What is the best way for HR partner to manage your company’s team? Part 2

Provectus
Provectus
Jul 10, 2017 · 8 min read

Recruitment and retention of top talent

Human Resources is an industry whose value and importance is difficult to catch for top manager and employees alike. Just what positive aspects can an HR partner company bring to your business? In this series of articles, we discuss the ways strategic HR partners are involved in the success of your organizations, such as training and evaluation, recruitment and so much more.

We firmly believe that the process of recruitment and retaining the best professionals isn’t solely dependent on finding, interviewing and hiring a candidate with the required technical skill-set. According to our experience and long-standing practice, the candidate should be evaluated on his/her social skills as well.

The required IQ and EQ are of key importance as only employees with the right combination of professional skills and attitude will perform and meet the set goals. That’s why simply outsourcing your operations won’t do justice to your business and work processes. In the case a wrong person gets hired, it will ultimately cause a substantial loss of money spent on the hiring, adaptation and poor overall performance (missed deadlines, bad quality of the product, etc.). The only reasonable way is to have a dedicated HR partner, that can work on the task of securing the required genius that meets all the company’s operational nuances.

The first issue we need to think about is how does being an HR partner is differing from any regular outsourcing company.

  • The customer communicates directly with the recruiter

With an HR partner, you do not have intermediary people between your business and the person performing the candidate’s search. By working with the client in a close liaison, HR partner quickly responds to all requests/questions and changes. Only when dealing directly with the client, can the recruiter pick the ideal employee.

  • Speed of recruiting

Customers highly appreciate the speed of HR partners with which its recruiters work and react. Due to the well-established internal processes and excellent reputation of the company — the first candidates for your vacancy are chosen and shown just a few days after receiving the application for a vacancy. At the same time, the quality of the selection is top-notch.

  • Special attention to candidates’ soft skills

As an HR partner, we believe that the personal qualities of a person such as responsibility, openness, communication skills, and flexibility coupled with professional tech skills are important to work in software development outsourcing successfully. This is given particular attention to secure the ideal candidates to suit the job.

  • Individual approach to client’s needs

Probably, the majority of clients when choosing between an onsite employee and hiring with an HR partner are faced with a dilemma: “What if I do not like the candidates that I will be shown? What if I’m not comfortable with the chosen employee?”

There is a need to dispel such doubts. We are fully aware of the fact that when choosing an employee, the client essentially chooses a partner who will be fully dedicated to the project the same way as the client is. Yet every client pays particular attention to some personal traits that are important in the candidate as a human being. Some draw attention to the candidate’s education, some to the hobbies, while other clients are interested exclusively in their experience with certain technologies and the ability of the candidate to “sell him-/herself.”

This is completely normal, and to have a successful cooperation and partnership your dedicated recruiters have to be aware of such preferences from the very start. Only then can your HR partner find for you the ideal team member with whom you can easily communicate not solely on project-related topics, but to enjoy their presence in the team as well.

  • Positive relations with employees

When employing an HR partner, always pay close attention to the unique working conditions they offer for the people in the company. By having well-adjusted processes of adaptation, motivation, and education you may rest assured that the employee hired for you is going to stay with the company for a long time.

Secondly, we need to discuss the main concerns some companies may have when requesting recruiting services of remote teams.

A distinctive feature of hiring a remote team for a company is the client’s fear of various difficulties that may arise in the process of hiring or in the course of work. Usually, customers are unsure about the candidates’ ability to speak English well or that the cultural differences are too great. All these fears are dispelled after the HR partner provides the first interviews. Computer software developers and business advisors are in their mentality very similar to the ones in the United States. There are several reasons for that: the tech education is very strong, the digital interconnection of the world and the availability of materials and resources on specific topics are universally available. We ensure that our employees attend international conferences and have constant communication with their colleagues overseas.

Your HR partner should pay special attention to such quality as “flexibility,” i.e. the ability to adjust to the ever-changing environment because such teams are usually multinational and can be located in a number of countries and in different time zones.

It is also vital to check the level of English before the interview with the customer. Usually, the top-level specialists that we employ have high knowledge of English language and cultural peculiarities. This is true in most cases as in order to achieve such a level of professionalism in their sphere they have to be able to communicate with other experts freely. Of course, there are instances when the language requirement is not fully met, and the HR partner is obliged not waste client’s time on candidates with whom he/she cannot freely express themselves.

Getting top talent fast may sometimes be an issue, especially when looking for professionals with niche tech skills.

The solution may be to recruit within the established team of computer specialist already working for your HR partner. Practising effective retention and recruiting “from the inside” is a vital skill required to provide immediate expertise whenever needed. Having a pool of employees that are willing to try themselves in a new project with new technologies is an extra benefit you might expect from a top HR company.

First of all, we offer clients our own internal experts from the pool of candidates, as we are confident in these people’s skills as they’ve shown themselves in the best light on previous projects. This removes some of the risks for the business, and the client can have a person working on their project within a few days after the receipt of the application. Also, we can help in a case the client needs a person to start working immediately while continuing the search for the best external candidate.

The timeliness of filling in the vacancy is of key importance, as most of HR partner’s clients need to start the work asap to stay on top of the game and show positive results to their investors.

When signing a contract with your HR partner, it is customary to have the time required for the search of a developer written in black and white. We ensure that a vacancy for the middle level will be filled in within 1 month, and the search for a senior developer may take up to 2 months. But in reality, professional recruiting always manages to make extra effort to provide the best candidate much earlier.

It is also important to note to clients that the prospective employee will have to work from 2 weeks to 1 month on the previous job and finalize all the tasks at hand before switching jobs.

Keeping the cost down is important to clients, but providing adequate compensation to employees is vital to the HR partner to secure the best working environment and have high retention rates.

Being a leading HR company requires to offer a very good compensation package and have offices in the most comfortable areas of the city. By providing English courses, medical insurance, gym compensation, modern tech equipment, a doctor at the office, educational events and much more we can hire people who come to us not just “for money,” but for a great atmosphere and benefits. This way it is possible to find with the client a certain balance in the matter of financial compensation.

Having a well-established recruitment strategy to select and hire from a global talent pool is a must for an HR partner.

There are 2 ways of hiring:

  • post jobs and wait for candidates to respond
  • direct search to find the right person that suits our needs.

The best HR company uses the second option.

Thanks to such proactive approach, we spend less time and get the profiles of candidates that are the best match for the job from the very start. A good, experienced professional will not sit on job sites and respond to vacancies. This person needs to be head-hunted for and offered worthy conditions and a project of high interest. And by having a well-regarded reputation, this is even easier.

Another benefit of having a well-established HR brand is that our own employees are happy to recommend their friends and former colleagues. This reaffirms the great atmosphere we have where employees are willing to invite their friends to join in the company’s ranks.

Partnering up with an HR company that has a compelling employer brand brings many benefits to clients. But how do you figure out if your potential HR partner is worth doing business with?

The HR brand we have today is a compound effort of the current and former employees. The well-coordinated work of all administrative departments, the HR team, recruiters, and management has been built over the years. The overall success of an HR company can be shown in part through a low level of staff turnover like ours: an 8.5% rate a year on average lets us have a smooth work-flow.

It is very rewarding when during the exit interview and further communication former employees state that they are eyeing a return to the company. Only during the last year, 12 people came back to work for our HR company. As in all companies, we have those employees who leave, move to other countries, cities, or move to other positions, projects, but we rest assured that they are likely to come back when a suitable vacancy opens up. This is the main indicator the HR company is doing everything right.

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