Balancing the Number of External/Internal Hires in Greenville City
Challenge
Greenville City (a pseudonym) is a mid-sized Mayor-Council municipal government situated in Greenville in the northwest USA. The organization governs a variety of operations in Greenville. Greenville City employs approximately 1,200 non-union employees and 500 union employees. Operations are divided into departments. There are 13 separate departments with a director heading each of those departments as shown in Figure 1. The top leadership is made up of the Mayor, Chief of Staff, City Manager, elected city council members and the 13 department directors.
Figure 1
The 13 separate departments of Greenville City.
The 13 separate departments of Greenville City.
Greenville City noticed a trend that a high percentage of vacant managerial positions were being filled by external hires rather than internal promotions. The city also noted that there were no systematic methods for hiring, no career development program, and no systems in place to select and groom employees for promotion. External instead of internal hiring was perceived as an issue as it could lead to attrition, low morale, and increased ramping time to get an external person up to speed versus an internal person. Sensing an opportunity for change and improvement, Greenville City endorsed a needs assessment project from Team Pipeline (Chang et al., 2020) to assess this trend and develop a solution.
Methods
Team Pipeline produced a combination of interviews, surveys, informal questioning, and documentation review protocols to collect data from a variety of sources. Key sources included line employees and hiring managers. Extant data from the human resources department was also already available from exit surveys, listening tour surveys, and from self and supervisor performance reviews. As the extant data provided some relevant data, Team Pipeline used the data as foundations for further questioning and a means to focus the attention to specific, needed data.
Unfortunately, it was at this point that the COVID-19 pandemic forced stay-at-home orders from the city resulting in significant changes in the workplace. Specific interviews and surveys were not distributed, and the team had to rely on informal questioning to the client liaison. This significantly impacted the quality of research and data analysis as the team could not achieve an adequate level of triangulation to substantiate findings.
Unfortunately, it was at this point that the COVID-19 pandemic forced stay-at-home orders from the city resulting in significant changes in the workplace. Specific interviews and surveys were not distributed, and the team had to rely on informal questioning to the client liaison. This significantly impacted the quality of research and data analysis as the team could not achieve an adequate level of triangulation to substantiate findings.
Causes
With the limited resources and data, Team Pipeline concluded that:
- External hires were moving laterally in their careers while internal promotions required personnel to move upwards. This meant that candidates for internal promotions are more likely to be less competitive than external counterparts who have already done the job elsewhere.
- It is difficult for internal candidates to be promoted into positions when competing with external hires moving laterally. There are no career development or career succession planning systems to develop employees into competitive candidates. Hiring managers do not know which employees are eligible for promotion as there are no clear career structures in place.
- Hiring managers post job opportunities on a centralized database that is available to both external and internal hires. There is no measure of how aware employees are of promotional opportunities and the necessary qualifications required for those positions.
Recommended Solutions
Client Goals
Greenville City has adopted a mentality and atmosphere conducive for growth and improvement. The collective organization strives to provide quality living standards for the citizens of Greenville and wants to make the city the most livable city in the U.S.
The team focused on operational and tactical levels of performance investigating the performance of line employees, and the hiring managers who are showing a preference for external hires. By focusing on the performance relationship between these two entities, the team was able to identify some incongruencies between top level and middle management organizational goals as reflected in tactical level initiatives.
In this stage, the team was able to identify the performance gap, analyze the root causes and possible interventions, and finally decide on the most desirable course of action. This step is crucial as the following phases of the framework develop off the decisions that were made in this assessment.
Recommended Solutions
To increase the visibility and awareness of job opportunities, Team Pipeline recommended two interventions. When hiring managers upload job opportunities unto a central database, there are no notifications to internal candidates. Advertising these job postings through the weekly newsletter would be a cost-effective operation to increase awareness. However, a more effective method is to develop a system where employees can subscribe to job opportunities through supervisors and hiring managers. This method places the onus also on the employees to seek and develop their own professional careers.
To develop competitive internal candidates, Team Pipeline recommended for Greenville City to establish a career development system for employees. Through this system, employees with potential for promotions will be identified and selected, trained through work experiences and professional development opportunities, and endorsed by their supervisors to the hiring managers upon job openings. This requires a more comprehensive change in the current dynamic as there are no real systems in place that selects and grooms employees for promotion. Communication will be essential between employees, supervisors, and hiring managers to ensure that employee and organizational needs are being met.
