As a company grows and looks for funding, it becomes critical to have a lean HR/talent function in place in order to be an attractive investment opportunity.
Low overheads and fixed costs are likely to be a key requirement in attracting funding to an organisation, and whilst a HR/talent function is critical to acquiring the top talent, it should be as efficient and lean as possible.
Here are some of the reasons why having a lean HR/talent function is essential when scaling up or looking for funding:
1. Driven by Efficiency and Technology
A lean HR/talent function is focussed on efficiency. It has to be as they don’t have an abundance of resource.
Recruiting and hiring is expensive, and an efficient HR/talent function can help reduce these costs by streamlining the hiring process.
By using technology throughout the recruitment process, organisations can save significant amounts of cost and time, reducing the need for additional resources.
Technology such as applicant tracking systems and pre-screening tools as well as other automation including the use of Artifical Intelligence (AI) can help organisations reduce the time it takes to screen and interview candidates. In addition the increase in use (and acceptance) of video interviews since the pandemic has enabled many organisations to reduce the need for resources as well as save money on travel and other expenses.
2. Focussing on Attracting and Retaining the Best Talent
With a lean HR/talent function, an organisation will be totally focussed on only attracting the best talent, and ensuring the existing talent is retained.
Why?
Because it will create far more work for them as a team if new talent underperforms (and potentially leave, thereby having to re-start the whole hiring process again), as well as ensuring additional work is not created by existing talent leaving.
This helps the team zero in on one of the most important aspects within the whole recruitment process – creating an attractive employer brand, often known as an Employer Value Proposition (EVP).
Having a strong EVP not only helps attract top talent, but ensures your existing talent is retained as they feel a strong affinity to the employer as a result.
As a result, a lean HR/talent team will utilise social media and other channels, to showcase their organisation’s culture, values, and mission. This will not only help attract candidates who share those values (and therefore are most likely to be a great cultural fit and a long-term success), but it will also help their ability to quickly identify and screen out candidates who are not a good match, signficantly reducing time and effort further down the line.
3. Scalability and Flexibility
As a company scales up or looks for funding, it becomes critical to have a hiring process and team that can be flexible in order to facilitate scaling upon any funding invested. Having a lean HR/talent function to start with can help ensure you only scale the function in line with demand, created by the additional funding or growth objectives.
Furthermore, the use of technology and automation should be heavily relied upon to enable greater flexibility within the hiring process as well as scaling without the need for significantly more HR resource.
Summary
Having a lean HR/talent function is essential when scaling up or looking for funding as this will help organisations attract investment by keeping overheads as low as possible but without impeding on it’s ability to recruit the top talent when the time is right and funding is received.
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