John Linton
When I worked for large multinationals (back before the dawn of time) I formed the view that the two most pointless and expensive areas of those businesses were Marketing and Human Resources. My views were based on many factors but the principal one was (and obviously I was biased as I was alwys in sales and always successful) was that the two departments were constantly being staffed by people who failed in sales positions.
I have never changed my view of "Marketing" - I regard marketing departments as the most completely useless wastes of money that any commercial organisation can countenance. I grudgingly changed my view on "Human Resources" departments based on the greater complexities of industrial employment laws and concommitant activities they necessitated. However I could never understand why anyone with half a brain thought that "Human Resources" should be used as part of the hiring process.
These entrenched prejudices have been re-kindled over the past month by the number of contacts I've had from, so called, "Personnel Consultants" who, somehow, have got hold of my contact telephone numbers and email address and even more incredibly believe that they can call me up and immediately commence some snake oil sales spiel on how I'm fortunate to have finally been located by them before Exetel ends up out of business for lack of the people needed to operate every aspect of it.
I've been exercising more restraint than I've bothered with at any time of my life over the past 12 months in my communications with people in business, yet another indication of aging, but at least three of these callers have managed to be so obnoxious so quickly that I've just hung up on them with a very common two word epithet (first word a vulgarism for human sexual intercourse; second word one of the two states of a light switch). Amazingly two of those people then emailed me with a condescending "apology" for "catching me at a bad time" and then continuing to tell me how much I needed their services and how many great people they had who would improve all aspects of Exetel's future.
I recently read an article, I forget in which publication, that quoted a series of results from, apparently, sound research showing that the cost of effective personnel acquisition was rising steeply with "Personnel Consultants/Agencies" now charging double or treble what they used to less than a year ago with the apparent justification that Australia's full employment had created a shortage of skilled people in every aspect of commercial employment. The article went on to say that with sharply rising remuneration (coupled with high demand and short supply) it was becoming impossible for any commercial company to staff its operations without employing one, and preferably two or three, external recruitment agencies.
Now, I can understand why major organisations need personnel search companies of the like of Egon Zender et alia to recruit a CEO for an AMP, Westpac or Telstra (because the person they need will almost certainly not be in Australia or Australian) but I completely fail to understand why a small company like Exetel needs a snake oil salesman to recruit a help desk support person, network engineer or an accountant (who by definition must be currently located in Sydney).
In reading the emails (which I always do no matter how pointless they seem to be) it was suggested that it would be impossible to find effective people without the writer's assistance and then it would be impossible to retain them without his assistance again in changing all aspectsof Exetel's remuneration schemes, training policies and all other aspects of work practices and, of course, designing a suitable working environment. Clearly the writers considered me to be completely bereft of any knowledge or ability in the field of finding, training and retaining personnel.
For my own amusement I wrote back to the two people who had emailed me apologising for my rudeness and saying that before I could consider using their services I would need to see their personal resumes. One I didn't hear back from the other sent me a resume that (and undoubtedly it was presented in the very best way possible) showed absolutely no work history of any sort of achievement at all.
I think Exetel will just have to continue using the knowledge, skills and contacts of its current employees to find the additional personnel we need from time to time. So far that seems to have worked out just fine.