Defining Staffing Implications: An Interview Guide
There are times when business plans or strategies simply don’t contain the clearly defined, detailed information that is needed to identify staffing issues and implications. Staffing profiles don’t exist, and there is no obvious information regarding staffing requirements. In such cases, the needed information can often be gathered quickly and efficiently by interviewing the line managers and planners who were responsible for creating the plans.
This section contains some hints that you can use in preparing for and conducting such interviews. In general terms, you will need to prepare by identifying current staff availability (both skills and staffing levels) for the manager’s unit. During the interview, discuss the manager’s business plans and objectives for the coming period, and then discuss the impact on required capabilities and staffing levels that implementing those plans will have. These discussions are also good opportunities to identify staffing issues, propose staffing strategies, and test the viability of staffing plans and actions.
Preparing for the Interview
Prepare for such an interview by learning about the manager’s business (if you don’t already know). Make sure that you are familiar with:
Services and products currently offered
Business objectives, strategies, plans, and unit performance measures (if any)
Longer-term changes in strategies and objectives
Once you are fully familiar with the nature of the unit’s business itself, define current staffing levels for the unit (in broad categories such as job family or management/nonmanagement) and the broad capabilities of each job category. Next, review the business plans for the unit in detail and identify and highlight any changes or aspects of the plan that you think might have staffing implications. You may even want to create a staffing issue crib list (or maybe even a little table) that identifies key business changes and suggests staffing implications for each change. You can also use this list during the interview to make sure that all issues are addressed. Staffing issues/implications might include the following:
Significant changes in business activity may affect staffing levels (e.g., through growth or contraction).
Major changes in products offered may imply changes in required capabilities (e.g., new technology may create a need in one area and a surplus of individuals with obsolete skills in another).
New services that may require skills that are currently unknown or undefined.
Plans may require you to recruit for skills that the company has not needed previously (e.g., it will take time to identify new sources or develop new selection criteria).
Implementation may require skills that are scarce or for which there is high competition among employers.
There may be instances in which the obvious or traditional solutions are no longer feasible (e.g., where training and development might normally be used, but would now take too long).
There may be instances in which the indirect impacts are as critical as any of the direct staffing needs that you define (e.g., changes in one job category may affect the number and type of staff needed in another category).
Identify and write down the staffing issues that you think are the most critical. Test each of these with the manager you are interviewing. Don’t just focus on these, however. Be prepared to supplement this list with issues that you did not identify prior to the session itself. If you have already identified possible solutions for some of these issues, document your suggestions clearly so that you can discuss them with the manager.
Finally, schedule the interview. Ideally, try to reserve an hour and a half with the manager. Realistically, make full use of whatever time you are offered.
Conducting the Session
During the interview itself, set your sights on identifying critical staffing issues (i.e., gaps or surpluses) and their implications. Initially, focus on problems, not possible solutions. Work to define the right question when you are presented with answers (e.g., when an interviewee says, “What we need to do is . . .,” get that manager to define the problem for which that approach is the solution). Try to stay focused on future issues and implications, not on the problems that the unit is currently facing (unless, of course, these are critical and can be expected to continue). Where necessary, ask follow-up questions to ensure that you fully understand the issues that are raised. Finally, get at least some input regarding priorities (e.g., by asking if the issue just discussed is more or less important than the one that was discussed previously).
It is often helpful to focus on change—how the business is changing. Change nearly always has staffing implications. Refer to the staffing drivers that are defined in Chapter 6 of this book. Remember that your objective is to define significant changes in required staffing levels, required capabilities, or both. Discuss possible solutions only after you have obtained some level of agreement regarding the issues that are to be faced.
In most cases, it is most effective to conduct these interviews with individual managers following a more general session in which the basic concepts regarding strategic staffing have been presented to a group of managers. In these situations, use the interview to obtain feedback on the process that is being proposed. If, however, no such general session is conducted, make sure during the interview that the manager fully understands the process that is being suggested.
Possible Interview Guide
Here is an outline of a guide that you can use to structure the interview itself.
Introduction/Stage Setting
Thank the person for taking the time to meet with you.
Give the person an overview of your project/objective (or ensure that the perspective of it that the person already has is accurate).
Human Resources (HR) has a need for a high-level corporate staffing plan that identifies staffing issues that span business units.
The plan will help ensure that the company has the staff it needs in order to implement its overall corporate strategies.
This plan will provide a context for creating specific, shorter-term staffing plans.
Consider reinforcing this point by showing the person the “upside-down T” diagram (Figure 2-1).
Clarify that you are there to talk about staffing issues, gaps, and problems, not answers or solutions.
Discuss with the manager what the overall process for creating a staffing strategy will look like (or obtain the manager’s perceptions of the process if it has already been presented).
Tell the manager how the information you gather will be used or shared.
Discuss Business Plans/Changes
Provide a quick overview of your understanding of the unit’s current business.
Potentially, you could take the lead here, summarizing the business and getting the manager to supplement or clarify your description.
“It seems to me that currently your business does this/provides this. . . .”
Get the manager to confirm or expand your understanding.
Review and verify current staffing levels (from a face validity or “looks pretty close” perspective only).
Get the manager to describe future changes.
Ask the manager to talk about what is to be accomplished during the planning period and the ways in which that represents a significant change from the current situation.
Provide prods or hints and ask clarifying questions (e.g., “It seems to me that . . .”) based on your knowledge of the business plans (from your homework) to make sure that you really do understand what the business is going to accomplish.
Discuss Staffing Issues/Implications of Future Plans
Ask the person what staffing issues are foreseen.
Identify the areas or job families that will be affected:
First
Most
Remember to address both skills and staffing levels.
Identify any major changes in organization or structure (e.g., a change from a product focus to a customer/market orientation, not at the level of who will report to whom).
If discussion lags, use your potential staffing issue crib list and your definition of current staffing levels to encourage it:
“It seems to me that this expansion will mean an increase in staffing levels.”
“It seems that this proposed change in technology will have a real impact on required skills in your technical workforce, but not much impact on Customer Service.”
“Right now you have about 100 people in this job family/category—will that go up or down significantly when you implement this change?”
Clarify any broad statements that the manager makes, but don’t be too detailed.
If the manager says “more,” get her to differentiate between “a lot more” and “a few more,” but don’t worry about whether the number is 67 or 72.
If the manager generalizes, get him to identify specific job families.
Address all the potential issues on your crib sheet.
Ask the manager if she thinks that any of these issues are being faced by other business units (and thus might be addressed from an integrated perspective).
Try to assess criticality (i.e., identify the most critical issues).
Obtain Feedback Regarding Proposed Solutions
Ask the manager for feedback regarding staffing strategies (e.g., “One way of addressing this issue would be to do X. What do you think of that? Would that work here?”).
Ask the manager for feedback regarding staffing plans.
Close the Interview
“If you could address only one of these issues, which would it be?”
“What questions didn’t I ask that you thought I would?”
Tell the manager what he can expect from you, if anything.
Thank the manager for her time and input.