activity, candidates were expected to get familiarized with the culture, philosophy and practices of HCL while getting exposure to the brand equity of the company. This approach being used by the company is done to handle the renege ratio which is experienced by organizations as many prospective employees do not show a willingness to join the company even after receiving the offer one recruitment process has been completed. 

To understand how the POFU game helped the company obtain improvement in the recruitment process, the study of Exhibits provided in the case is required. Exhibit 11 has first highlighted the various stages of the game which are performed by the prospective employee. This shows that the game was designed to not only introduce the company with the prospective employee but also to help them understand what the career and development path will be like once they join the company. Other researchers have also showed that prospective employees tend to get attracted towards organizations where the career path and learning environment is well planned for them (Omotayo, Oyewunmi, & Ojo, 2014). Also, the game also included elements where the prospective employees could not only understand the philosophy and culture but also get a glimpse of how the company helps maintain a work life balance by introducing initiatives like CSR, concierge service etc. The quality of work life also has important implications for the employees because they want to work in such organizations where the employer realizes why maintaining the balance is important. Also, employees are also looking to work in companies where the CSR initiatives are planned to give back to society (D’Amato, Henderson, & Florence, 2009).    

Exhibit 12 and 13 discuss how the game has helped the company achieve recruitment goals particularly those related to renege ratio. One thing that has been well established is that those individuals who did not engage with the organization by choosing not to play the game were most likely not to join the company. The exhibit 13 shows that out of all those individuals who chose not to play the game, only 39% joined the company while the remaining 61% chose not to join. This clearly shows that some individuals clearly were not interested to join the organization which is why they never engaged with the game. In comparison, the same exhibit also proves that those individuals who did play the game favored joining the company as 77% of those who played the game joined the company while only 23% did not join even after playing the game. Exhibit 12 also discusses how the renege ratio has dropped from 30% to 24% after introduction of this game. The probability of those people who would drop out after playing the game also dropped to 1.26% whereas the same probability was 10.62% for those candidates who did not play the game.        

As far as the consultancy process is concerned, both researchers, as well as authors of various books, have expressed that obtaining service provider is more difficult in comparison to the supplier of goods because of the intangibility factor. The process also increases in difficulty because organizations are not successful in understanding what sort of services are suitable to be obtained from consultants and what price is justified. There are also concerns regarding the fact that organizations must see the value addition by hiring consultants because if the consultants are doing the same job which can be performed by employees within the organization then hiring someone from external sources is not the right approach (Macdonald, 2006). Within the company, the role of consultants as far as the recruitment process is concerned was reduced to a large extent. The case explains that the management wanted to focus on low cost channel sources such as job portals, social media, etc. while restricting the amount to be spent on costly channels such as recruitment consultants. This can be both a positive as well as a negative approach. Looking at this from a critical perspective, it becomes visible that in today’s day and age many successful businesses in the world have created strong synergies with human resource consultants. This helps organizations not only outsource a major part of recruitment process but it also allows them to focus instead on main business functions instead of having a vast employee pool for handling recruitment concerns (Evans, Glover, Guerrier, & Wilson, 2007).

However, one thing that the case does report is that organization did not completely cut off its linkages with the recruitment consultants. For instance, with the Hunter Premier League game which was designed for existing employees as well as other entities part of the shared services within the company also incorporated recruitment consultants. The purpose of this game was to not only improve recruitment capability within the Talent Acquisition Group of HCL but also to help in building the technical expertise of recruiters as far as using social media tools was concerned. As showed in the case, the purpose of this activity was also to change the approach of existing recruitment consultants. The company wanted them to become active partners instead of just being providers of resumes for potential employees. This could be done by asking the recruitment consultants to use social media tools and have informal interactions with potential candidates. This would then help procure talented individuals which have special skills who might otherwise not be easily brought on-board by traditional recruitment practices.

