Looking within: internalizing the search for talent

The debate as to whether it is better to give preference to internal candidates before looking externally to fill a vacancy is an ongoing trope of recruitment. Internal candidates settle sooner, the hiring process ‘costs’ less and candidates can be more accurately assessed. External applicants can bring competitive intelligence about other firms and the industry in general, and they can bring in different skills and shake up stagnating work cultures. Although most firms end up using a mixed strategy, the target ratio of internal to external hires is always a topic of hot debate. If you’re looking to hire skilled senior level staff, this problem can seem magnified. There are countless external search firms whose designated function is seeking out these individuals, but the practice can be costly and time consuming.

Time Warner’s Worldwide Recruitment and Executive Search is an enterprise-wide search operation dedicated to assembling elite leadership teams with the highest caliber of top-tier, diverse talent essential to achieving ongoing business success and future growth. Its beginnings can be traced to 1998, when Warner Bros. was seeking senior level staff. “At the time, I was working at a retained executive search firm, focused on senior level searches for most of the studios in Los Angeles: Warner Brothers was one of them,” explains Maggie Rubey Lynch, Corporate Vice President of Time Warner Worldwide Recruitment and Executive Search. “At the time, the head of Warner Bros’ HR thought it would be beneficial to create an in-house model, as opposed to paying expensive retainer fees to search firms. Senior talent – and talent across all the Time Warner divisions – is such an important asset that it was worth the investment to bring in an in-house model and launch it from there.”

Humble beginnings

From these humble beginnings, the project was born. Initially, the senior level search aspect was targeted, and within the first year they were able to internalize all the senior level assignments and conduct them in-house. The model continued to evolve into a full service recruitment model, according to Rubey Lynch: “It was a hybrid of centralized and decentralized. The senior level search was conducted through a central function, and then we had recruiters anchored in each of the Warner Bros operating units. They handled entry level to mid-management recruitment.”

Based on the economies of scale created by their recruitment efforts, the department negotiated a deal with Warner Music Group on the West Coast. Subsequently they picked up assignments from the other Time Warner divisions on the West Coast (HBO, New Line, and Turner, for example) and – as a result of the initial insight of bringing in the senior search component – became the West Coast recruitment model. In October 2002 Rubey Lynch moved to the Time Warner headquarters in New York.

The plan behind this move was to take the recruitment model that had worked so well and, as Rubey Lynch puts it, tie all the Time Warner business units together. “The second wave was launching a new team in January 2003, designed to service all the Time Warner divisions at the senior level search: VP and above. We have terrific partnership with the divisions and 100 percent utilization of services. That has resulted in significant cost saving for the company.” As Rubey Lynch points out, her project was never a mandate, so their repeat opportunities to work with Time Warner’s divisions are based on credibility and the quality of the deliverables on each assignment. “A critical element has been the ability to partner with the high caliber of HR professionals and recruiters in each operating unit,” she says. “Time Warner rarely sends out any senior level search to search firms at this point. Since we launched the department it’s come in at about $55 million in cost savings or cost avoidance.” Clearly, this has been a sound investment.

Despite the success of the senior level search model, Time Warner was still using contingency firms for mid-management professional level recruitment in certain key disciplines that Rubey Lynch identifies as finance and accounting, technology, and sales and marketing. “We decided to implement another version of our senior level search model to seek out mid-management professionals, eliminating the need for outside agencies. We just launched a pilot a month ago, to service East Coast Time Warner. So far it’s been well received, with a lot of activity in those areas. If that continues to be successful we can continue to expand that in other regional locations as well.”

Success

According to Rubey Lynch, there are two initiatives key to her department’s success: internal mobility and workforce diversity. Internal mobility provides benefits to employees, as they have opportunities to grow and develop “within the Time Warner family” as she puts it. Gone are the days of the job-for-life culture; if you don’t give your employees the opportunity to advance and further their careers, your competitors certainly will. The benefit of working for a brand as large as Time Warner is that Rubey Lynch is leveraging an enterprise-wide initiative, “an individual at Warner Bros that might not have immediate advancement can explore opportunities, for example, at HBO, Turner or New Line. We have an initiative called ‘Employees First: Focus On Careers’, where we encourage employees to explore other opportunities within the entire Time Warner family. Another benefit of this is that the more movement we have within the employee base, the more people are bringing fresh perspectives into their new roles from other divisions within the company. In terms of global mobility, it’s a little more complex, but we have a lot of activity in that area.”

Rubey Lynch’s recruitment function has been so successful that it’s been turned into a revenue stream, getting involved in companies outside Time Warner. Rubey Lynch’s team is, as she puts it, a “business within a business”, a complete full service search firm, that is a direct comparison in terms of its capabilities to outside search firms. “We can package, market and deliver on our services the same way some of the big search firms can,” she says. “In conversations with our investors – investments that Time Warner has made as well as joint ventures – we made clear we could complete their senior level searches at a discounted rate from what an outsider search firm would charge. We also have a vested interest in the best individual being placed in those charges, because they are investments for Time Warner.” Rubey Lynch is clear that the one caveat is that their primary focus and charter is to support Time Warner divisions. They have to protect the quality of their core of our service deliverables, and anything above and beyond that is added value.

Moving forwards

There are three key areas that Rubey Lynch points to as key for the future of executive search and recruitment

• DIVERSITY
  “Diversity will continue to be critical to our business. By this I mean both workforce diversity and even diversity as it overlaps into marketing, product, content, investment and philanthropy efforts. Workforce diversity is clearly a key component of that. To stay competitive in the marketplace our workforce needs to mirror the ever-evolving consumer population. Diversity is very important.
• DIGITAL
  “Digital is going to be key for so many businesses. We used to primarily compete for talent within our own industry sectors, but because digital will cross so many industries and platforms everybody will be looking for the same talent. To be proactive and identifying the key business needs and drivers, then proactively identifying the talent that mirrors that will be a considerable competitive advantage going forward.”
• EMPLOYEE DEMOGRAPHIC
  “We are going to see a huge shift in our employee population. Succession planning is key to the success of any business on an ongoing basis, but a focus for the future will need to be placed on the impact the retirement of our baby boomers will create on the organization. Planning for this with both internal and external bench strength will be critical to ensure business continuity. In addition, we need to consider Generation X and Y. What makes an ‘employer of choice’ for the baby boomers is very different for the X and Y’ers. Whether it’s work/life balance or overall compensation packages, understanding what keeps us competitive and positioned right in the marketplace to compete for that talent is very important.”
  

Expansion

Since launching the new team in 2003, the Time Warner search model continued to evolve to accommodate worldwide growth for Time Warner. It seems it knows no bounds: to manage international territories the company opened a satellite office in London, which “originally was designed to service Europe, Middle East, and Africa, but with continued senior level search activity in Asia Pacific, we are now looking to explore another satellite office in Hong Kong as an extension of the international team based in London.” An important aspect of Time Warner’s business today is how much they have grown globally in terms of their partnership with the divisions and services they provide. And given the success of her team so far, it seems the sky truly is the limit.