Best defense?

How well do you really know your workforce? It’s a question increasingly occupying hirers regardless of which industry they work in. The pressure on HR professionals to take on the right candidate has led to prospective employees being subjected to ever higher levels of scrutiny. You’d expect this pressure to weigh even heavier on Ian Ziskin of Northrop Grumman. A $30 billion dollar company with 122,000 employees, it designs and manufactures high-tech military equipment. With products running from night-vision goggles to radar systems to fighter aircraft, the security implications of an ill-informed job offer have potentially far-reaching consequences.

If Ziskin is fazed by the realities of his job, he doesn’t a show it. A human resources veteran with over 25 years in the business, he has seen how screening and background checks have become a valuable and commonplace stage of the recruitment process. “For us they are very important because they help us determine the quality of people we are bringing into the organization before they arrive,” he says. “If there’s a problem or issue with performance or past background it is much more difficult to deal with that once someone is actually working here.”

As you would expect from an organization dealing in such sensitive, even top-secret areas, Northrop Grumman’s screening processes often have to go deeper than your average HR department. Ziskin explains: “Because we have such a large number of employees who require security clearances, it’s an extra assurance that the individuals have the necessary backgrounds in order to be approved for clearance once they’re here.”

Generally though, the company operates a fairly uniform screening policy. Typically this would entail checks for criminal records, financial and credit issues, verification of education and so on. But in certain cases, things need to be more thorough. “If you know you’re bringing in someone who is going to need special access security clearances above and beyond the norm, then we might do some additional digging,” Ziskin continues. “There are also certain jobs that would require additional checks, such as a position with a certain set of driving requirements. Then we would have to make sure they had a clean driving record.”

Diversity is a central spoke of Northrop Grumman’s HR activities. Ziskin is quick to point out that the company’s thorough screening techniques do not conflict with its commitment to inclusiveness. “We apply the same process to everyone irrespective of background,” he explains. “Going through our processes we haven’t found any type of unusual impact pertaining to one particular group of people over another. We apply our methods evenly and we find that the results generally fall out the same way regardless of the groups of people we may be taking a look at.”

Shifting landscapes

Having spent such a long time in the HR industry, Ziskin has witnessed his fair share of changes. Asked to identify the most significant developments, he offers a few clear candidates. Unsurprisingly, the rapid advance of technology appears at the top of the list. “The introduction of technology allows much more open access to information,” he says. “So it makes things easier in the sense that you can find out what you need to know that bit more quickly.” Alongside the technological revolution there has also been a much heavier focus placed on picking the right people. Similar to the heightened scrutiny falling upon potential candidates, companies are now under increased pressure to make good hiring choices before new employees are brought in. “There was a period of time in the past, certainly in other industries, where it wasn’t paid too much attention,” Ziskin continues. “It is now becoming much more prevalent to pay close attention in advance of making the hire.”

If the sheer amount of detail now involved in pre-employment screening can seem a little daunting, it appears that a peak might have been reached. Ziskin suggests that there isn’t anywhere else left for it to go: “As for the future, I think the level of scrutiny has reached a point where it can’t, or shouldn’t, really get much more rigorous,” he says. There are also potential pitfalls of becoming too obsessed with information. Ziskin points to a difficult trade off between the amount of data it is possible to access and the time and cost it requires to gather and process it. The quest to find a candidate who is perfect in every way can end up leading down blind alleys. Ziskin concurs: “Essentially, you’re making an educated guess about a potential employee based on the information that you have,” he says. “Like most complex problems, you’re looking for the 80 percent solution rather than that much more elusive 100 percent solution.”

The challenge of ensuring best practice can be considerable. At the moment, there are no universally recognized standards for pre-employment screening so the responsibility inevitably falls back onto individual companies. Northrop Grumman deals with the issue in a number of ways. “Firstly, as in so many other areas, we spend quite a bit of time talking to peer companies both inside and outside our industry,” says Ziskin. “Therefore we have a pretty good feel for what other companies are doing and how consistent or not our practices are.” Outsourcing also plays a part, with many of more specialized background screening functions being handled by external partners. Using companies who deal day to day with the complexities of employee screening helps to keep Northrop Grumman in step with the rhythms of the industry as a whole. “They are professionals in this arena,” continues Ziskin. “It’s really their job, with our help and input, to make sure that the tools and techniques they are using are not only fair and reliable but also the most current.”

