The job market for procurement is weird right now. My LinkedIn feed is covered with people looking for work (especially after being laid off from big tech) and yet it’s also full of supply chain and operations leaders looking for strategic procurement talent. My personal theory is that often people are seeking roles they are not really ready for, and just as often candidates are not given a chance to try or develop for those roles. While I have heard there is a world where a role in another company can be a promotion, that has not been my experience – I have had to get that promotion in my existing company and then take a lateral move to another business. All that being said, I have seen big gaps in the companies I work with between their talent aspirations (recruiting, internal development, and training) and their reality. This week I partnered up with Tara King at MasTec to present at an Advancing Construction conference in Nashville, Tennessee, and thought I would share our speaking points (and the discussion that went along with) as today’s article. Let’s talk about the questions worth asking your HR team, your leadership, and yourself when it comes to sourcing, interviewing, onboarding, developing, and training talent.
The structure of our workshop was to post questions which the audience discussed in groups of 5-6 people, and then we discussed the outcome as a group. I will follow a similar format here, posting the questions, noting key responses the group came up with, and then answering based on my experience.
Sourcing Talent
What is your current policy on hiring internal vs. external?
- When do you hire externally?
- What kind of justification (if any) is required to hire externally, approved by whom?
These questions sparked some conversation, but not as much as I might have expected. It sounded like most companies didn’t have a firm policy on internal vs. external recruiting and some procurement leaders in the room weren’t really aware of a policy at their business.
The large businesses I have worked for (2000 employees or more) had some fairly strict policies on at least trying to hire internally before going external for talent (exception: interns and VERY entry level positions). One company I worked for required CEO approval for each and every position to be recruited externally. As with all things, I believe balance is the answer and am in favor of starting your search internally, but then going external if the talent is simply not to be found in the business.
What does your market presence for talent look like?
- Who goes to recruiting events/career fairs?
- Do you talk to university classes?
- Where do you find experienced talent?
- What does your conference footprint look like?
- Do you have a referral program?
- Do you have a contract-to-hire program?
The group had more discussion with these questions about market presence, and one person shared that their company offered a $10,000 referral bonus to employees when an employee joined the business and stayed at least six months. The room was in awe of this approach, but the audience member indicated they have less trouble sourcing good talent. We all have networks and often know who is good at what they do. Obviously everyone in the room had at least some level of conference footprint because they were at this one. Career fairs and university classes were not as popular, and it definitely sounded like most of the room used referrals to source talent. This simply reinforces to me how important a network really is to all of us, regardless of role.
For my answers to these questions, I really like university classes or supply chain clubs as a pipeline. There aren’t many universities with a full supply chain degree (although there are more all the time) and so those that have one can be key places to source talent. Students need to know we’re out there, what they can do with their degree, and even whether they like us as hiring managers personally. Don’t underestimate that connection point, even if a student works elsewhere right after college and then comes back around once they have a little experience. The majority of students tend to stay in the area where they went to college, so recruiting from local schools makes a lot of sense.
I also want to highlight the last point about contract-to-hire. One of my key clients recently ran an e-auction for their contract labor program (and reduced their supplier markup by an amazing 13% in the process!) where the labor categories were corporate, engineering, IT/technical, and construction/supply chain. The interesting thing to me was that they awarded two preferred suppliers for corporate, engineering, and IT/technical. But to get the talent they needed, they awarded four preferred suppliers for construction and supply chain. That tells me our area can be tricky to hire good talent for, so you’re not alone if you’re finding it challenging.
Interviewing and Onboarding
What is your structure for interviewing?
- Do you train on interviewing? (beyond the “don’t do this” guidance)
- What does your HR support look like? What do you wish it looked like?
- Share your favorite interview question!
