Extending the LEAN philosophy into HR

Lean is a completely different way of looking at your business. The focus in a Lean environment is on building consistency and efficiency into every step, installing feedback loops to measure quality at each step, and being obsessive about reducing waste – thereby getting a better product to the customer faster, and improving cash flow. The focus is on raising the quality of the product or service and boosting workplace productivity through employee involvement in reducing waste.

What are the benefits of Lean?

By applying the lean principles, you can impact most of the key metrics for your organization.

Extending the LEAN Philosophy into Human Resources

How is it that HR's processes have by and large been exempted from the Lean movement?

“We now see many HR Departments doing some type of performance measurement. The problem is that most of them have not moved past [measuring] cost and quantity. Typical metrics are cost of hire, numbers hired and trained, ratios of HR staff to employees and HR budget benchmarks. All of these can be useful as after the fact data for the HR staff. However, they do not excite management because they focus on costly activities and not on the value-adding results.” - Dr. Jac Fitz-enz. How to Optimize Human Capital

The HiringSmart process is a naturally Lean system because it…

• Focuses on leading indicators (the four critical aspects of fit) that directly impact business outcomes
• Measures Quality every step of the way (as opposed to non-value-adding results)
• Directs the data gathered throughout the process into a feedback loop that tightens up and improves the process over time
• Removes wasted time by downloading work to the candidate and focusing hiring managers on value-added activities
• Reduces lead-time by providing a steady stream of candidates

...HR departments can now become full partners with other functions in the organization that operate in the Lean methodology.