The IT organization and HR have always had a mostly adversarial relationship as IT rarely sees HR as a true IT consumer, more as a clueless and demanding relative.
Most HR departments for their part are usually very under informed when it comes to HR and IT’s role in supporting the business. But listen up it’s time you and IT kissed and made up, so that you can both be better assets to the company.
I have leveraged IT’s services and expertise to help enhance many companies’ recruitment strategies. IT is especially useful in partnering on defend strategies. If you want to slow down your “average headhunters and poachers” block them at the front door, eliminate their email access by providing the email addresses to IT who will add them to their spam list.
I have had members of my team over the years access incoming competitor email to identify threats to our corporate talent, business strategies and intellectual property. You would be surprised what some employees will do to hurt your company even though you are paying their wages.
Obviously these tactics will not stop determined headhunters and corporate recruiters from trying to pry top staff away but they are a first and second line of defense depending on how you and IT work together and how your company looks at risk. Use your imagination while staying ethical.
Collaboration with IT
Below are some of the activities you and IT can work together on:
- Block headhunters, corporate recruiters, etc by providing their email addresses to IT. Bulk change email addresses of your employees so that recruiters cannot easily figure out, (most companies currently have 1st letter of first name +last name @company name) I cannot believe companies are making it this easy in most cases.
- Block all your competitors career center/interview follow-up addresses ( Hey if your employees want to find another job let them do it on their own email systems on their own time).
- Deny external web access to all corporate telephone directories, organization charts, email listings, etc. ( You would be surprised how many companies have this type of info on their websites or sub-sites where good recruiters or your new friends in IT can help you find it.
- Get IT if they are the responsible organization to get a phone answering service for your company that is centralized to a few key resources that are trained to protect your companies talent from headhunters and other talent or intellectual property thief’s.
- If executive determine a threat from a competitor is taking place, look into receiving a copy of all the competitors email into one folder where you can have a team member assess the threat (during the tech boom in the late 90’s this was fairly common practice for technology companies as there was a serious dearth of talent (expect that to arise again).
Be inventive – these are just some of the most common approaches you and your company can take. My recent post entitled Barbarians at the Gate may provide you with some more ideas.
Francois Guay is a recruitment and talent management consultant, who writes the ‘AttackDefendDisrupt’ blog.
We really welcome any and all contributions from the community, so please feel free to share your views and opinions with us, your colleagues and peers via our blogs section.
One Response
Great Post
The days of IT and HR departments clashing heads is very much over as technology has become a vital part of almost every facet of a business. The demands of HR leaders and managers requires the efficiency that technology offers and this is best achieved with the help of their IT department.
— Dave Evans, commercial director at accessplanit, specialising in training administration software and learning management system.