Answers to Questions Regarding Lean Recruiting!

Learn what Henry Ford Health System did to improve recruiting performance.

Two weeks ago, Barb Matti, Director of Employment for Henry Ford Health System, facilitated a webinar regarding their recruitment organization’s “Lean, Transformation Journey”.

It was our most well attended webinar of the season with over 450 attendees! Because of time, we could not answer all the questions from interested participants.

Barb was gracious to answer the questions outlined below.

If you want to view the webinar – click here

I hope you’re having a Perfect Day!


It sounds like it was a mix of strategies to achieve your successes (new ATS, jobs2web and LEAN initiative)...but would you say was the biggest single contributor to the success thus far?


It really was a package deal. Doing the LEAN hiring process improvements without the new ATS and advanced Sourcing technology would not have worked. I would recommend you start with the LEAN review which helps identify the problem areas and things like technology will quickly service as contributors to success as well!


Was there a consultant who you worked with during this initiative?

We did look at metrics and staffing resource planning development with David Szary from LEAN Human Capital when we implemented the organizational model. The ATS and new hiring process implementations were all done in-house. David also helped with providing information on what other companies may/may not be doing as we were benchmarking along the way.


What do your Sourcing Specialists do if their job family is light on requisitions?

They assist the Talent Selection Specialist with screening and phone interviewing. They will also help with other job families and continue efforts on building networks for their own assigned areas. They help support the interview blitz days in partnership with the TSS and Hiring Managers.


I know you routed fewer candidates to the hiring manager. But did recruiting end up screening fewer candidates as well? If so, how did you do that?

Yes. Talent Selection became more intentional on what and where they were posting. Having a focused posting strategy defined by an intake with the hiring manager is critical. We also built more robust screening questions in the ATS to help identify and screen out anyone who we do not think is best qualified – meeting both requirements and preferences as defined by the conversation during the intake.


Do you have service level agreements around the availability of hiring managers for interviews?

We have an SLA with hiring managers – however, shared accountability is a challenge that will never go away and the culture has not adapted to this practice consistently. Regular communication is the key and that starts with a clear well defined intake session so expectations are set from the beginning.


Is the On-Boarding Agent the main (only) contact for the candidate? How does the process work from the candidate’s standpoint?

The On-Boarding Agent is the only contact from the point of offer to start. Once the offer is accepted, the On-Boarding Agent contacts the candidate and they are given clear direction on what will be taking place and what is needed from them as it relates to pre-employment screening, background checks, benefits information, orientation enrollment, etc. The candidate meets with the On-Boarding Agent before they start to take care of things like the I9.


Did the Recruiters find the job more interesting when you removed some tasks (onboarding, sourcing, etc.)?

Yes, specifically this freed the Talent Selection team up to be more of a strategic partner to their managers and provide a higher touch candidate experience.


How is the Sourcer’s performance evaluated? What metrics do you track for them?

This has been a work in progress. We use source tracking, the number of resumes routed to Talent Selection, quality of candidate survey feedback, and social networking utilization. We are currently working with our ATS vendor to try and define a sourcing scorecard to follow candidates they have sourced through the workflow and link them to interviews/hires.


How does your requisition approval process work? Do you have any challenges with it?

Requisition approval is done through the ATS. This was one of the biggest challenges before we implemented the new system. We have multiple BUs with different approval committees. However, we were able to identify a process and it is automated. The automation helped to minimize the number of days jobs were sitting with managers because the approval flow is all real-time and can be viewed by the submitting manager and Talent Selection so we can see what is pending approval.


How do you separate sourcing req’s from EEO tracking obligations?

Applicants who apply to the Sourcing reqs are also subject to the EEO tracking requirements. We have a process in which the applicants from the sourcing reqs are eventually linked to an active req.


Do you survey hiring managers regarding quality of hire after 45 days (IE – 6 months, 1 year)?

We do not currently but plan to add a 6 month time frame next year.


In your model, who schedules the candidate interview with the hiring manager? Who makes the offers?

The managers schedule their interviews and in most cases TS makes the offer.


How do you function with such a small # of Sourcers considering all the different talent pipelines that need to be developed in healthcare?

We tweaked the model over the last two years and don’t feel this is small. We have the right mix to support the different needs of our organization. You have to define what Sourcing is and which job families really need sourcing and that becomes the focus of the job. Sourcers are not assigned to all jobs.


At what point do the Sourcers hand the candidate off to the Talent Specialist? Do the Sourcers make offers?

Sourcing will do the initial outreach to pre-screen and will do phone interviews. Once a candidate is pre-qualified, they are routed to the TS through the ATS. Sourcers are not involved in the offer process.