In the recent times, financial scandals involving senior level management and board members have made headlines in India. In a recent survey close to 37% named middle and senior level management to be the perpetrators of frauds. The survey analysed different risks including cyber security, frauds that included bribery and corruption, physical theft and other crimes. Senior executives of a leading PSU are now under the scanner for the alleged role in the financial scam worth 11,300 crores. The right leader makes the organisation while a bad leader can break or damage the reputation. Senior executives are role models for juniors and are responsible for setting the goals, pathways and for motivating the employees to give their best. Leadership due diligence is the need of the hour to hire genuine senior leaders. Although many businesses recognize the importance of leadership due diligence, CEOs & HR still faces considerable challenges in C-suite hiring.
Also Read: AuthLead™ – Leadership Due Diligence
Challenges faced by CEOs & HRs in C-Suite hiring
Mismatch in Alignment
According to McKinsey studies, nearly 1/3rd senior executives weren’t successful at aligning others around their initial objectives, primarily due to mismatches in the hiring objectives and the candidate recruited. A weak recruiting process is one of the top challenges faced by CEOs & HR. While they post ads and seek references, these alone may not be enough at C-suite level hiring. HR needs to go beyond to leverage cutting edge technology, marketing and individualized messaging to attract the best candidates. The recruiting process has to be effective enough to capture the top talent’s attention.
Unstructured and biased interviews
At many workplaces, even today, HR uses unstructured interviews to evaluate the senior leaders. Such interviews are ineffective in predicting their actual performance on the job as studies have proven. Unstructured interviews are vulnerable to the interviewer bias and are not objective or consistent. Structure the interview in an objective way to assess predetermined criteria including skills, knowledge, experience, culture fit and education. The structured interview is objective and provides consistency in evaluation.
Cumbersome On-boarding Process
One of the common challenges HR faces relates to the long hiring processes. Often there are delays in finalizing a candidate due to indecisiveness or lengthy approval processes in the organization. If the candidate is highly talented, he or she is also likely to be sought after in the job market and may have multiple other offers on hand. Delays result in losing out the top talent to the competition. Background checks and other formalities take time to complete and add to the onboarding woes. Sticking to timelines and providing a great interview experience with a one-on-one time with senior leaders of the company can be key differentiators. Speeding up on-boarding processes that include leadership due diligence with the help of third-party professional leadership due diligence providers is critical to retaining top talent. Leading solutions like AuthLead can help in thorough due diligence in shortest possible time.
Developing HR policies and role definitions
A poorly defined HR role and policies has a negative effect on employee relationships, productivity and motivation levels. Lack of hiring policy can lead to hiring of employees that are cultural misfits or technically unqualified. If the company does not have a clear hiring strategy, appropriate background screening practices may not be followed. This could increase the risk of hiring senior managers with a criminal or drug abuse history which compromises the company’s safety and image. The HR policies and role definitions have to meet the demands of work arrangements that are non-traditional and be C-suite ready. Embracing technology to carry out people analytics,
