Putting the 'human' into human resources

In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina’s devastation, one of the most pressing needs was caring for the ill and injured. Despite the response of emergency medical personnel from around the country, more volunteers were critically needed in specific areas. In an attempt to locate these workers, one hospital executive turned to MRINetwork, one of the largest search and recruitment organizations in the world.

MRINetwork has over 1100 offices in more than 35 countries, with over 800 locations in the United States. More than 3000 recruiters specialize in the search and recruitment of professionals, executives, managers and technical staff in specific industry sectors and niches – making them the ideal choice for such a scenario. “When the call went out that clinical staff and pharmacists were desperately needed in the hurricane relief effort, we were quickly able to scan our databases, determine which of our offices made placements in these areas and mobilize their recruiters to find the right people,” says William (Bill) Olson, President and CEO of the Philadelphia, PA headquartered firm.

Within a matter of days, the MRINetwork had turned up more than 100 highly motivated and qualified candidates. The VP of human resources for the area hospitals was overwhelmed by the response, which continued to surface candidates even after their immediate need had been filled. Additional candidates were referred to the American Red Cross and UNICEF, which were at that time still in need of healthcare workers.

Although this assignment was out of the ordinary for MRINetwork recruiters, it illustrates the power of a network that reaches around the world and covers nearly every industry sector. Many of the recruiters have worked in the industries they now recruit for, and because their focus is so specialized, they come to know who the players are and where they work. They are able to find candidates who are not actively job seeking and who are not reading the classifieds or surfing internet job boards.

Building the heart of business

Management Recruiters International, Inc. (MRI) was founded in 1965 in response to a growing but largely unmet need in the business world – search and recruitment services that would provide companies with the mid-to-upper level managers and professionals they needed to run their businesses. Firms that covered both the high and the low ends of the business were available, but none dealt exclusively with the sector that came to be known as mid-management.

Into this void stepped MRI. Unlike many executive search firms that focus exclusively on C-level searches, MRINetwork helps its clients identify and nurture both their current and future leadership and understands the unique needs of every level of the organization.

By concentrating on middle management, the company focuses primarily on what it regards as ‘the heart of business’ – those impact players who are at the center of the action.

In a recent study commissioned by MRINetwork that surveyed 200 human resources executives to evaluate where middle managers made the most impact on a business, 79 percent of the respondents said that middle managers are critical to the success of a company, with customer satisfaction, company morale, hiring and team building ranking the highest.

“The results of this survey support what MRI has always known – that middle management represents the beating heart of today’s successful companies,” says Olson. “For a business to succeed in today’s market, hiring managers must be prepared to make a strong investment in the hiring and support of their middle management professionals.”

The survey also found that a void in middle management can only exist for three months before it begins to negatively impact morale and employees’ ability to perform their daily jobs. “While leading companies know they need to fill a void in a timely manner, the ‘three-month’ timeframe has never been documented and should serve as a significant wake-up call to business leaders,” adds Olson. “In many companies, the middle management layer serves as the keystone that links senior management with junior team members. When that link is interrupted, the repercussions are sudden and far-reaching.”

The experience disconnect

Yet this is the prospect facing firms across the nation, with many companies in a number of different sectors currently contemplating the mass retirement of the baby-boomer generation during the next decade – which could potentially lead to the loss of decades of organizational knowledge. Ensuring that this valuable experience is passed on will be critical over the coming years, and strategies such as succession planning, targeted hiring and employee retention will be key.

To meet this need, MRINetwork is committed to helping its clients find the impact players who will keep their companies on track and lead them into the future. As the ‘talent war’ hots up, recruitment specialists will play an increasingly vital role in helping companies select the right staff to provide competitive advantage.

“As the oldest of the baby-boomers turn 60 next year, we expect to see an increase in the number of retirements,” agrees Olson. “This will put a strain on candidate supply, especially because it may result in the loss of experienced people with a firm grasp of company intelligence and history. This will impact employers because they will have to devote more time and resources to finding the right people, and it will impact existing staff in that workloads may increase.”

As such, Olson says this will greatly enhance the interaction between staffing specialists and their clients. “As HR departments are strained by increasing workloads, they will look to their recruitment partners for a wide range of services. In addition to the traditional search and recruitment services, they will be seeking advice and counsel on retention strategies, assessment and other ancillary areas.”

