In-house recruiters from a wide range of private and public sector organisations gathered in London at Recruiter’s Smart Resourcing 2013 conference, sponsored by Eploy, to listen and learn from leading thinker John Vlastelica in a keynote talk sponsored by Jobsite, and practitioners in the field of resourcing and recruiting, to network with fellow professionals and go 2 Steps Beyond

Catherine Possamai, director of internal resourcing at Capita, challenged delegates at Smart Resourcing 2013 to ask themselves whether the metrics and information their in-house resourcing teams provide to senior executives told those leaders what they really need to know. 

Based on her own experiences at Capita, Possamai questioned whether historic metrics, such as cost-of-hire and time-to-hire, were of any real value to C-suite executives. 

“The fact is that in Capita, stats like cost-per-hire and time-to-hire are really pretty meaningless to a senior executive.

“They are interested in growth, in delivering value to their customer, and they need to know how to influence what comes next.” 

Metrics such as cost-per-hire were historic rather than focused on future actions, she added.  

“I challenge you all to ask yourselves: is the kind of metrics and the stuff you are giving to your HR directors really of use to the CFO, CEO and COO?,” she said. 

In place of these metrics, Possamai highlighted the importance of in-house recruiters focusing on the needs of the business’s customers rather than internal metrics. “It is not just what Capita wants to achieve but what Capita’s customers want to achieve that we need to understand,” she said. 

She explained this was an important aspect of the ongoing transformation of Capita’s internal resourcing team from a “bums on seats” operation, which was regarded internally as “transactional” to a strategic resourcing partner. 

Possamai outlined a number of case studies, illustrating how the resourcing function now focused on delivering business outcomes for Capita’s clients, including the BBC, who had outsourced the collection of the TV licence fee to Capita. 

She explained how the requirement of the BBC to increase TV licence fee revenue had led them to change the type of people they hired. “Now we need to recruit Rottweilers,” she said. 

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