Greenville City will have several decisions to consider because of this needs assessment. The primary scope of the decision will be on a tactical and operational level. Tactical decisions will address policies and procedures that support strategic goals and operational objectives. The operational level of decisions to be made addresses the short- and long-term decisions that address implementing programs and carrying out tasks that help achieve desired results (Watkins et al., 2012, p. 40).
During the course of this needs assessment, there was a recent change in leadership and a newly elected mayor, meaning the strategic goals may no longer be relevant and new strategic goals for the organization are not yet clear. However, when strategic goals are established, the recommendations from this needs assessment should be aligned with the strategic goals. Strategic goals are the objectives the organization chooses to work toward that define the relationship between the organization and the community they serve (Watkins et al., 2012, p. 39). As a municipal government, Greenville City is closely connected to the community, so making sure there is strategic alignment with tactical and operational goals and objectives is very important. It’s recommended to return to this needs assessment after the new administration sets strategic goals and makes any necessary adjustment to the interventions selected to ensure strategic alignment.
Tactically, the organization should consider creating policies that support internal candidates in their pursuit of career advancement. These could be created by human resources per Lee et al (2016):
HRD professionals should offer adequate career-development opportunities by sharing potential career paths in the organization, providing relevant job capability-building training and development (as a way of developing by “training”), and designing a job rotation, enlargement, and enrichment program (as a way of developing by “job”). (p. 46)
Managers should take proactive roles in the career development of the employees, ensuring that there are appropriate career-development opportunities to maintain or facilitate engagement (Lee et al., 2016). After review of the employee manual, there are no current policies for hiring managers to recruit internally first before opening a job acquisition to the public. To increase the chances an internal candidate will be sought out, a new hiring policy to recruit from within as a first step in the hiring process should be considered.
Operationally, the organization needs to decide if it can offer additional support through professional development to employees to increase their competitiveness when applying for promotions. The organization will need to decide on a budget for training and development, implementation of programs to support internal candidates in their career goals, and improved advertisement of job openings. The organization will also need to consider continuing to assess and collect necessary data to monitor this performance metric going forward. It will be in the organizations best interest to measure the internal and external hiring split again after any interventions have been implemented to see if the desired outcome was reached.
Managers should also make clear to employees that they should be proactive in their own career development. As Lee et al. (2016) state:
Despite the important roles played by employers and HRD professionals in career development, each individual still holds the primary responsibility for his or her career...Because of the diminished responsibility organizations now have for employees’ careers, more proactive initiatives by employees are necessary to ensure objective or subjective career success. (p. 45)
Greenville City has adopted a mentality and atmosphere conducive for growth and improvement. The collective organization strives to provide quality living standards for the citizens of Greenville and wants to make the city the most livable city in the U.S.
The team focused on operational and tactical levels of performance investigating the performance of line employees, and the hiring managers who are showing a preference for external hires. By focusing on the performance relationship between these two entities, the team was able to identify some incongruencies between top level and middle management organizational goals as reflected in tactical level initiatives.
In this stage, the team was able to identify the performance gap, analyze the root causes and possible interventions, and finally decide on the most desirable course of action. This step is crucial as the following phases of the framework develop off the decisions that were made in this assessment.
Recommended Solutions
To increase the visibility and awareness of job opportunities, Team Pipeline recommended two interventions. When hiring managers upload job opportunities unto a central database, there are no notifications to internal candidates. Advertising these job postings through the weekly newsletter would be a cost-effective operation to increase awareness. However, a more effective method is to develop a system where employees can subscribe to job opportunities through supervisors and hiring managers. This method places the onus also on the employees to seek and develop their own professional careers.
To develop competitive internal candidates, Team Pipeline recommended for Greenville City to establish a career development system for employees. Through this system, employees with potential for promotions will be identified and selected, trained through work experiences and professional development opportunities, and endorsed by their supervisors to the hiring managers upon job openings. This requires a more comprehensive change in the current dynamic as there are no real systems in place that selects and grooms employees for promotion. Communication will be essential between employees, supervisors, and hiring managers to ensure that employee and organizational needs are being met.
