Consultant Q&A
Vince Ventresca Responds:
More organizations are utilizing employee groups to
assist in the hiring process every day. In general, the
practice is productive and will benefit the greater
cause. In order to truly capture benefit to the greater
cause, formalization of the process is critically
important.
My suggestions around implementing an
employee assisted hiring process are as follows:
The Integrity Process
• Designate the appropriate employee groups to
participate. These groups should be representative of a
corporate cross section and reflect the majority norm
in belief and behavior.
• Train each representative on interviewing skills
and define the objective for their interaction.
• Expose the candidate to the process and let them
know what to expect during their second interview with
the employee representatives. Let the candidate know
they should be prepared to ask questions of this
diverse group in order to formulate an understanding of
the culture. During the candidates third and final
interview, be sure to reflect on the experience, expose
feedback from the group and discuss alignment with the
corporate culture as well as competence.
• Follow-up with the representative groups that
provided interviewing assistance. Giving them feedback
will help to build their skills and keep them part of
the process.
The aforementioned steps should be
customized to fit your organizational needs. In my
experience this model is most effective when it follows
a process rich in communication, collaboration and
accountability.
Pros and Cons
Some of the benefits you can expect from this endeavor
are; buy-in from existing staff as it pertains to
helping new hires succeed, quicker orientation for the
new hire due to prerequisite interaction and most
importantly, a heightened sense of collective
accountability from the new hire and colleagues.
Some of the downfalls to this model are;
staff and candidate confusion due to lack of
preparation, negative views of the culture and poor
presentation of the organization. Although all of these
items can be avoided easily, they are usually the first
to be overlooked.
Obviously the benefits outweigh the
downfalls. If you plan the process, measure it closely
and provide opportunity to improve upon it, your
organization will reap the benefit of a forward
thinking model for hiring and retaining great
employees.
VINCE
VENTRESCA, PMP is a Project Consultant at Advanced
Management Services, Inc. His firm consults and trains
in continuous improvement, project management and
management development. Vince focuses on integrating
quality principles into project and organizational
development practices and the synergy of people,
process and technology. He can be reached at
info@amsconsulting.com.
John Runyan
Responds
June 2001 News for
a Change Homepage
Issue Highlight —
A Sad and Grateful Remembrance
