THE BUSINESS REVIEW FOR PROCUREMENT LEADERS
by Betsy Harrington
While many companies talk about wanting to be an "employer of choice", rather fewer do the things necessary to make it happen. Yet in today's competitive business and employment markets, attracting and retaining top talent is more critical than ever.
At BHP Billiton, we have a stated aim of being the "supply employer of choice". Why? Because for us to deliver the performance excellence and increasing value contribution our company expects, we have to have the best people. We are fortunate in having an excellent reputation, which means that people want to work for us. Nevertheless, the massive expansion in the mining industry has led to some significant challenges for us in recruiting, especially in some of our remote locations.
Like many procurement functions, we don't have an expansive candidate pool of high-calibre, results-focused professionals to fish from, so we are having to be quite creative to secure talent. Here's my suggestions on becoming an employer of choice:
1. Develop and deploy a formal people strategy
Our five-year people strategy addresses all the key components of attracting
and retaining talent - competency assessment, training and development,
succession planning, and so on. Unless you formalise that and work closely
with your HR colleagues to make sure it's tied in to the company's
processes, it won't happen.
2. Focus on job enrichment and development
You can't be an employer of choice if your people are leaving! The thing
that keeps talented people with companies for years, rather than months, is
not money (although you need to pay market-competitive rates), it's being
able to work on things they love most of the time and the opportunities to
develop, plus the degree of connection they have with the company's values.
3. Hire a diversity of people
I want people who bring a diversity of thought, experience, culture and personality.
Every new hire should raise the intellectual quotient and be smarter than
us at something. I need some people with mining industry experience, but
we've hired people recently from automotive, chemicals, financial services
and the food industry. They bring a different perspective.
4. Market internally and externally
Internally, it's about developing a network among your stakeholders and
putting out targeted messages about what your people are doing to add value.
Externally, it's about being selective about the events you and your
colleagues accept invitations to, for example, and the topics you speak about.
In each case, you want people to think: "These guys are great, I want
to work there."
5. Engage proactively in talent reviews
You can let decisions about how people are deployed happen to you, or you can
engage in your company's process in a proactive way. To be a supply
employer of choice I need people moving in and (itals) out of the function.
So I've got to make sure we are well connected to the other talent
pools in the organisation - whether it's finance, engineering
or IT - where our people might go and where I might get people from.
6. Manage performance
Top talent want to work with other high performers. Recognise people that deliver
results and performance manage the rest. You need to agree targets with people
and help them to hit them. But if someone is not performing, you have to
do something about that. It doesn't necessarily mean firing them; a
lot of the time it just means reassessing the jobs they are in.
7. Be a leader, not a manager
As a CPO, it's easy to get dragged into doing administrative management.
You've got to make a conscious decision to get out there and talk to
people, inspire them and create a sense of excitement and adventure about your
function.
8. Have some fun
Without humour, the chances of you being able to do 1-7 are pretty minimal.
Part of being an employer of choice is about loving what you do and being
a fun place to work, as well as delivering results. If I hear people laughing
I'm thrilled - it means they are having a good time here.
As CPOs we'll know we've succeeded in making our function an employer
of choice when top business school graduates are vying for supply and procurement
jobs at our companies. Perceptions are starting to change, but many of these
people still don't understand what we do. It's up to us to open
their eyes.
