Fast-tracking the recruitment process, without taking the time to fully understand all the role requirements, can often distract recruiters. This dilemma was again highlighted to me recently, after a coffee meeting with a recruiter friend, who was asked to fill a difficult role.

Companies may often struggle to fill a role without being able to attract the right candidates. Sometimes, this could be a strong signal for the role to be redesigned.

A lot of my early HR experience was around job design. Not quite as far as back as time and motion studies, but I learned the structured science of analyzing tasks and designing effective roles. In one of my roles, I spent the first three months developing new job titles for the whole business, which was a great way of understanding the business very quickly.

For the last ten years I have been very intensely involved in organization design, developing structures integrated with business strategy. This included some greenfield projects, such as a new gas exploration business in New Zealand.

Act I: Human Resources
A couple of years ago I was approached by one of the leading recruiting companies in Australia. One of their clients have decided to create for a HR role. The business was very successful, providing engineering and consulting services in several countries, with a global presence.

After several meetings with the MD to define the role, the recruiter realized that the company did not have a clear picture of the HR function or the role. As I knew the recruiter, I was requested to assist the company by doing a strategic review of the HR function.

After developing a list of tasks and functions, integrating it with the existing structure of the business, it was very evident that the business was in fact recruiting for two roles – not only one. The one role was much more senior with a strong strategic focus and developing corporate HR policies and practices. The other role was more of a coordinating role, providing support for various existing programs.

Fortunately for the business and the new incumbents, an astute recruiter and strategic consultant performed some “magic” by splitting the role (thus securing two placement fees as a bonus), with a more aligned HR function.

Act II: Sales
Working for a previous company, the National Sales Manager was promoted into a more senior role. After advertising the role internally, we struggled to find a sales manager that could be promoted into the NSM role. Though we worked hard to develop internal talent, the preferred candidate was still a couple of years away from being ready.

The company could not afford to risk its competitive position in the market place – it was critical to maintain and improve business with key customers.

Again, we performed some “magic” by splitting the role, with a Regional Sales Manager for the one part of the business, in which we promoted the preferred internal candidate.

For the other Regional Sales Manager role we decided to bring some new talent into the business, thus adding capability and using an external recruiter to handle the assignment.

These two transitional roles were essential to provide the platform for further organizational design in a future structure.

Business Need
These two examples clearly demonstrate that roles should be reviewed within the context of business need and that companies need to adopt a more flexible approach to resourcing outputs and functions.

There are significant benefits for the business, for incumbents, and not least for the recruiter, by performing sometimes a bit of “magic” and splitting a role.