So you have been interviewing candidates throughout your career and you’re now set up for the top role in your domain – Head of Human Resources. Here are some of the questions that you may be faced with. Read them and you should be able to answer yourself if you’re there yet.
How do you attract and retain talent?
That’s an easy one to answer. As part of your role in your career, you have recruited hundreds of people – through internal resources, references, job hunts, through consultants who have head hunted for you or grabbed people from competition. The key lies in answering how you have attracted talent to your company. Why have people chosen to even apply for the organisation you’re hiring for? Is it the perks, a higher salary or a great brand? Focus on how you’ve contributed in making your organisation a better place to work. More importantly, how have you communicated this to someone who is not part of your organisation yet?
Retaining talent is a great skill and it takes a cohesive effort from everyone in the organisation to ensure that the retention rates are high. Various studies have shown that over 60% of resignations happen due to dissatisfaction from the reporting boss. Have you ensured appropriate controls to check if people are happy with their reporting bosses? A comprehensive and unbiased 360 degree feedback mechanism goes a long way in ensuring that people can voice their opinions against their superiors. Have appropriate measures and not only you will be able to hire great talent, but also keep your attritions rates in check. The Great Places to Work trophy won’t be too far away.
What’s the cost of Training and Development? How do you ensure that employees are adequately trained?
The question is not asking about the policy. That’s again an easy one to answer looking at the budget. The question is whether you have a defined policy around Training and Development of employees. How far have you been able to get the people in the training rooms and what’s the cost per employee of training. Usually, companies have a fixed requirement of training hours per year (e.g. 40 hours of training every year). An average US company spends USD 1210 per employee over 30 hours in a year. In India, this number is around INR 25,000 over 50 hours in a year. Though these numbers vary significant across industries, do you have your number on your fingertips? You must also be able to tell what percentage of people were able to meet the annual training hours’ requirements.
By the way, if you haven’t been able to meet these numbers, you need to gear up and get training consultants and internal experts on board immediately.
Not only should attending training have a role in the annual appraisals, people should be encouraged to train as well. Make this count and you will soon have the statistics shot up. Of course, your answer to the interviewer will be easier.
How do you address the gender diversity agenda?
They’re simply asking how do you ensure that there can be more women in workplace – specially leadership positions. Globally, there is a serious push towards including women in workplaces. McKinsey predicted that enhancing women’s equality can add $12 trillion to global growth. In India, by including more women in workplaces can contribute up to $700 billion to Indian GDP by 2025. It is important that you take an active role to systemically enhance women’s role in the organisation. Create a pipeline and ample opportunities for women. Focus on women’s safety, provide perks (such as enhanced maternity leave, crèche at work place, flexi working hours such as work from home options). Make them heard, ask women how they could improve the senior leadership pipeline. Set the gender diversity target and measure the progress towards the targets by using clear metrics. Count the number of women at all levels and in all areas of business.