Greenville City will have several decisions to consider because of this needs assessment. The primary scope of the decision will be on a tactical and operational level. Tactical decisions will address policies and procedures that support strategic goals and operational objectives. The operational level of decisions to be made addresses the short- and long-term decisions that address implementing programs and carrying out tasks that help achieve desired results (Watkins et al., 2012, p. 40).
During the course of this needs assessment, there was a recent change in leadership and a newly elected mayor, meaning the strategic goals may no longer be relevant and new strategic goals for the organization are not yet clear. However, when strategic goals are established, the recommendations from this needs assessment should be aligned with the strategic goals. Strategic goals are the objectives the organization chooses to work toward that define the relationship between the organization and the community they serve (Watkins et al., 2012, p. 39). As a municipal government, Greenville City is closely connected to the community, so making sure there is strategic alignment with tactical and operational goals and objectives is very important. It’s recommended to return to this needs assessment after the new administration sets strategic goals and makes any necessary adjustment to the interventions selected to ensure strategic alignment.
Tactically, the organization should consider creating policies that support internal candidates in their pursuit of career advancement. These could be created by human resources per Lee et al (2016):
HRD professionals should offer adequate career-development opportunities by sharing potential career paths in the organization, providing relevant job capability-building training and development (as a way of developing by “training”), and designing a job rotation, enlargement, and enrichment program (as a way of developing by “job”). (p. 46)
Managers should take proactive roles in the career development of the employees, ensuring that there are appropriate career-development opportunities to maintain or facilitate engagement (Lee et al., 2016). After review of the employee manual, there are no current policies for hiring managers to recruit internally first before opening a job acquisition to the public. To increase the chances an internal candidate will be sought out, a new hiring policy to recruit from within as a first step in the hiring process should be considered.
Operationally, the organization needs to decide if it can offer additional support through professional development to employees to increase their competitiveness when applying for promotions. The organization will need to decide on a budget for training and development, implementation of programs to support internal candidates in their career goals, and improved advertisement of job openings. The organization will also need to consider continuing to assess and collect necessary data to monitor this performance metric going forward. It will be in the organizations best interest to measure the internal and external hiring split again after any interventions have been implemented to see if the desired outcome was reached.
Managers should also make clear to employees that they should be proactive in their own career development. As Lee et al. (2016) state:
Despite the important roles played by employers and HRD professionals in career development, each individual still holds the primary responsibility for his or her career...Because of the diminished responsibility organizations now have for employees’ careers, more proactive initiatives by employees are necessary to ensure objective or subjective career success. (p. 45)
References
Chang, D., Crane, E., Lee, J., & Stevens, J. (2020) Needs Assessment: Balancing the number of external/internal hires in Greenville
City [MS Word document]. OPWL 529 course site. https://Blackboard.boisestate.edu
DeVaro, J., Kauhanen, A., & Valmari, N. (2019). Internal and external hiring. Industrial and labor relations review, 72(4), 981-1008.
https://doi.org/10.1177/0019793919842810
Lee, Y., Kwon, K., Kim, W., & Cho, D. (2016) Work Engagement and Career: Proposing Research Agendas Through a Review of
Literature. Human Resource Development Review, 15(1) 29-54. https://.doi.org/10.1177/1534484316628356
Watkins, R., West Meiers, M., & Visser, Y. (2012). A guide to assessing needs: Essential tools for collecting information, making
decisions, and achieving development results. The World Bank. http://www.needsassessment.org
City [MS Word document]. OPWL 529 course site. https://Blackboard.boisestate.edu
DeVaro, J., Kauhanen, A., & Valmari, N. (2019). Internal and external hiring. Industrial and labor relations review, 72(4), 981-1008.
https://doi.org/10.1177/0019793919842810
Lee, Y., Kwon, K., Kim, W., & Cho, D. (2016) Work Engagement and Career: Proposing Research Agendas Through a Review of
Literature. Human Resource Development Review, 15(1) 29-54. https://.doi.org/10.1177/1534484316628356
Watkins, R., West Meiers, M., & Visser, Y. (2012). A guide to assessing needs: Essential tools for collecting information, making
decisions, and achieving development results. The World Bank. http://www.needsassessment.org