Timely Hiring In Public Sector Organizations
By Bob Lavigna:IPMA-HR Benchmarking Committee Chairperson
Timely hiring is a key issue in public sector human resource management. As the supply of available workers continues to decline, the battle for talent will become even more intense. Therefore, public agencies must develop approaches to quickly hire well-qualified people. Old approaches that rely on time-consuming, paper-based and bureaucratic methods will no longer allow government to compete for talent.
The 2000/2001 IPMA-HR/NASPE benchmarking survey identified several categories of “best practice” approaches public sector organizations in the United States are using to improve hiring speed. Organizations using these approaches reported that they can hire new employees in a matter of days.
The list below shows the number of days it takes these organizations (on average, unless shown otherwise) to provide hiring managers with a list of qualified candidates:
Arizona 4 days*
Nebraska 10
Sedgwick County, KS 10
Washington County, MN 14 City of Sarasota, FL 15 Salt Lake City Corporation, UT 18
Alaska 21 City of Charlotte, NC 21 Idaho 21 Illinois 21 City of Olympia, WA 10** City of Spartanburg, SC 14** Wisconsin 14**
*Maintains continuous lists **Under best circumstances
The organizations use a variety of methods to hire quickly. These approaches,
summarized below, include decentralized hiring; on-line, continuous application; flexible certification; immediate hiring; elimination of residency requirements; faster applicant screening mechanisms; and aggressive recruiting.
Decentralized hiring
Some organizations have improved hiring speed by decentralizing hiring activity and authority. Instead of the central HR office performing hiring tasks, operating agencies do this work and they do it faster. For example, in Arizona the central HR office creates statewide policies and maintains the state’s applicant tracking system, but agencies generate their own lists and screen candidates. Similarly, the City of Charlotte’s HR department collects résumés and applications, but then forwards them to the hiring manager. In Nebraska, the HR department screens for minimum qualifications, and then refers all qualified candidates to the hiring agency.
On-line, continuous application
To improve their ability to provide more timely and user-friendly hiring systems, public agencies are using on-line application systems. Several public agencies accept
applications on line for most or all vacancies [Alaska and the South Florida Water Management District (SFWMD), for example]. Candidates provide all requested information on line. This approach has enabled these organizations to hire quickly. The SFWMD, for example provides hiring managers with lists of qualified candidates in three days, on average. The “Workplace Alaska” on-line system includes all state government vacancies and allows state agencies to fill positions in days.
The State of Arizona accepts applications and résumés on line anytime (24 hours a day, 7 days a week), scans them into a database and then produces candidate lists on demand from this database. The state continually accepts résumés and adds them to the database. As a result, the state generates lists of qualified candidates in 4 days, on average. The State of Nebraska’s on-line system allows applicants to update information already in the database – the most current application automatically updates information submitted earlier for other positions.
Sedgwick County, Kansas has created an alliance -- "HR Partners" -- with nine other local governments to post and maintain job openings, inform applicants of benefits, and produce lists of job applicants. It also provides a single site for applicants to review job openings for the HR Partners members, enter application information, attach résumé data and link their applications to multiple job openings across the various agencies. HR Partners is a key to Sedgwick County’s timely hiring success – providing hiring managers with lists of qualified candidates in 8-10 days, on average.
Faster ways to screen candidates
To many, government hiring is associated with lengthy written exams, followed by lengthy waiting periods while candidates are scored and given a numerical rank. Now, however, many public jurisdictions are using faster ways to screen candidates. The City of Sarasota, FL, for example, requires applicants to submit résumés, just like the city’s private sector competitors. City staff then conducts telephone interviews to assess qualifications and identify the best qualified.
The states of Idaho and Wisconsin allow candidates to complete self-assessment instruments for certain positions. These applicants are then assessed against job
qualifications. In Illinois, for certain health care positions, the “test” is whether or not a candidate has a state license. If so, the candidate is eligible for an interview.
Flexible certification
Of course, more timely screening approaches like those described above are possible only if the jurisdiction has flexibility to determine the number of candidates who can be
certified (i.e., eligible for interviews). This is not possible in systems where the “rule of 3” or the “rule of 5” apply. In these jurisdictions, all candidates must be ranked to determine who the top 3 or 5 are. This can be a time-consuming process.
To speed hiring and provide larger numbers of well-qualified candidates with interview opportunities, many jurisdictions have eliminated arbitrary restrictions on the number of qualified candidates who can be interviewed.