The element of sourcing needs must also be discussed. After the improvements that the company and Talent Acquisition Group had built within the company, the use of technology has helped the management create a strong sourcing capability. The iTAP has helped them develop an online channel where all the potential employees can connect and post applications with ease. This has resulted in improved quality of the hired candidates because it has become more feasible to screen candidates with the use of this system. The online platform has also improved the experience of the candidate where they can connect when needed and also be introduced to employer branding which was not available when the system was not used. The new system has also helped the company develop metrics for analysis purpose. The case provides some of the details on these metrics in Exhibits 7,8 and 9 which should be discussed to understand how the sourcing needs have been met. One of the metrics provided shows how the new system has helped the company in improving the sourcing, screening, and selection of potential candidates. Before the system of PEP was implemented, the maturity level of all these tasks was low to medium but with its implementation, the maturity has risen to high levels.

As far as the issue of diversity in candidates is concerned, the case provides information on how gender mix has been kept in mind. This has been defined as the number of women hired as proportionate to the total number of joining in the month. Exhibit 10 depicts whether the company was able to maintain the gender mix ratio or improve it by keeping the target in mind. The exhibit shows that both at Onsite as well as at Offsite target of gender mix has been kept as important criteria in maintaining the workplace diversity. The exhibit also shows that the organization does realize the importance of having a gender mix balance. This is evident from the fact that in offshore gender mix was recorded at 23% in FY 2013 and in onsite it was recorded at 18%. However, the company has increased target rates for the next fiscal year 2014 in both cases and is now aiming to achieve 24% gender mix in offshore and 20% gender mix in onsite. This is a positive step by the management because it shows that they realize how important it is to maintain workplace diversity. Other researchers have also studied this aspect and have highlighted that organization must maintain workplace diversity in order to create a culture which has opportunities for everyone in the society (WGEA, 2013). There are other diversity areas where the case does not emphasize which shows room for improvement in the company. For instance, researchers have also showed that workplace diversity should be maintained by not only allowing more women to work but by offering employment opportunities to other discriminated sections of the population. These can include people who have special needs, natural impairments or other such conditions which are part of their body but they can still perform operational tasks in an effective manner (Munjuri, 2012). In future, HCL and the Talent Acquisition Group should look into providing opportunities for such people also to improve diversity in its workforce. 

HR planning is important because all the HR activities are linked with planning process. The needs for HR planning begin right from the time when a new business cycle begins. Planning has to take into account both internal as well as external aspects. HR Planning includes the important aspect of Job analysis. Job Analysis and Job Evaluation procedures help in identifying what is the worth of a job in an organization. This helps because having proper analysis done will allow the company to understand needs of the role, the type of person suitable for the role and training and development needs. Job Analysis includes two separate roles Job Description and Job Specification. Job Description is also referred to as Job profile because it identifies the roles, duties and responsibilities that will be performed. Job Specification is also called the candidate profile because it discusses the education, work experience, skills and competencies of the required candidate (Torrington, Hall, & Taylor, 2011). HR planning can be done using different approaches but two broad categories are proactive and reactive planning process. In the Reactive planning approach, first the requirement or a vacancy becomes available in the organization and then planning process begins whereas in the proactive approach the need is anticipated before it actually comes up (Torrington, Hall, & Taylor, 2011). In HCL, proactive approach is being used as evident from the Exhibit 5 which shows that company has a workforce planning cell to identify planning needs.

Stakeholders are all those entities that share an interest in a cause, an organization or a business. Stakeholders can be internal such as employees, managers, board of directors, shareholders etc. or they can be external like creditors, customers, third party vendors etc. Since everyone of them has their interest to look after, conflicts can arise leading to dilemmas in decision making. For instance, in HCL the external stakeholders were facing issues when the recruitment and HR processes lacked integration and it resulted in confusion for agencies, applicants among others. For this purpose, organizations need to exert extra attention and indulge in initiatives like CSR and workplace diversity management  (Boxall, Purcell, & Wright, 2007).