Recruiting the right people for your change

There are so many elements to consider when recruiting your change team. We have written about the resourcing models and the things to consider when looking at resourcing your change team but what about the recruitment process. You can go through the motions, advertise, interview, appoint. And the more you do it maybe the better you will get at it. After all that has some sense of legitimacy in its approach, after all practice makes perfect doesn't it? Well I am here to tell you that practice in fact doesn't make perfect. In fact repetition alone will not guarantee success, and when you are recruiting for a major transformation you need a strategy to make it work.

So here are the key tips to consider

1. Be clear on the role your team plays in the organisation: There is a difference between recruiting for a team who is a 'Centre of Excellence' and focuses on coaching ways of working as opposed to a team who is supporting delivery. And then there is the hybrid approach which does both. If you are clear on the role your team will be playing then you will be clearer on both the skills needed as well as be able to communicate that effectively in the interviews.

2. Be open to different industry backgrounds: One of the best pieces of advice ever given to me from a manager was to get experience across industries. And she was right. Throughout my career the various industries I have worked in generate transferable skills and broad experience allows value to be added on every transformation I have worked.  Now I wouldn't have had those opportunities if leaders had dismissed my resume because of those industries.  When reviewing resumes I consider one or two of the things - has the person delivered something similar but in a different industry

3. Consider stakeholder involvement in the interview process: Even better get the stakeholders they are going to work with to be part of the interview process. It baffles me as to why that wouldn't be a preferred option where you are 'allocating' resource to that area. Including the stakeholders in the decision making process as well then means if it doesn't work out then it would 

4. Matching change managers to business area cultures: When you have change practitioners or team members who are facilitating change for a particular business area you may wish to consider matching the person to the team culture. And also know that if you are in a large organisation, it is worth not aligning people to Portfolio's but rather have your change people support various business areas. That way they get exposure to many areas of the business which will assist them in bringing an enterprise view for stakeholders who may work in their vertical business area and have very little knowledge of other areas!

5. Recruit for inclusion and diversity - consciously: I had a very interesting conversation with a colleague about how we do this. To create a high performing team, you require individuals who have a similar value system, however you require diversity in various ways. Gender, cultural background, neuro diversity are some of the more obvious ways. It can be challenging when people talk about recruiting the best person for the job. And you may have the point of tension with the business who has a fixed mindset about the type of person they need. There is no formula for this, but as you recruit keep it top of mind to consider the team diversity requirements.

So these are just 5 tangible ways you can improve your recruitment process. If this is of interest, we also talked about it on Next Level Change success, so you can also listen to how I approach it here.