A regulatory agency tasked with overseeing public health found itself competing for—and often losing—top talent to private industry. The agency suspected that its complicated and slow hiring process created many of its hiring challenges. However, they wanted to understand the root of the problem and turned to Eagle Hill to analyze and improve its hiring lifecycle. Understanding the key elements of the hiring process—such as actions, decision points, and inputs/outputs—was crucial for creating effective process maps and process improvements.
Goal
Streamline the hiring process and increase transparency across the hiring lifecycle through low-cost automation and end-to-end hiring process mapping.
The client’s hiring challenge
The agency had taken initial steps to map its hiring processes, but wanted to develop a holistic, end-to-end view, all within a compressed time period. This was a complex undertaking due to the many stakeholders involved and complexities of federal hiring. Two separate offices managed different elements of the process for eight “customer” offices. Further contributing to challenges was that each customer office had their own unique hiring process and management approach. The resulting confusion rippled across the hiring lifecycle, with stakeholders unclear on the timeline and process to hire, sometimes taking up to one year to fill a role.
The roadmap to process improvement success
When Eagle Hill came on board, we:
Sought out low-code, quick win solutions to make an immediate impact and stay within budget. Given the leadership desire to address challenges in the short term while keeping the big picture in mind, we knew we needed to think creatively and practically. Large technological overhauls to address process inefficiencies and help automate processes were not in the cards, so we explored low and no-code automation solutions to meet our client’s needs. Moreover, we knew we needed a solution that would be practical for employees of varying technical abilities.
Created a low-tech, high impact Recruitment Timeline Calculator tool to improve transparency, accountability, and project management. A lack of process transparency and a general misunderstanding about timeframes were among the most significant challenges documented by our client. In response, we built a Recruitment Timeline Calculator that allows hiring managers to anticipate when critical hiring process steps will be completed based on the latest user inputs.
- Due to its simple layout, the tool was quickly implementable for our client and user-friendly to individuals of varying technical abilities. In this instance, we knew that a low-code tool would bring our client a faster solution than a large, complex technological overhaul – and within budget and a constrained timeline. The customizable Excel-based tracking tool provides a simplified layout of key process steps, owners, and timeframes.
- Recognizing that processes constantly evolve to meet the demands of an organization, we built the tool to be easily adaptable. Its adaptability enables it to serve the agency well into the future, rather than be a stop gap measure “for now.”
- Today, hiring managers receive the Calculator at the beginning of every recruitment effort, providing greater transparency for them and candidates, and ensuring accountability among process owners.
Expedited the project plan to satisfy leadership’s request to document the end-to-end hiring processes in only one month. To compress the initial five-month timeframe down to one month, we quickly developed a strong, collaborative relationship with our client by bringing them along every step of the way. We developed and executed a rigorous data gathering plan to ensure we had the information to build detailed process maps and identify gaps and inefficiencies. Utilizing process maps allowed us to visually communicate workflows and improve understanding of the processes involved.
Distilled complex process maps into simple one-pagers. Upon developing end-to-end hiring process maps, we wanted to enable hiring managers to easily digest the processes to maximize their value. To do so, we distilled the maps into simple one-pagers. These documents provided our client with critical insights into key activities and owners within each phase. They also served as the basis to create KPIs to improve efficiency and accountability.
Creating long term impacts to the hiring process
One of our top goals when working with clients is setting them up for long-term success. With this in mind, we assisted our client in developing a plan to anticipate hiring needs annually. In our analysis, we found that a lack of annual planning led to a cumbersome process prone to taking months longer than necessary. Eagle Hill built the case for annual planning between our client and the eight offices it serves to get ahead of anticipated hiring needs and to expedite the process.
The Eagle Hill team also partnered with the client to build buy-in for the change across all impacted stakeholders. We helped our client develop messaging and presentations to explain hiring process changes —an instrumental step in building trust and effectuating the desired process changes among all parties.
As the project continues and recommendations roll out, Eagle Hill continues to work closely with our client, including meeting regularly with leadership and conducting monthly hiring manager assessments to monitor the impact of addressing challenges. This close collaboration not only provides the key to our success so far, but it also equips us to give meaningful ongoing guidance and to pivot for our client in response to new directives.
Unconventional results
Offices better able to meet their mission due to Eagle Hill’s recommendations for streamlining processes
Faster delivery of process maps than expected, allowing our client to tackle hiring challenges sooner
Hiring managers using the Recruitment Timeline Calculator to assist in the hiring process
Let’s go to where you want to be
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