These approaches range from relatively rigid (Idaho certifies the top 10 plus all ties) to very flexible (Wisconsin negotiates with the each hiring agency to decide how many candidates to certify). Other approaches include:
• No maximum, but a minimum of 3 (Arizona);
• No limits at all (Nebraska); and
• Sorting candidates into bands or zones (“ABC grades” – Illinois).
Shorter application periods/Immediate hiring
Another approach to speed-up hiring is to shorten application periods or, in some cases, immediately interview candidates and make job offers. Two jurisdictions – the City of Charlotte, NC and the State of Washington – often accept applications only for one week. Qualified candidates are then referred immediately to hiring managers. Of course, this approach does not work for all vacancies (e.g., it is probably not appropriate for national searches) but can be a very timely approach for local recruitments.
Several jurisdictions -- including Wisconsin -- have implemented immediate job offer processes for some hard-to-fill jobs. HR and hiring managers work together to develop quick screening processes they administer at job fairs, on campus, etc. Hiring managers then conduct immediate interviews of qualified candidates, and can make immediate job offers (or at least contingent job offers) to the best-qualified candidates.
No residency requirements
In many public jurisdictions, new hires must be, or become, residents of the hiring jurisdiction. Other jurisdictions are even more demanding -- applicants must be
pool of qualified candidates. To address this, and improve the quality of candidates, jurisdictions have eliminated residency requirements. Public organizations, in our sample, without residency requirements include Sarasota, Florida; SFWMD; Idaho; Washington County, Minnesota; and Wisconsin.
Aggressive recruiting
Last, but certainly not least, public organizations are recruiting aggressively to attract enough qualified candidates to make good hires. While extensive recruiting can add time to the recruiting process, good recruiting can also improve hiring speed by attracting enough qualified candidates to make a good hire the first time around.
Public organizations are recruiting on the web (using their own sites and commercial recruitment sites), hiring full-time recruiters, expanding their recruitment to regional and even national media, and communicating directly with organizations that are good sources of candidates. Nebraska, for example, sends a weekly job opportunities listing to over 835 organizations that are potential sources of candidates. The Salt Lake City Corporation routinely mails, emails and faxes job announcements to over 100 colleges, universities, and other agencies.
Sedgwick County, KS, as described above, has created a recruiting partnership with nine local governments that has dramatically expanded the scope of the County’s recruiting.
Agency Contact Information: State of Arizona
Linda Herold
451 South State Street Phoenix , AZ 85007 Tel: (602) 542 4507 linda.herold@ad.state.az.us State of Alaska Nicki Neal PO Box 110201 Juneau, AK 99811 Tel: (907) 465-5438 nicki_neal@dced.state.ak.us State of Nebraska Jeannie O’ Meara P.O Box 95061 Lincoln, NE 68509-5061 Tel: (402) 471-4460 jomeara@notes.state.ne.us City of Charlotte Joan Perez 600 East 4th Street Charlotte, NC 28202 Wichita, KS 67203 Tel: (704) 336-6005 jperez@ci.charlotte.nc.us Sedgwick County Mike Mueller 510 N. Main Suite 306 Tel: (316) 383-7288 mmueller@sedgwick.gov State of Idaho Ann Hielman 700 State Street Boise, ID 83720 Tel: (208) 334-2263 aheilman@dhr.state.id.us
Washington County Judy Honmyhr 14949 62nd Street North Stillwater, MN 55082-0066 Tel: (651) 430-6075 judy.honmyhr@co.washington.mn.us State of Illinois W. Phillip Hinds 401 S. Spring Springfield, IL 62706 Tel: (217) 782-4643 phil_hinds@cms.state.il.us City of Sarasota William A. Campbell PO Box 1058 Sarasota, FL 34230—1058 Tel: (941) 954—4139 William_Campbell@sarasotagov.com City of Spartanburg James Hemphill P. O. Drawer 1749 Spartanburg, SC 29304 Tel: (864) 596- 2101 jhemphill@cityofspartanburg.org
Salt Lake City Corporation Kirk Anderson
451 South State Street Salt Lake City, UT 84111 Tel: (801) 535-6010
kirk.anderson@ci.slc.ut.us
Wisconsin Department of Employment Relations
Michael Soehner
345 West Washington Ave Madison, WI 53702 Tel: (608)-267-9462
michael.soehner@der.state.wi.us
Washington State Department of Personnel Dorothy Gerard PO Box 47500 Olympia, WA 98504 Tel: (360) 664-6343 dorothyg@dop.wa.gov
