During World War II, Winston Churchill said "He who fails to plan is planning to fail". The project management community have adopted this quote as their own which is understandable given the importance of effective planning in their profession. Whilst we cannot all claim to be professional project managers, we are all managing projects every day in our personal and working lives. A project is a temporary activity with a start date, specific goals and conditions, defined responsibilities, a fixed end date and multiple parties involved.
My point is that although we may not label activities as projects, many of them fit the definition but because they are not necessarily referred to as projects the basics disciplines are often ignored, including planning.
Typically, when I go to see a new client, I’m ushered into an office, given a cup of coffee and after the initial pleasantries, my new client gets straight into telling me about the position they are looking to fill and the type of individual they are looking for. I don’t expect my client to show me a project plan but I’m keen to understand what level of planning has been done. At best the planning is incomplete and at worst, the crucial planning phase has been missed all together.
Most organisations I work with insist on tight project controls for all projects that run, even on small projects where project budgets may be as small as £10k or even less. When you consider the costs involved in making a hire, £10k can pale into insignificance when you add up the direct and indirect hiring costs, remuneration costs and most importantly the cost to the business if a bad hiring decision is made.
As the supplier of services, a plan is very important to me because I want to set realistic expectations with my client, particularly with regards to timescales. But a hiring plan is even more important for the hiring company. The only reason to hire anyone is for improved business results. If the new perspective employee does not contribute to improved business results then I would question the reason to make the hire. This sounds obvious but you would be amazed how often this is not properly thought through. I realise that the business results are not always easy to quantify but they are vitally important, otherwise it becomes pretty difficult to build a business case for a hire. Projects don’t usually get off the ground unless there is a compelling business case and as we’ve already discussed, this is a project.
At Lauder Beaumont Associates, we produce a Hiring Initiation Document for all of our search assignments. This prompts for the key planning information critical to the success of any hiring project. It includes details of the improved business results sought, remuneration details, a business case, details of the sourcing and interview approach, details of who will be involved in the hiring process, sign-off and authorisations, plus a plan containing tasks and timescales.
Perhaps this sounds arduous and even a little over the top. The risk of not planning effectively is failure and that can be very damaging and expensive. A little effort planning now will pay dividends down the line.
