Sourcing: Building Trust

Inside Hewitt w/Chris Gould: Building Trust in a Global Social Organization

When I started with Hewitt Associates a little over a year ago I was brought on to build out a global sourcing organization.   The task was a little daunting, but building something new has always been exhilarating and I couldn’t wait to get started. I could fill 20 pages with what we have been doing over the last year, so I will focus on our first challenge, building trust…

If you are like me, you probably grimace when someone suggests you give up control. So we when asked our recruiting group to give up control of sourcing and to “trust” us, they understandably were a little suspect.  We had to quickly build the team, develop processes, implement tools, provide research, and ultimately produce results.

First, we had to find the right people.  It was a combination of experienced “sourcers” as well as traditional recruiters who had a passion for learning new things.  Once we developed the team, we started two things. The first was training.  We started having weekly trainings covering the business, new tools, and searching techniques.  Secondly, we also focused on developing relationships with our recruiters as well as our business leaders.  We really focused on explaining what we were doing, what our expectations were, as well as what we were finding. That sometimes meant telling them that we were not always finding what they wanted, but being able to speak intelligently about the market and offering reasonable suggestions helped us through those conversations. Being upfront and honest, as well as producing results, helped us through this learning curve and ultimately to develop strong bonds with our teams.

If you have worked on a team broken up between “sourcers” and “recruiters” I am interested to hear about how you developed trust between the team.

About Chris Gould:

Chris Gould is the Global Strategic Sourcing Leader for Hewitt Associates. Hewitt Associates for the last 5 years has been recognized by FORTUNE as one of America’s most admired companies and is considered the leader in the HR BPO industry. Mr. Gould has been in HR consulting since 1996 and is considered an industry expert in social media/networking recruiting.

He is a requested speaker on topics related to social networking and his work has resulted in press interest including The Wall Street Journal and the SHRM HR Magazine. He is also the founder of the Kansas City Online Community, an online community with over 3200 members. He lives in Overland Park, KS with his wife and 3 children.

By Noel Cocca

CEO/Founder RecruitingDaily and avid skier, coach and avid father of two trying to keep up with my altruistic wife. Producing at the sweet spot talent acquisition to create great content for the living breathing human beings in recruiting and hiring. I try to ease the biggest to smallest problems from start-ups to enterprise. Founder of RecruitingDaily and our merry band of rabble-rousers.