Not being able to fill key positions can have serious consequences, including loss of productivity, lower market share and reductions in employee performance; under pressure, staffing decisions are sometimes made too quickly, resulting in costly hiring mistakes. This is where MRINetwork comes in. The company serves its clients around the globe in every major industry – from small, local operations to multinational corporations – by providing solution-based strategies for today’s staffing environment. The search and recruitment professionals at MRINetwork use their training and knowledge to find those employees who add extraordinary value to their organizations. “We offer what we are calling an accelerated recruitment approach – a customized combination of our streamlined methodology and the knowledge of our industry experts all over the world,” says Olson. “It’s designed to help our clients target impact players and deliver them at the pace their business demands.

“Since the quality of a company’s workforce is critical to its business success, staffing strategies must be tailored to support overall business strategy,” he continues. “It is important to identify positions that are most vital to business and financial success, and then lay out a process for attracting and retaining well-qualified people for these positions. Companies may have to offer above-average compensation and benefits, for example.”

He suggests that in job markets characterized by candidate shortages, strong retention programs are needed because employees have many opportunities to move to a competitor – especially pertinent as the average age of the American worker continues to rise and competition for talent increases. “Many of our clients are embracing such tactics as flexible working conditions that will keep potential retirees in their jobs a little longer.”

Industry knowledge combines with worldwide reach

To help identify the right strategy for its clients, the company has developed the MRINetwork Way, a comprehensive recruitment process methodology created to deliver optimum results for clients and candidates. It is the ideal sequence of steps designed to yield a high-touch recruitment process expediently, combining each step with a specialized set of behavioral skills to ensure the process is executed to its full potential – how and when the client needs it. “MRINetworkWay is a field-tested recruitment methodology that begins with the search assignment and adds the right amount of collaboration, research and intuition to deliver a few well-chosen options, instead of a mass of untested resumes,” says Olson.

It’s an effective approach. For example, when a global telecommunications giant began an aggressive expansion program, they sought a partner who could provide ‘one-stop shopping’ around the world. Plans called for repositioning the company internationally, which meant the addition of 500 jobs primarily in Europe, Asia and the United States – all of which had to be filled within six to eight months. After extensive research, they decided upon MRINetwork as their total solutions staffing partner.

Working on a project of this scale called for the creation of a dedicated project team within MRINetwork. A customized recruitment plan was developed, and a European project manager, located in Amsterdam, was selected to streamline communications, manage timelines and utilize the resources of the network. The individuals who comprised the team were chosen on the basis of their experience and success in the telecommunications industry; the entire team focused on the client’s needs exclusively for the duration of the project.

Once the team identified potential candidates, they contacted them directly, presenting the objectives, competencies, responsibilities, benefits and advancement potential associated with the positions. Each candidate was thoroughly screened, using competency-based interviewing techniques and assessment tools, following which the qualified candidates were presented for consideration.

One of the key challenges was the tight deadline involved in the project. In order to ensure success, specific directives were agreed to by both parties. It was imperative, for example, that no more than five days elapse between each step in the interviewing and hiring process. In order to make this happen, the project team assisted hiring managers in scheduling and monitoring the interview process and in facilitating communications with potential new hires.

An online activity management system was also implemented to provide real-time transfer of information between the hiring managers and the project team members. The password-protected sited allowed for shared access to selected candidate information and to the scheduling process. Training sessions for hiring managers were conducted, and each of them received an electronic guidebook with names, contact information and a process flow chart.

“The interactive connectivity of our online management system was a real asset,” says Olson. “Besides the obvious benefit of making communications easier across time zones, it allowed the human resources department to collect valuable metrics. It was, in fact, the first time the VP of HR had ever received detailed metrics on a recruitment project.”

Needless to say, the project was an unqualified success and after the initial phase had been successfully completed, a new contract awarded to the client allowed MRINetwork to replicate the methodology.

Making the job easier

Without doubt, one of the greatest developments in terms of redefining the way organizations approach their staffing requirements has been the emergence of technologies that help streamline processes and efficiencies, freeing up HR personnel to concentrate more on how human resources can drive the business forward. “Technology has greatly impacted how companies hire people,” says Olson. “Such things as online job boards and candidate databases, electronic resume scanning, automated screening and testing and applicant tracking systems have all made a big difference.”

