Risky Business
Innovation from Iteration, pt 7
‘Suitable and sufficient’ is a health and safety definition that can and should be adapted into recruitment.
In the UK, the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) owns and enforces the majority of legislation around ensuring people go home in the same condition they arrived. And their health too.
Employers must, as a minimum, take care in understanding the risks their people face at work and put in place measures to prevent any issue covered by legislation.
Relevant risks should be assessed and appropriately documented.
This risk assessment is at the heart of health and safety and is a formal document that needs to meet the definitions of ‘suitable and sufficient’.
The HSE declares:
“The law states that a risk assessment must be 'suitable and sufficient', ie it should show that:
a proper check was made
you asked who might be affected
you dealt with all the obvious significant risks, taking into account the number of people who could be involved
the precautions are reasonable, and the remaining risk is low
you involved your workers or their representatives in the process
The level of detail in a risk assessment should be proportionate to the risk and appropriate to the nature of the work. Insignificant risks can usually be ignored, as can risks arising from routine activities associated with life in general, unless the work activity compounds or significantly alters those risks.
Your risk assessment should only include what you could reasonably be expected to know - you are not expected to anticipate unforeseeable risks.”
Safety glasses might be a suitable measure when working with chemicals – no one wants corrosive chemicals splashing in their eyes. But it isn’t sufficient if, instead, you splashed the same chemicals on your hand.
While a full body suit with a face mask might be sufficient, they may not be suitable for long periods of time, such as our utterly exhausted Doctors working with Covid patients.
Checking both directions is a suitable and sufficient dynamic risk assessment for crossing the road.
Isn’t it interesting how balanced and practical this definition is, rather than fear-mongering?
The greater the risk the more importance you place on getting it right, first time.
You can apply this definition word for word in replacing ‘risk assessment’ with ‘job description’, and the spirit of it to every other step in a recruitment process.
The crux of it is to understand the shape and impact of any step in your process and ensure it is both suitable and sufficient.
In recruitment, the ‘greater the risk’ typically relates to level of seniority, opportunity for transformation, or consequence of things going wrong (a nurse might not be senior, but no one wants to employ Charles Cullen, the worst example of serial bad recruitment).
Or it might be legally non-compliant processes that put you at risk.
Conversely, ‘low risk’ recruitment is proportionate.
If roles are easy to fill and it doesn’t really matter who gets them, as is the case in transactional vacancies, your level of care can be more generic and commoditised.
You probably don’t need to wear safety glasses at interview – it’s a negligible risk that they are a spitter.
Is a fifth technical interview really suitable for a mid-level role?
Are references sufficient testimony to employability?
Is your interview confirmation suitable and sufficient?
Some of these are role-specific, and some are systemic recruitment good practice.
What a great way to differentiate how you can look at different types of roles, different steps in your process, and how many resources you should invest to get them fit for purpose.
Spending 120 hours on a retained multichannel campaign for an Administrator is not suitable. It’s certainly way more than sufficient too – maximum overkill!
I’d find you a damned good administrator, to be fair. And it wouldn’t take me 120 hours. Or be that expensive. Okay, bad example.
Sticking a copypasta job advert up for a Chief Operating Officer is neither suitable nor sufficient, with transformational risk if you get it wrong.
Working with a recruiter when you could be promoting internally can be sufficient and unsuitable.
Getting both suitability and sufficiency right is the best way to make your recruitment ship shape.
You may not remember the awfully boring last email on “true and fair” or perhaps you think this email touches on broadly the same points.
However, it’s by bringing these two sets of definitions together that you can optimise how you recruit.
True and fair ensures documentation is fit for purpose for third parties – your candidates, agencies, or hiring managers.
Suitable and sufficient ensures your processes and documentation are fit for purpose in managing your internal risk with new and existing employees.
A true and fair approach that is suitable and sufficient will give you the best likelihood of a good outcome.
The next email is on is why Culture is Queen.
Thanks for reading.
Regards,
Greg
p.s. While you are here, if you like the idea of improving how you recruit, lack capacity or need better candidates, and are curious how I can help, these are my services:
- commercial, operational and technical leadership recruitment (available for no more than two vacancies)
- manage part or all of your recruitment on an individually designed basis for one client
- recruitment coaching and mentoring (one place available at £200/hr + VAT)
- recruitment strategy setting
- outplacement support
Just hit reply to check if my approach is right for you.