There were, of course, some excellent interview questions here and I wish I had written more of them down. One that stuck in my mind was “If you were a car, what kind of car would you be and why?” While there are a whole host of questions similar to this one, I do like this variation (versus animal, spice, food, etc.). People are often pretty opinionated and attached to cars, and I find myself wondering how many people drive “ourselves” as vehicles (I think my answer to this question might be the car I’m currently driving). We also talked about HR support in the room, and most companies do have HR initially screen job candidates. I was a little surprised how little training on interviewing there was available to hiring managers in the room, and how little structure or guidance companies provide. My co-presenter, Tara, who has been in recruiting for 24 years, shared that she likes to have hiring panels split up the interview types. This means one person is assigned a behavioral interview (“Tell me about a time when…”), one is assigned a technical interview (“If I have X demand for an item number and a lead time of Y weeks to get more, how many should I stock on the shelf?”), and another has more of a case/problem-solving interview (“Here are three supplier bids. Which would you award the business and why?”). That way the interviewers can be more focused on their evaluation area and really focus on whether that candidate fits the need.
My personal favorite interview question is a variation on the strengths and weaknesses question, with a little twist. “What 3 traits do you admire in others but are still working on in yourself?” I often also follow this up with what traits they are proud of, to allow them to share their strengths. I like this way of asking the question because it gets rid of the people who answer things like, “My weakness is I work too hard.” Yeah, right. I want to know if you’re aware of what you’re working on, if you’re working on it, and if you can come up with three things. A LOT of people I interviewed over the years struggled with this one, and it didn’t necessarily disqualify a candidate, but it really indicated to me how self-aware they were.
What is your current onboarding process?
- How formal is it?
- Who owns it?
There were a wide variety of answers to this in the room. Many people said their onboarding was owned by HR, which Tara certainly objected to. While HR can own the hiring paperwork and company-wide policy training, true onboarding is very much up to the hiring manager. We talked about not starting people with three days of online training and instead breaking all that up over more time and interspersing it with getting to know their new team. The audience talked about how someone who is new in your company is asking themselves, “Did I make the right choice?” and a hiring manager has to answer that question quickly and well. Mentorship and assigning even an informal mentor within the team to help someone with their initial time in the team is important, helping them the processes and making everyone more successful.
When I was a hiring manager, I struggled getting a laptop to my new team members on time. It got to the point when I was filling out paperwork that I would tell our IT team that someone was starting on Thursday or Friday before their start date. When IT would bring me a laptop at 2 pm on Friday, they would say, “Where is your new person?” I would tell them the new person started on Monday, but if they had started on Friday they would have been sitting for 6 hours with nothing to do at that point. It’s a bit of a dance, but consider working with your IT team to make sure new people are well set up when they start. It’s a little thing that makes a big difference to a new hire.
Developing Teams
Do you incentivize managers who hire well?
- How do you measure turnover in teams (internally and externally)?
- How do you measure promotions within/outside teams?
- Do you tie incentives to low turnover outside the organization?
We’re starting to get to the questions that I expected the audience wouldn’t have answers for. These are more questions to think on and contemplate. We talked a little about how to find when managers are developing their people to get promotions within the organizations and when it’s simply people fleeing bad managers. There are two things there: tenure and how people land. When people are joining a hiring manager’s team and then leaving six months later, that’s probably someone fleeing a manager they don’t get along with or finding the job wasn’t what they expected. When someone stays in a role for a couple years and then is promoted to another role within the organization (either under the same manager or into a different team), that’s probably development. The other piece of how people land is about whether they succeed where they go next. Do they move to a promotion but then perform poorly? That may be either the new manager or the previous manager not setting that person up for success. All of it is fuzzy and hard to pin down definitively, but it’s important to look for patterns. Does a certain manager seem to lose their people quickly after hiring, especially people leaving the company? Do people move into a manager’s team and then stop growing or getting promoted?
I had a C-suite supervisor who was paying far more attention to these things than most people realized. I think that’s common among many executives – they are paying attention to the directors and managers under them and figuring out who improves their teams. If you’ve managed to retain amazing talent and are good at developing people, make sure you highlight it on your next performance review. Even if your company doesn’t track it formally, it’s a strength worth noting.
How do you improve internal mobility?
- What is the root cause for why managers are afraid to “lose” talent? (ask 5 whys, what policies are barriers?)
- Do your hiring managers interview all internal candidates?
