By: Aggie Alvarez | Caliper

*This article was featured in our April 2020 Wisconsin Independent Agent Magazine. Click here to read the full April 2020 issue. 

Do you have enough talent to help you achieve your business goals? 

Do you have enough volume to support your growth? These questions are the reason that having a strategic hiring plan is so important.

The new year is a great time to reflect and set new goals for your organization. Your people are an integral component in your ability to achieve those goals, so it’s crucial to evaluate the climate of your workforce. Do you have enough talent to help you achieve your business goals? Do you have enough volume to support your growth? These questions are the reason that having a strategic hiring plan is so important.

Anticipate Workforce Needs

In order to create a hiring plan, you need to assess your current workforce. You want to consider both the quality and quantity of your workforce. The quality of the workforce is reflective of how your employees are rated on their current performance and future potential, whereas the quantity of the workforce measures the numerical impact of new hires, employee turnover, and internal promotions.

There are a number of ways to get a sense of your current employees’ knowledge, skills, and abilities. You can reference old resumes to identify training and certifications that may not be utilized in an employee’s current role. You can discover your employees’ hidden talents, hobbies, and passions through simply having regular conversations with them. Performance reviews are also a great resource to find employees that are performing outside of their scope and are ready to take on more responsibility. In fact, evaluating performance and identifying career advancement opportunities for your employees is crucial to keeping them and creating long-term success.

Ask yourself: how many employees do you typically need to replace in a given year? Do you have a plan in place for turnover? Not only do you need to think about the new positions you anticipate needing to fill, but there will also be departures and promotions for which you’ll need to be prepared as well. Plan ahead of time, so you aren’t taken by surprise and are  rushing to fill critical gaps later.

Identify the Gaps

By now you should have a clear snapshot of how your company’s workforce will look throughout the year. But, there’s a second aspect that has a major impact on hiring plans: Annual business goals. Leadership will set a course for the year, whether that be to launch a new product, add a new department, or increase sales. Any major objectives for the year might have an effect on your talent acquisition strategy.

Key questions for the HR department when crafting a hiring plan include:

Does the company have the right talent for the year’s business strategy?

Where can I anticipate skills gaps in order to meet company objectives?

But, plan your talent strategy carefully. When putting together your hiring plan, focus on the activities and elements that aim to improve your quality of hire rather than to receive as many applicants as possible. Here are some examples of these types of activities:

• Revamp your job descriptions. Poorly written job descriptions can attract candidates that are the wrong fit and deter qualified candidates from applying. Effective job descriptions should be able to give a complete picture of what a candidate needs to possess to be successful in the role.

• Fine-tune your sourcing channels. Job boards and staffing agencies account for nearly half of sourcing spend but yield only 35% of applicants. Reevaluate that spend and strategy and shift your focus to the sourcing channels that are driving the largest pool of applicants.

• Implement an employee referral program. Employee referrals are not only the shortest time to hire and onboard, but they also improve quality of hire. Who better to know the best cultural fit for your company than your own employees?

By implementing these activities, you can attract applicants that have the right knowledge and skill set. You want to be able to confidently select the candidates that are the best fit for both the job role and your company.

Personality assessments are one of the best tools for determining candidate fit. After all, 82 percent of companies are using some form of pre-employment assessment. For example, Caliper’s assessment evaluates a number of competencies and behaviors including inclination to interact with peers and managers, attitude toward performance-related obstacles, and approaches to time management. The results are then measured against validated job models, which makes it easy for managers to see how well a candidate fits into the desired role and enables them to make better hiring decisions.

Resumes and interviews can give you a picture of how a candidate has performed in the past and the present, but they lack the clarity of how a candidate will perform in the future and for your company. Personality assessments are able to raise the predictability of success, which you can pair with resumes and interviews for a more well-rounded view of your candidates and can improve time to hire and quality of hire metrics.

Assess Your Acquisition Strategy

An important aspect of your acquisition and hiring process is to make sure those candidates you’ve selected will choose you in return. 

You’ll want to consider:

• Assessing your rewards and incentives programs. Is what you’re offering going to meet the expectations of your ideal candidates? If not, it could 

be difficult to attract and retain top talent.

• Implementing professional development plans. This is a key benefit that candidates search for in a company. Building professional development 

into your long-term success plan keeps employees on track and shows them that you want them to succeed.

• Evaluating your company culture. Having a strong company culture not only attracts highly qualified candidates, but also influences these individuals to stay with your company long term because they personally identify with the beliefs and attitudes. In fact, companies that actively manage their culture boast 40% higher retention.

The new year is a great time to assess your hiring plan and implement changes that will affect the long-term success of your company. However, 

it’s important to keep in mind that HR planning is an ongoing process and you should continue to evaluate your strategy as your organization and industry trends change.

For more information on the ways Caliper can help you find the best candidate fit for your company, reach out to our experts today to start building a better hiring plan.

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