Template Resourcing Strategy
What is a Resourcing Strategy?
Businesses need people to grow and succeed. A resourcing strategy is like a game plan for getting the right people with the right skills into the right jobs at the right time. It’s all about how you bring in, keep, train, and support your team so your business is always ready to perform at its best.
Think of it as your secret weapon in the hunt for top talent. This is especially important for speeding up recruitment processes, improving client satisfaction, and boosting employee happiness. In short, it helps your business run smoother and perform better.
A solid resourcing strategy helps you plan ahead for your staffing needs and figure out how to meet them. It ensures your hiring practices are consistent and in line with your company’s values. This strategy outlines your goals for recruiting new talent and developing your existing team.
Being systematic and organised in your approach to resourcing will mean your organisation avoids unnecessary redundancy, keeping your workforce strong and your business ready for anything.
How to Develop a Resourcing Strategy
These guidelines are intended for anyone with responsibility for resourcing in their organisation. To be used alongside the ‘Template Resourcing Strategy’, these guidelines provide an overview of the six steps to follow when designing your resourcing strategy.
Step 1 – Plan
So where do you start when planning your resourcing strategy? The outcome of a recruitment campaign can largely be dependent on a clear organisational strategy and an awareness of the skills gaps you need to recruit for to drive your organisation forward. Investing a little time upfront can set out the path for your organisation’s future success, saving you valuable time and avoiding costly recruitment mistakes.
Once you are clear on your organisational strategy and goals, the first step is to identify any existing applicable processes, systems used within the organisation and the people that are going to be involved.
For example, ensure you know who is responsible for approvals and the make-up of the recruitment panel. This seems simple but can often be where confusion lies and can lead to unnecessary delays in tight timescales.
Recruitment can be a costly and labour-intensive process so it’s important to get it right. Ask yourself: ‘What are the critical skills needed to drive your organisations success?’ before identifying current talent pools such as redeployment pools and succession plans. These can be used to form the basis of identifying whether you need to source skills internally or externally.
Ensure you are clear on your budget, set clear recruitment goals and targets. You will also need to consider the contract type (e.g. agency, fixed-term, permanent, full time or flexible working) and what this can bring to your organisation.
Challenge yourself appropriately. If you are looking for an external candidate on a fixed term contract, ensure you are clear on a fixed end date, and why this is fixed term. It might be to complete a specific project or task for a defined period, including maternity/adoption leave cover or work linked to discrete funding. Note that additional rights apply after two years of continuous service, it seems a long way off, but these decisions can quickly impact the flexibility and motivation of your future workforce.
By now you will have a good idea of what your organisation needs and what you can afford. The next step is to form solid foundations for your recruitment campaign strategy through well-defined job descriptions and person specifications.
When these are well written they will ensure you attract the right person/s to your vacancy. In small organisations a single person can have a dramatic impact on organisational culture, so you should also identify desired values and behaviours, that can be used as part of the selection criteria for the role. Ensuring you find people that share your organisational values and will be committed to going the extra mile as your business grows.
Finally, it is advised that you identify a recruitment panel which have undertaken some training including any ‘unconscious bias’ training, aiding diversity and equality in the selection of any potential applications and in the wider workforce.
Step 2 – Approve
A solid resourcing strategy can reduce wasted time on gaining the necessary approvals and ensure a smooth process for any candidate and the panel members involved. So, it’s important you are aware of the process and necessary individuals responsible for signing off any recruitment. Good candidates don’t tend to hang around so it’s important to avoid any unnecessary challenges further into the recruitment campaign.
Finding ways to automate the process; for example using an ATS Applicant Tracking System, (an electronic system to manage the recruitment process) can create efficiency freeing up manager and candidate time.
Step 3 – Attract and Source
The advert is a key part of your resourcing strategy. It’s your opportunity to sell the organisation and vacant role/s to any prospective candidates. Having a good sense of your employer brand, knowing your target market, the content and phrasing of an advert as well as the place in which you choose to advertise/ source your candidates will vastly determine the quality, diversity and volume of applications received. It can also aid motivation and retention in the workplace. According to the CIPD (2019) ,failing to use inclusive language or using gendered terms could kill interest from your talent pool before you have even begun.