When I asked the audience if they were afraid to lose their team members to other teams in the company, there was a lot of nodding of heads. I continue to ask: Why? Yes, it feels like you poured into this person and developed them into an awesome member of your team, but that just means they can move your company forward elsewhere. I personally LOVE when my procurement team members move into operations, or finance or somewhere else in the business. That means more of my customers understand the procurement process, the value it brings, and the importance of following it! Hooray! This one can be tricky as a people leader, but I would encourage everyone to shift thinking on “losing” your talent. Some of the best procurement leaders I’ve known have spent some time in operations and truly understand the needs of the business. They have an easier time making the case for procurement and its importance and conveying those needs to suppliers.
I had a policy when I was a hiring manager of interviewing every internal candidate who made it past HR screening. In the presentation, we talked a little about how to then provide feedback to that candidate or their supervisor, which can be very valuable but also very political. Be careful and involve HR in giving feedback to internal candidates (especially when the candidate’s current manager is outside your department), but do try to offer guidance when you can. I firmly believe it is the duty of every leader in a company to develop that company’s employees anywhere they can. I know not everyone shares this philosophy, but my favorite companies to work for have been those where successfully developing people is part of their culture.
Training Talent
How do you currently identify and grow individuals?
- How do you determine if your talent needs to be top-graded/high potential/leadership development?
- How much cross-training do you offer (multiple purchasing categories, different stages of the source-to-pay process, etc.)
- Do you do one-on-one meetings with your teams? Are they more than a status update?
The discussion coming from this set of questions was one of our more robust conversations. We talked about the need to talk to employees about their aspirations before identifying them as on a leadership track. Some employees who would make excellent leaders simply don’t want those roles. We also talked about the value of cross-training, which was well-acknowledged in that room full of procurement leaders. Cross-training allows for backups when people are out of the office, adds diversity of thought, and strengthens a team. If you don’t have a cross-training program within your team, either to train on multiple categories or multiple roles within the supply chain, consider implementing one for your next year’s goals.
We also talked about one-on-ones as a group. I asked the group to raise their hands if they currently do one-on-ones at least quarterly with their team members (that aren’t a status update). Most of the group raised their hands. Then I asked how many had one-on-one meetings with their boss at least quarterly. Half the hands went down. I see this over and over again – executives are “too busy” for one-on-ones. If you are an executive or become one in the future, don’t skip your team one-on-one meetings. They are one of the most important things you do and have a HUGE impact on whether you retain your top talent.
In discussing this conference with one of my client teams later in the week, they asked: If one-on-ones shouldn’t be a status update, what should they be about? There are lots of frameworks here, but this is one of my favorites. I don’t follow this list strictly, but I always tried to cover these things when having one-on-ones with my team members:
Belonging – do they feel like they’re part of the team? That their contributions matter and that they add to the team’s achievements?
Improvement – do they feel like they’re moving forward professionally or stagnating? If they’re stagnating, what is holding them back and how do I as a manager help remove the barrier?
Choice – do they have too little or too much autonomy? This is where micromanaging shows up. People who feel micromanaged have too little autonomy and need more focus on the expected results for their work instead of the expected process. Let people do things their way as much as possible and be super clear on the results you expect them to achieve.
Equality – do they feel like the team and their work is fair and equitable? Do they feel like someone else always gets the “good” projects? Why is that and what do they need to do to be assigned more of what moves them forward?
Predictability – do they understand what’s likely coming down the pipe in their future? Sometimes we as managers can’t share everything, but do people feel like they understand what’s likely to be in their queues? This one can be especially tricky in procurement, which is often about making up for lost time elsewhere in the process. We should be trying to move to proactive thinking everywhere we can.
Significance – do they feel acknowledged and recognized for their wins? This one is important to address in one-on-ones because everyone likes acknowledgement differently. Some want their wins announced in staff meetings, others would rather die than have their accomplishments made public (but definitely still need to be acknowledged). People need to feel seen, and will feel it best if it’s in their own preferred language.
How do you approach sourcing, interviewing, onboarding, developing, and training talent? In this time of performance reviews, hopefully these thoughts are useful in framing your conversations, whether you currently manage people or are a leader in unofficial ways. If you would like to talk about your team or how to improve your development process, let’s chat. If you’d like to get these articles weekly straight to your inbox and never miss one, sign up for my newsletter.
My book, Transform Procurement: The Value of E-auctions is now available in ebook, paperback and hardcover format: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0F79T6F25
