Dear Workforce How Do We Persuade Management to Spend Money on Data Integrity for Recruiting, Hiring

Dear Not Winning Them Over:

 

If you want support for your initiative, tie it to business-success indicators. Consider that your top executives are not particularly concerned with how well you perform recruiting functions and report headcount, overtime and turnover. But they are interested in improving profitability, productivity and other bottom-line outcomes. Redefining yourselves as talent solution experts, instead of recruiters, may help you think creatively about how your expertise could more directly benefit the business.

If you can use your expertise to solve a productivity deficiency, for example, by reducing turnover, improving the quality of new hires or reducing time-to-hire—and you are able to quantify the resulting improvement in productivity—you have a much stronger case for investing in your work group.

To win approval, you must first demonstrate how your ability to acquire high-quality people leads to measurable increases in client profitability, efficiency and customer service. Second, gain credibility by implementing solutions with results that delight your clients, and document your impact on the bottom line. Third, develop your proposal for obtaining financial support to include a promise to return a substantial benefit to the business as measured by management.

If you do all these well, it will be very easy for management to see the value of your proposal and give you the resources you need. Do them poorly, or skip a step, and you will most likely be perceived as simply one more overhead function requesting capital that could otherwise be invested in revenue-generating activities—a tough sell regardless of your persuasion skills.

SOURCE: Kevin Herring, Ascent Management Consulting, Oro Valley, Arizona, December 18, 2007

LEARN MORE: Many companies struggle with incomplete data when hiring or recruiting.

The information contained in this article is intended to provide useful information on the topic covered, but should not be construed as legal advice or a legal opinion. Also remember that state laws may differ from the federal law.