neorecruitermom

In the HR field, having the ability to see both sides of an argument is a very valuable skill.  Unfortunately, it can also lead to an inability to come to a decision and/or quite a bit of internal conflict.

And being who I am, I not only experience this within my professional life, but my personal one as well.  Sigh….the hazards of being empathetic….but I digress…

It has become very fashionable in recruiting to focus on acquiring “Top Talent”, which makes obvious sense, right?

Most famously, GE among other companies, operated under what is known as a “Vitality Curve” or in other words, a “Rank and Yank” talent management model.

This means they consider 20% of their employee population “Top Talent”, 70% to be average, and 10% to be bottom performers.  And every year they go through and fire the bottom 10%.

Theoretically, this makes a lot of sense; sort of a corporate version of Darwinism.

But the problem is, what if you have an employee that has been a valued team member, solidly average, that’s been around for 10 years or more?  And one particular year they experience a bunch of personal problems—death in the family, divorce, etc?  Does that employee deserve to be fired for having one underperforming year?

As a professional Recruiter, it would make sense that if one were looking to grow professionally, he or she would want to gain a reputation for possessing the ability to attract the best talent out there….Duh.

BUT…

Sometimes we have to recruit for a job that is, shall we say, less than glamorous.

For example, what do you do if you have to fill a job for a commercial housekeeper?  You know, the person that’s going to have to clean the bathrooms in the office (including when the dirtball scumbags have the intestinal flu and decide it is beneath their dignity to flush after themselves), dig the food out of the sink drains, and empty the stinky garbage cans that have been locked inside the vacationing executive’s office for the last 2 weeks.

Is “Top Talent” going to be content, fulfilled, and satisfied with a position changing garbage can liners?  And if they do accept the position to get a foot in the door with your company, how quickly will he or she either post into another position and/or quit to take something else????

Plus, more selfishly, if your underperforming employee happens to be the employee with the crappy job, but they show up every day and generally get it done, I beg you from the Recruiter’s point of view—Please don’t fire them!  That means we then have to find someone else that is going to be happy doing that crappy job, plus instead of focusing on hiring a more prominent, high profile hire, we have to devote time and energy to the crappy job.  “I’m sorry, Mr. VP of Marketing.  Your Social Media Director position is going to have to wait, because as you can see, the garbage around here is really starting to get piled up and stinky.”  Not exactly a conversation we relish having.

So anyway, if you are going to be the commercial housekeeper, by all means, be the best possible commercial housekeeper you can be.  I am certainly not casting any aspersions on that line of work.  All I am saying is that organizations need to realize that there is a happy medium; there has to be some sort of balance.  Don’t be so focused on acquiring “Top Talent” for every single, solitary position. 

Be reasonable and do what makes sense.  Use your recruiting resources appropriately.

I’m just sayin’….