However, he is keen to emphasize that MRINetwork represents much more than just a one-dimensional technology approach, and that you cannot remove the ‘human’ element from human resources. “We use leading assessment tools to assess the long-term compatibility of candidates with our clients’ business culture, but while these tools help us analyze profiles, skill sets and candidate experience, they are not a substitute for the expertise and intuition that our recruiters bring to the process,” he says. “There was a time when industry observers believed that technology would mean the demise of the search and recruitment business. However, this ‘disintermediation’ has never materialized and in fact, our business is growing. Certainly, IT can make many aspects of the HR professional’s work easier and more manageable, but we’re basically talking about a people business, and IT cannot replace the need for people to deal with people – especially in areas that impact their lives so greatly.

“HR needs to be cognizant of maintaining the right balance between the efficiency of IT and the humanity that should characterize the profession,” he continues. “Technology is a tool – a good, sound tool – that will continue to provide better ways for us to help our clients. But it will remain a tool, not a replacement.”

The nature of the HR executive’s role is also changing, and Olson highlights the need for companies to acknowledge this fact and deal with it accordingly. “In the past, HR executives were relegated to such tasks as filling out employee 401(k) forms, but today they are making their way into board seats, executive committee chairs and, increasingly, onto the list of highly paid executives at their companies,” he says. “At many Fortune 100 companies, top HR executives report directly to the CEO and serve on the board of directors.”

As a result, many HR people are now providing business leadership at major organizations across the US. “The number one threat to the ongoing success of our clients is the ability to attract and retain qualified employees. Because of this, HR executives are redefining their role within their organizations. They are in senior positions making strategic business decisions that affect their company’s future.”

Targeted staffing solutions

Today, the highest caliber candidates have more choices and make greater demands on potential employers. They are smarter, better educated, more confident, more technically skilled and better compensated – which is why companies need every tool at their disposal to help them attract such top performers.

Because MRINetwork’s recruiters are industry experts – trained professionals who have real-world experience of their specialized fields and have amassed knowledge of the marketplace – they have developed valuable contacts and an awareness of trends and issues affecting the industry. They understand the marketplace, and evaluate their clients’ needs, analyze the organizational structure, define the job profile and negotiate an offer that satisfies both client and candidate.

MRINetwork recognizes that to achieve success in today’s complex business climate, companies need a full range of staffing products and services. The company generates exceptional results by applying and tailoring solution-based strategies to their clients’ specific needs. From permanent placement to contract staffing, from finding the best salespeople to filling a position overseas – MRINetwork has the solutions.

At a glance

Headquarters: Philadelphia, PA
CEO and President: William T Olson, III
Business: MRINetwork (formerly known as Management Recruiters International) offers search and recruitment services through some 1100 independently owned and operated offices in more than 35 countries. Founded in 1965, the company is a subsidiary of Philadelphia-based staffing and outsourcing conglomerate CDI Corp.

Areas of expertise: MRINetwork operates through five divisions:

• Management Recruiters (middle and senior management)
• Sales Consultants (sales and marketing professionals)
• CompuSearch (IT professionals)
• OfficeMates5 (administrative and office support staff)
• DayStar Temporary Services (temporary office staff)

Three reasons you should use an executive recruiter

The services of outside professionals are used by prudent companies for legal, accounting and other special needs – and executive recruiters should be viewed in the same light: as skilled specialists who can identify the best candidates to fill important positions within the company. Recruiters provide strict confidentiality, an extensive network of contacts, objectivity in candidate evaluation and negotiation experience and expertise.

Recruiters observe strict confidentiality. Organizations with a key opening can be vulnerable. Confidentiality can keep competitors from being tipped off to management shake-ups, new product and market initiatives, and can protect against employee and supplier apprehension. Recruiters value the sensitive information they become aware of during the search process and respect their client's vulnerability.

Recruiters can tap into a global network of contacts. Most often, the best candidates are already employed, and many of them will deal only with a recruiter. They appreciate the worth of third-party representation, confidentiality and professional mediation. Recruiting superior candidates can be a complex process and is best performed by a professional.

Recruiters are cost effective. The benefit of using a recruiter can be weighed against the cost of preparing and executing an advertisement campaign, screening and qualifying candidates, and operating without a needed employee for an extended length of time, compared to the relative insurance of getting the right person for the job. The use of recruiters is an investment in improving the quality of an organization’s staff. But even beyond that, the risk in not using recruiters can be great. For smaller companies – where one hiring mistake can have disastrous results – using recruiters is sometimes more important that for very large companies.

People are a company’s more important assets. They can make or break the fortunes of a business. Professional recruiters can deliver the right people for today’s highly competitive business environment.