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| Sunday, 27 March 2005 |
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Business |
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News Business Features
Editorial
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Head hunting - attracting talented staff by a special correspondent A relatively unknown method of recruiting top talent, head hunting, was introduced to Sri Lanka around 20 years ago. This was the most effective means of attracting talented staff, a method which has been in vogue internationally for over fifty years. The pioneer who broke through the barriers of conservertism was the principal consultant and managing director of Executive Search Limited and Aims (Appointments of international management Specialists), Fayaz Saleem. It was an interesting experience discussing with Fayaz Saleem his thought on this mode of recruitment which has now caught up in Sri Lankan and keeps growing at an appreciable pace. Head hunting is a process of exciting people who are happy and contented with their work are not on the look out for a change in employment. Such attend executives would be reluctant to forward their CV in response to an advertisement. However they are also the best available and would motivate an immediate enhancement of performance if they can be tempted to take up a new position. Major change The performance of an organisation is not dependent on the number of people within the organisation but rather upon the availability of talented people in position of driving the organisation forward, Saleem said. This has caused a major change in strategy in the recruitment of staff and companies have to market themselves as being attractive to potential employees. Organisations have to be on the look out for talent all the time and not only when vacancies occur. Even their compensation packages must be ignored when they need to get a talented executive. Recruiting has now become a marketing oriented function unlike one where a person could be purchased for an attractive wage. During earlier times employees look at a long stay, maybe 25 to 30 years with a good retirement benefit and climbing the corporate ladder steadily. Today the situation is quite different; it is more a five-year horizon with the culture of the company and an exciting and challenging business being more attractive. A flexible organisation is preferable to a traditional corporate hierarchy. A linkage between wealth in relation to value created would be the guiding factor today, he said. Companies today spend a lot of effort to make them marketable with a culture that is open, trusting and happy. The earlier notion that "people are our most important asset" is not quite acceptable today. All employees are not equally capable and companies invest differently accordingly to the capabilities of the different staff. Short-term commitment People are essentially mobile and their commitment is short-term. Many young managers with a good level of education and pleasing personalities to match are passive job seekers. They are open to new ideas but would not normally respond to a published advertisement but would rather prefer to be hunted, Saleem said. The process of head hunting is not firmly established in Sri Lanka and companies have accepted that if they need to perform well they need to recruit talented people and to do so they must be attractive to those whom they seek to recruit, people do not need companies, it is the companies that need talented people. Talented people who were happy, contented and high performing were excited by Fayaz Saleem with new propositions and the image of the client companies which he represented and accepted a change which they would never have done so otherwise. However, a regular response which he receives from excited executive is
"I am not looking"! from where did you get my name! The process of head
hunting involves continuous research of high performing people. |
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Editorial | Security | Produced by Lake House |
