A year on our new approach to sourcing talent has proven to be a great success.
The background
Just over a year ago we had to quickly find two additional colleagues. Just as one of our experienced Campaign Managers was preparing to go on maternity leave, another Campaign Manager resigned.
The results-driven Head of Marketing came up with a plan to start immediate recruitment for a temporary maternity replacement and permanent manager. The strategic, long term, budget-focussed CEO suggested we consider a different approach.
The recruitment challenge
The challenge was, we couldn’t recruit two Campaign Managers full time as under UK Labour Law you have to hold the post open for someone who is on maternity leave. However, two people were needed, and we had concerns around the investment to recruit and train maternity cover - A person who may well only be with us for a year.
A different hiring approach
The marketing team came up with what has proven to be a brilliant idea. Together with our Head of HR they reworked the existing Campaign Manager job roles and focused on the skills the business needed. The remaining two Campaign Managers took responsibility for strategic engagement with more clients and we created two new roles for Marketing Assistants, focused on building our social media presence and playing a ‘learn-on-the-job’ supportive role which the experienced (post- Millennial) Campaign Managers were very happy with. It also benefitted the newcomers by presenting a natural career progression path.
Looking for the SKILLS (not the roles)
Next, we looked for people with a completely different skill set to the original set of competencies we thought we would need and focused on specific strengths. We discovered the fresh recruits through a different medium to previously tried and tested routes. Our Head of HR with a member of the marketing team conducted the first interviews on Skype and they were invited in for second interviews for the final seal of approval. The result was that we successfully recruited two Marketing Assistants who joined the team six weeks after the initial interview.
What happened?
12 months later we have an excellent social media presence, superb new in-house competencies, which have improved our capabilities immeasurably, our existing Campaign Managers are working at a more strategic level, we are able to welcome back our Campaign Manager from maternity leave to join a far stronger and bigger marketing team. There are a lot of wins in this story! #weallneedateam
Perspective
I believe the skills shortage can be solved through creative recruitment, by viewing the problem from different perspectives and by taking more risks. Neither of the social media marketing assistants had demonstrable marketing experience. But they had gained knowledge from relevant degrees, plus they had bags of enthusiasm. The team has enjoyed coaching and mentoring them, whilst also benefitting from some reverse mentoring and training.
Elsewhere, this has been done on a far bigger scale than we have; One organisation has identified very competent software programmers living and working throughout Africa and placing them with global companies. For example see “Engineered in Africa: We knew the talent was there”- on the BBC Website.
The article, Why Talented People Don't Use Their Strengths outlines how the NFL in the US has reorganised its processes so that people work to their strengths rather than in their traditional roles.
With high youth unemployment throughout most of Europe and the world becoming more and more digital. We have an unutilised pool of talent, very comfortable with using digital devices and technology, so why not realign our requirements; redesign our organisations to focus on the new skills and attitudes we require.
It was an outstanding success in one department for us and we will repeat it elsewhere in the business.
To paraphrase an old John Lennon song, why not “Give people a chance”.