The right advice and support can help you to be recognised in the marketplace and ensure you are recognised as an employer of choice, providing you with the most cost-effective way to recruit. This is key to your resourcing strategy. For example, knowing whether to advertise a weekly rate vs a salary because analysis shows this would work best for the target audience or buying the right terms to advertise on google can ensure you can compete for talent affordably.
You want to make the most of your resourcing budget and the people you recruit really are your greatest asset. You may have more options available to you than you think. For example, did you know, SME’s who are not required to pay the apprenticeship levy, can also benefit from a range of funding options with the government’s ‘Get In Go Far’ campaign.
With four possible levels of funding, for example, the entrepreneur offer allows businesses with under 50 staff to receive 100% of training and assessment costs paid for (up to the funding band maximum) if they recruit an apprentice aged 16-18.
Step 4 – Selection
The way in which organisations screen applications is often a well debated issue, closely linked with impacting the level of diversity in the workplace. Some organisations are adding alternative methods to their resourcing strategies. One example of this is blind sifting and problem-solving exercises before CV’s to help identify whether the candidate/s possess the skills for the required roles.
The reliability and validity of the methods used should be considered when attempting to assess predicted performance in a role. Build a selection process that works for your type and size of organisation, choosing method/s for assessing candidates that reflects and effectively tests the skills applicants will need to be a success in the role. You will have already identified the key criteria for the role within the job description, personal specification, values and behaviours. You should use these to form the basis of your selection criteria.
Ensure your resourcing strategy takes into account the level of role you’re recruiting for. Yes, you want to make sure you make the right decision, but you don’t want to lose excellent candidates by making them jump through unnecessary, prolonged hoops that aren’t in line with the role. Or the process is so lengthy you lost them due to the long-winded timescales. It’s an important balance to strike and one that we are happy to help you design.
Some resourcing strategy examples of selection and shortlisting include:
Application sifting
Assessing applications/ CVs against the required criteria.
Blind sifting
Removing personally identifiable information from CV’s before reviewing and shortlisting applicants is often seen as a method of ensuring organisational consistency, fairness and transparency in commitment to equality, diversity and inclusion. Also reassuring applicants that they are being assessed on a level playing field. Organisations vary in approach to blind sifting this can include the removal of some of all the following information: name, age, gender and in some instance’s years of experience.
Telephone Interviews
Often used as a preliminary stage of screening applicants, telephone interviews provide a chance to assess candidates and to inform them about the organisation before investing any further.
Video Interviews
Video interviews are gaining in popularity as a selection technique. These interviews can either be set up as a one-way video or a live one-to-one.
Assessment centres
Often used for graduate recruitment, allowing the employer to assess the applicants in a series of different activities in line with the vacancy. Activities can include group projects, interviews, case studies and presentations. A costly and labour-intensive method but one that generally has the highest predictive validity for job performance. These are usually offered to a selection of candidates which have already passed application sifting, telephone/video interviews and some type of psychometric testing.
Selection interview
When first setting up an SME it’s often directors which undertake interviews, however, as your organisation grows responsibility for hiring is often delegated to line managers. Ideally select up to three individuals on the recruitment panel, there should be no conferring until all marking has taken place, results can then be averaged out to avoid group think.
Case Study Interviews
This method is often used in management consulting or accountancy roles. Recruiters describe a situation in which you will need to respond with advice either via a report or verbal explanation.
Psychometric testing: Psychometric tests are designed to measure candidates’ suitability for a role based on the required personality characteristics and aptitude (or cognitive abilities). These tests are rarely used in isolation and can form part of wider selection methods.
Skills-based tests
Examples of skills-based tests in your resourcing strategy include inbox or in-tray exercises, seen as reliable predictors of job performance, and assess key competencies such as analysis, decision-making, time management, accuracy, organisation and communication.
Step 5 – Offer
As a legally binding document, the employment contract provides a basis of the employment relationship. Investing the time to ensure this is correct upfront can often save a lot of time and costs in the future should there be any disagreements.
Step 6 – On board
By this point you have invested heavily in the recruitment and selection process. This final step is crucial in ensuring this isn’t wasted. A well-designed induction process can provide a positive experience and allow the employee to quickly integrate and perform to their highest potential.
