Lean Administration Applied: The Recruitment Process (Part 1)

In view of the looming shortage of skilled workers, many companies are stepping up their efforts to attract interesting candidates. What is striking is that after the first contact, hardly any attention is paid to the further process. Candidates are left in the dark for a long time as to what has become of their application and there is a long way from transparency about the status – which we now have with every mailing. And with the risk that the candidate will agree to the competitor in the meantime.

Passing on the application documents

This is a classic case for using the value stream method. In most cases, the hiring process is characterized by many involved functions and corresponding interfaces, which is why the lead time is often long. When recording the value stream, all the functions involved together (focus) describe their actual work processes in the application process and map them to the so-called ‘swimming lanes’. Each swim lane represents a participating function. As a rule, this exchange already leads to significant improvements through a common understanding of the process. On the basis of this first value stream recording, measures for the further optimization of the process are then developed.