A wise investment

In the past, outsourcing HR functions might have been deemed an expense too far. Nowadays however, so much importance is placed on securing the best candidates that companies are more willing to splash out on pre-employment screening. “The cost that is associated with hiring the wrong people is enormous,” explains Ziskin. “We have found that the investment we make up front is well worth it in ensuring we bring the best people we possibly can into our company.”

Luckily for companies like Northrop Grumman, the growing ubiquity of screening has gone hand in hand with improvements in technology. This has kept costs down and allowed enterprises to complete extremely detailed screening at a manageable price. “For the type of information we gather and the speed at which it is being gathered the reliability and quality of data has certainly improved,” Ziskin continues. “Along with that the cost of providing that information and delivering it to employers has also gone down. This improvement in quality and reduction in cost is largely a product of new technological advances and systems.”

But don’t make the mistake of thinking that IT is the answer to all HR questions. Asked if there are any limitations to its potential benefits in the HR sphere, Ziskin sounds a note of caution and warns that technology and systems aren’t a substitute for good judgment. “The limitation is that they bring you vast amounts of data but fundamentally, people have to make the final decision as to whether or not to bring a particular person into the organization,” he says. “That last step is always going to require the human touch.”

Timeline

Northrop Corporation

1939 John K. “Jack” Northrop, forms Northrop Aircraft Incorporated in Hawthorne, California
1940 Northrop builds its first aircraft, the N-3PB patrol bomber, for the Norwegian Air Force
1944 The P-61 Black Widow night fighter enters combat
1946 First flight of the XB-35 flying wing
1952 Northrop acquires Radioplane Company, manufacturer of target drones
1959 First flight of the F-5 supersonic fighter. Northrop Aircraft Incorporated changes its name to Northrop Corporation
1960 The SM-62 Snark, the first online intercontinental guided missile, enters service
1961 The T-38 supersonic trainer enters service.
1978 Northrop delivers the first F/A-18 Hornet shipset
1982 First flight of the F-20 Tigershark, an advanced version of the F-5
1989 First flight of the B-2 stealth bomber
1990 First flight of the YF-23 Black Widow II, another aircraft with stealth characteristics
1991 The company receives the prestigious Robert J. Collier Trophy for its B-2 aircraft

Grumman Corporation

1930 Leroy Grumman, Jake Swirbul, Bill Schwendler, E. Clint Towl and Ed Poor start Grumman Aeronautical Engineering Company in an abandoned auto garage
1931 The XFF-1 is the first Navy fighter with retractable landing gear and fully enclosed cockpit
1940 First flight of the Grumman Wildcat
1943 Grumman becomes the first aircraft company to receive the Navy ‘E’ flag for production efficiency
1944 Grumman introduces the F6F Hellcat
1947 The Grumman F9F Panther jet prototype makes its first flight
1948 Leroy Grumman receives the Presidential Medal of Merit for wartime production
1952 First flight of the Jaguar, the first variable sweep-wing fighter
1960 E-2A Hawkeye's first flight; this aircraft becomes the U.S. Navy's only airborne early warning and control platform
1967 In the last days of the Vietnam War, the F-14, in its first deployment with USS Enterprise, flies top cover during the evacuation of Saigon
1969 The Apollo Lunar Module carries man to the surface of the moon
1977 First flight of the EF111-A, designed to detect, identify and nullify different enemy radars
1988 Joint STARS prototype makes its first flight
1994 Acquired by Northrop Corporation

Northrop Grumman

1996 Acquires Westinghouse Defense Electronics
1997 Acquires Logicon Corporation
1999 Acquires Teledyne Ryan Aeronautical
2001 Acquires Litton Industries
2001 Acquires Newport News Shipbuilding
2002 Acquires TRW Incorporated