Modern ERP systems have brought the automation and efficiency of turning raw materials into finished products to a high art. When will the equivalent systems for finding, selecting and deploying human resources become widespread? When will we have "HRP" (Human Resource Planning) systems that are up to the level of modern ERP? The Oak company Collabera has such a system which is more advanced, automated and efficient than anything I have seen or even heard about. When I learned about it, I was glad, but also wondered why they had to create their own, why everyone doesn't demand such a system?
Is There an HRP Problem?
Yes. All you have to do is think about people as though they were raw materials to be sourced for a factory, and ask basic questions like: what are our basic systems for sourcing the raw material (people) we need? How do we distinguish good sources from poor ones? When we encounter a batch of new material (a candidate), what are our systems to assure the material meets our standards and will perform? What steps do we take to turn the raw material we acquire into finished goods (an effective, trained, reliable employee)?
Putting metaphors aside, I have personally been involved in the chaotic process of identifying, selecting and hiring people with programming and software management skills for years, and the process has remained catch-as-catch-can for decades!
In most places, the HR people somehow identify candidates essentially using keyword match methods that focus on the most incidental aspects of programming, like what language you've used most recently. If you were burned even more than usual with your most recent hire, you may bump up the experience and/or degree requirements, but that's about it. Then you may do phone interviews and in-person interviews, but those often amount to little more than verbal resume recitations and get-to-know-you chats. Some big companies like Google think they're being smart by giving people trick puzzles to solve, but those tend to be jokes.
I remember on my very first job out of college, I quickly ended up interviewing all programming candidates because somehow my boss had decided I was a good interviewer. I have no idea why — I was just winging it — but then so was he, and at least I wrote up notes!
So I would say, yes, there is a major HRP "opportunity."
Why Isn't HRP Ubiquitous?
I've often wondered about this. I think the answer is related to other long-standing mysteries like why does the software in certain industries (like health care) severely lag behind software in other industries? I think (pure speculation here) that the answer has to do with the degree of technical focus (i.e. nerdiness) of the management, and how "hard" (quantitative) the success measures are. For example, medicine is all about people and there are loads of tough-to-quantify aspects of their health, while manufacturing is all about making things, and nearly everything about it is easily measured. So software and automation has a hard time making headway in medicine, while it's table stakes in manufacturing.
Who is ultimately in charge of hiring people? Mostly, it's highly people-oriented HR types, and their business is even harder to quantify than medicine. You might think that when hiring programmers, getting interviewed by other programmers would be a great selection method, but particularly in large companies, it tends to be terrible! What else would you expect when non-people-oriented programmers are asked to perform this highly inter-personal task for which they have little talent and no training??
Everyone knows that interviewing programmers is tough, that only programmers are qualified to do it, and they're simply terrible at it.
What can be done about HRP?
I first realized that there were ways to make the hiring process better when I saw it actually done at a couple of Indian outsourcing companies. I noticed something was different when I attended a meeting and they would trot out the most important, prestigious person on their executive team: the head of HR! It didn't take long for the reality to sink in. As an outsourcing company, your main job is hiring and managing people better than the company you're outsourcing for. The whole reason outsourcing exists is that the client company does a terrible job finding, selecting, training and managing their people, particularly in IT and customer service. The outsourcing company has to do a better job, or the client company might as well in-source! Being real good at HR is life or death at an outsourcing company, so they tend to focus on it and apply systematic methods and automation.
Another Oak company, Sutherland Global Services, provides a great example of how an outsourcer can be better than its client at performing essential business functions (in their case customer service and various forms of BPO) through superior methods, HRP and automation. Among other things, these methods enable them to be truly "global" as their name says, for example shifting the mix of work among various locations including the US, Canada, the Philippines and India without wrenching dislocations.
Conclusion
In field after field, everyone is convinced that a certain job can only be done by a highly skilled human, a craftsman, an artist, a professional. There is outrage when automation is introduced. There are riots, and machines are destroyed. Eventually, however, the automation is so successful that is replaces or greatly aids the human.
Why shouldn't the process of selecting, training, placing and managing humans in those positions that (at least for now) require humans be subject to the same transformation? Not only can it be done — it is being done. The startling growth and success of Sutherland illustrates the practical impact of applying system and automation to human resources, and demonstrates that it can be done all over the globe. Collabera uses its innovative and effective HRP methods to hire people who often work alongside and intermingle with "regular" employees of Fortune 500 companies; their methods make such a difference that their clients keep coming back for more, as shown by their admirable growth rate.
Everyone involved in hiring knows it can be done better. It's only a matter of time before human resource automation becomes a widespread practice.
