Innovation and Continuous Improvement: Smart Sourcing and Compliance Management

This article discusses two methods for innovation and continuous improvement in talent acquisition: smart sourcing and compliance management. Smart sourcing technologies can help businesses recruit faster and build stronger relationships with candidates, while compliance management ensures proper notification and reporting about job openings and HR practices. The article also provides an action plan for effective recruiting and hiring, and a memo on using online tools to personalize customer service.

Innovation and Continuous Improvement
Name of the student
Name of the University
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Task 2
Part A
1st method
Smart Sourcing Talent acquisition costs come into play when a new position is being filled
for the first time, when an existing position is refilled due to turnover, and when employees
switch jobs internally. Much of the spend for acquiring talent is on sourcing, including
recruiting agency fees and recruitment advertising costs for new hires. It is estimated that
worldwide, organizations spend upwards of a combined $85 billion each year to source
candidates.2 These fees typically come out of the budget of the hiring department and may
not be visible to an organization through its HR department’s accounting of talent acquisition
costs. Using smart sourcing technologies, businesses of all sizes can get the same talent
sourcing advantages that large organizations enjoy. You can recruit faster from a wider
network of qualified candidates, build stronger relationships with active and passive job
seekers, and earn a higher return on your sourcing investments.
Automate job board processes. Get the most out of your job board investments with
predictive ranking and optimization capabilities. Recommend job boards with the highest
likelihood for attracting qualified talent, and automatically post to these boards.  Build a
talent pool. Reduce your dependence on third-party recruiters and external résumé databases
by keeping your own database of quality candidates. Then manage candidate relationships so
you can tap into this valuable resource when you have a job opening. Candidate relationship
databases lower sourcing costs by better marketing opportunities to candidates sourced in the
past.  Plug into social networks. According to the Pew Research Internet Project, 73% of
online adults use social networking sites.3As more people use social networks such as
Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter, you can go beyond job boards. A 2012 publication by

Meisha Rouser found that 18.4 million applicants found their jobs on Facebook, 10.2 million
found theirs on LinkedIn, and 8 million found theirs on Twitter.
2nd Method: Sustainable Method
Compliance Management Compliance is a major part of your recruiting, hiring, and
performance evaluation processes. It’s not only about automating and streamlining but also
about documenting and archiving to ensure that you are capturing the data you need in order
to maintain compliance with regulatory agencies or internal policies and procedures. The
following best practices in compliance management will help you track your recruiting and
hiring initiatives and report on them. “Before [Oracle Recruiting Cloud Service], we had all
candidates applying through e-mail and we managed the candidates on an Excel spreadsheet.
We are now able to search, track, and report metrics to our executive team.” —Alissa Dare
Human Resources Manager, ProService Hawaii 8  Increase transparency. A recruiting
solution ensures that you execute proper notification and advertising of open positions—a
requirement for public sector agencies and educational organizations.  Automate reporting
and ensure online privacy. The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC)
requires proper notification and reporting about job openings, screening, compensation, and
other HR practices. In addition, many government agencies in the U.S. and Europe require
that all information be kept private and not be distributed. An online recruiting solution can
automate reporting processes and ensure that all information is confidential, while reducing
your costs.  Define basic qualifications. Enforce use of job templates to ensure consistency
in how you post positions. Make sure basic qualifications are specific, objective, and
measurable. Document and communicate evaluation criteria and processes, which will help
you establish your applicant pool.  Track expressions of interest. Create, document, and
communicate company selection policies and processes. Communicating a clear definition of
expressions of interest and consideration is critical for identifying who is an applicant and

who is not.  Track candidate status. Automatically track the candidate through the workflow
process. It’s important to track the steps and status and capture the reason a candidate is no
longer being considered for a position. This information is then available for compliance
reporting.  Ensure proper certifications and qualifications. Automated prescreening and
background checks help you determine whether candidates meet the basic qualifications
outlined for the job.  Safeguard against charges of bias. Some employers struggle to apply
federal job mandates consistently. Smart screening technologies rectify this, by retaining a
record of each applicant’s assessment.
Task 3
Action Plan
You have a clear view of which jobs are likely to be open, and when. You gathered, reviewed
and analyzed the data on your hiring in the past three years, and you know which jobs and job
groups tend to need filling. You also know the seasonality of your business, and can plan
ahead for hiring needs.
Job seekers and referrals to reach them are already in your pipeline. You know many
sources for great candidates that you can reach at the click of a mouse or by placing a phone
call, because you are continuously doing the groundwork of sourcing for your most-often
open positions.
You have job postings updated, paired with sticky videos and graphics, and ready to go at a
moment’s notice. With all of the many platforms for recruiting, and all of the creative work
your company’s marketing group is doing, why reinvent the wheel? Encourage your Talent
Acquisition team to partner with Marketing to come up with effective messages and graphics
that are consistent with the branding and marketing your company is already doing, and
tailored toward recruiting new hires.

