Processed Meat

Know the term HR process? It’s a euphemism for the wacky dance created just for job seekers.Throw your resume at an online posting, get phone screened, interview with a few dozen people – and then – God willing – you’re hired!

My idea? Change the term HR Process for purposes of accuracy to HR Paralysis. It’s a more apt description of churning through the corporate casting mill. Seems to me HR’s completely forgotten it’s purpose. People. In jobs. Moving the business forward.

HR Paralysis goes like this.

Step 1. Submit resume online.

Step 2. Wait  2-3 months

Step 3. Get a phone screen (oh you lucky thing – made the first cut!).

Step 4. Wait 2-3 months.

Step 5. Get an in-person interview with your ‘direct-report-to -be’. Woohoo!

Step 6. Wait 2-3 months.

Step 7. Meet with the VP Grand Poopah, in charge of everything.

Step 8. Wait 2-3 months.

Step 9. They don’t want you for the job you applied for, now they want you for another job that’s being created by a reorganization.

Step 10. Wait 2-3 months.

Step 11. Meet with new direct-report-to-be.

Step 12. Wait 2-3 months.

Step lucky 13! You got the job! (None of your competitors were still around. One even graduated from the planet).

Zut Alors! What to do?

Let’s put an action-packed process back into hiring. A recent study revealed that internal trust in HR had dropped from 70% to 46% in 3 MONTHS! Apparently the guys on the inside waiting for a new addition to Planet IT aren’t impressed. Nor are the marketing dudes who desperately need a researcher. Everyone’s measured on delivery.

Where are the progressive HR people who’ve noticed they’re running around a pony track – busy, busy, busy – hiring fewer people, over a longer period of time, reflecting less productivity?

C’mon stand up and be counted! I want to hear from you, the HR futurists. You folks who’ve noticed that service stinks as regards hiring – not because there aren’t jobs, no, no, no – but because of that insidious phenomenon, HR Paralysis. I’ll bet you know what remedies there are and can get things moving.

Jody Phillips