You know where to post to find the right-fit candidates. You can’t post openings on your
website and forget it if you want to effectively recruit in today’s market. Reducing your time
to fill, attracting the right candidates, running an efficient hiring process and getting the right
hire all depend on being intentional in your posting. In addition, since you are looking to
increase diversity in your job seeker pool, you are also reaching out to specialty sources to
post your openings.
You (or your recruiters) know the jobs and your hiring leaders’ specific needs. Do your
recruiters know how to screen job seekers the right way, so your hiring managers are getting
the best group of candidates to review? Instead of having a “check the box” mentality, you
(or your recruiters) are willing and able to understand the job so you can analyze the job
seeker pool in a more sophisticated way. And if you have one, you make sure your smart TA
team is functioning at their top efficiency and effectiveness, and not making excuses about
how they don’t have time to fully evaluate candidates. And there's absolutely NO "fire hose"
candidate throughput. Managers don't have time for that!
You and your Talent Acquisition team is willing to tell managers the truth, even if they don’t
want to hear it. Like many managers, mine sometimes want to insist on looking for the
candidate that doesn’t exist-the early career Harvard MBA with 10 years of experience in
mergers and acquisitions that is excited to relocate to Sioux Falls for a salary of $40,000 per
year. You, your recruiters and TA leaders have built trust with the business, so when you
push back, hiring leaders may not like it, but they will listen.
You know which competencies lead to success in the roles at your company, and how to
assess for them in the hiring process. You provide training and development for hiring
leaders and others on how to effectively interview and assess talent, whether you have pre-

hire assessments formally implemented or not. And you look back at how hires have
performed, gathering, analyzing and interpreting the data so we know if we're doing it right.
You have access to compliance resources to ensure that your recruiting and hiring process is
not only effective, but consistent with legal requirements. You understand the potential for
adverse impact and discrimination, and know how to avoid them in your talent acquisition
activities, as well as how to properly document your processes to reduce risk. Keep your
yourself and your team in the loop by following the latest Society for Human Resource
Management (SHRM) Employment Law updates
(https://www.shrm.org/resourcesandtools/legal-and-compliance/employment-law/pages/
default.aspx) and subscribing to SHRM’s Workplace Compliance newsletter.
You use data to pinpoint the sourcing, recruiting and hiring activities that deliver the best
ROI. You don’t just throw things out there-you continuously review performance and assess
against benchmarks that make sense for your business. Then you adjust your process for
maximum value.
The first-year onboarding program at your company is up and running for every new hire,
starting at offer acceptance. You know that when you deliver an offer letter and receive an
acceptance from a new hire, there will be a seamless handoff to the background check
process, ordering needed equipment and space, and delivering a welcome gift to your newest
team member.
Task 4
Memo on Customer Service provision
Improving Your Customer Service: Use Online Tools to Personalize
Assistance

Your website is usually the customer's first exposure to your company, so your homepage
should be personal and user-friendly. Include staff bios or embed a Twitter feed to build an
intimate relationship with your customer, and consider these online tools:
Customer Relationship Management (CRM) Software: Programs like Microsoft
Access, Salesforce.com and Oracle collect important consumer background, including search
history and time spent online, says Kumar. If you're selling an Internet-based service,
knowing your customers' operating systems or connection speeds will reveal their intent for
the product, give some context to you concerning their complaintn and strengthen the
company-consumer relationship.
Social Media: Think of Facebook and Twitter as "listening posts," says Burns. People love
to chat about their recent purchases and experiences, so why not tune in? But, she cautions,
be mindful that those conversations may not represent the majority and should be put into
context.
Online Reviews: The blogosphere can be a cruel place, but embrace sites
like Yelp and Citysearch for their comprehensive feedback and seize the opportunity to
respond to customers. It's a "way to engage in a two-way dialogue," says Burns, and should
be used for problem prevention and customer retention.
Mobile Strategy: Customers expect on-the-go service, and that means you need to be
mobile-ready, Fromm says. Go green, like Apple, and email receipts, or follow the southern
department store Belk, whose mobile address allows traveling customers to text in their
feedback.