Strategic HR Review

Emerald Article: Restructuring talent sourcing at DuPont: Standardizing and simplifying talent-search and management processes Peter Cseres, Neil Kelly

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To cite this document: Peter Cseres, Neil Kelly, (2006),"Restructuring talent sourcing at DuPont: Standardizing and simplifying talent-search and management processes", Strategic HR Review, Vol. 6 Iss: 1 pp. 28 - 31 Permanent link to this document: http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/14754390680000939 Downloaded on: 05-04-2012 To copy this document: permissions@emeraldinsight.com This document has been downloaded 1202 times.

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by Peter Cseres, DuPont EMEA and Neil Kelly, NDK International

UPONT, A SCIENCE COMPANY, wished to establish a set of processes to enable it to access and employ the best talent worldwide. As Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) is DuPonts second-largest market globally, a great deal of emphasis is placed on sourcing the right employees for these areas. In order to do this, DuPont began working in partnership with search and selection and talent management specialists, NDK International. Establishing beneficial partnerships In 2004, DuPonts business strategy included standardizing and simplifying its talent-management processes in order to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of its HR function. To assist with sourcing potential candidates for positions at DuPont in EMEA, the company has been building regional partnerships with talent suppliers that have local knowledge of its areas of interest. DuPont wished to use its existing talent-sourcing relationship with NDK as a test case in Europe, to establish whether a talent supplier like NDK could service a wider business need across its entire EMEA outposts. The development and retention of highpotential and mobile staff is central to the companys corporate talent-staffing strategy, particularly at that time, when DuPont was looking to increase its penetration into other markets and expand its consultancy arm of the business. To do this, it must increase the number of potential people in the organization who could take on leadership positions. Having worked successfully with the HR teams across some of the 11 DuPont sites in the UK since 2000, NDK was invited in 2004 to be a talent supplier to DuPont across the entire EMEA region, and to play a key part in DuPonts long-term talent supply strategy. The external leadership talent recruitment search process was previously managed at a local country level with sign off eventually given at a European corporate HR level. Rolling out long-term options The objectives were to allow NDK to progressively source more people for positions within Europe, and instill a consistent process for doing this throughout DuPonts EMEA regions. NDK Internationals language capability meant that it could undertake complex cross-border searches DuPont realized that this kind of talent-sourcing strategy could be a vehicle to hire more talent and simultaneously improve its general diversity rates. NDK aims to produce a balanced shortlist of candidates from a diversity perspective. Training NDK as DuPont Brand Ambassadors NDK team members who would be involved in managing the DuPont relationship needed to be
Volume 6 Issue 1 November/December 2006

Restructuring talent sourcing at DuPont

Standardizing and simplifying talentsearch and management processes
In 2004, DuPont began to adjust the way it generated new talent. Search and selection specialist, NDK International, was tasked with playing a pivotal role in redesigning DuPonts employee search system and identifying the right employees for DuPonts EMEA territories. By providing clearer lines of communication and promoting brand awareness, DuPont has significantly improved its talent-management system.
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bilingual and aware of DuPonts values and business culture. Under the guidance of the DuPont HR leadership team, brand ambassadors were trained to describe DuPont and the role available accurately to candidates and act at all times as DuPonts Brand Ambassadors. As NDK representatives were essentially the very first point of contact a potential employee has with anyone from DuPont (via either direct research, networking, recruiting students at universities and so on); they must know how to portray DuPonts 200 year-old brand effectively. Through a combination of multiple site visits across a large number of countries in Europe, the brand ambassadors gained a full appreciation of the business at a local and regional level. DuPont strategies and objectives DuPont wanted to establish a set of clear HR best practices around recruitment for EMEA. With a view to aligning business practices, DuPont wished to implement one consistent recruitment process across all of its territories. In order to find suitable employees to maintain its market leadership and expand into new areas, DuPont put objectives in place for NDK (and the other talent suppliers from the whole of the EMEA region), which included: Continue attracting and hiring high-potential talents despite any difficulty in the labor market. Improve diversity and maximize available candidates for international senior leadership. Reduce time-to-hire and cost-to-hire of candidates. Tailoring approaches to suit different regions Before expanding into a new geographical region or country, DuPont conducts extensive research and business analysis; allowing an understanding of the marketplace and how its products would fit into it. DuPont first evaluates the local market conditions and infrastructure in order to best grow its business platforms. Once the viability of that local business has been agreed then different arms of the business will be involved to act as members of the expansion project team. One vital member of that now is the talent acquisition arm of the business its critical to understand the available talent in each market, and build a business case for what activity is, or will be, needed on a regional level to support DuPonts expansion. Once the make up of a marketplace has been determined, a talent plan is developed to meet the needs of the commercial objectives in that area. Peter Cseres, talent-management director at DuPont EMEA, orchestrates the talent plan at a regional level. Hes also the key interface with a group of 30 people consisting of the talent owners (DuPonts EMEA executive
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DUPONT DE NEMOURS & CO.

In operation for over 200 years, DuPont de Nemours & Co has offered a range of products and services to customers in agriculture, nutrition, safety and electronics. DuPont has net sales of US$27.3billion. Its operations span 70 countries, with 83,000 employees. 18,000 of these employees are within EMEA.

leadership team) as well as the plan facilitators (HR managers assigned to different DuPont businesses and local HR teams). The talent plan includes organizational assessment and people assessment focusing on critical positions to fill, or key individuals to move. When it comes to external talent-recruitment, assessment methods include standard interviews and psychometric testing, which are aligned to the companys competency model and definitions. Structured, collective decision-making strengthens the assessment process. A potential candidate will complete an intensive, rigorous set of multiple interviews. Sometimes, up to nine interviews are conducted, when not only DuPont achieves indepth assessment but candidates appreciate the opportunity to get to know the company and its people before they make their career decision. DuPont believes its a key factor in the excellent success rate of its new hires. Challenging existing processes One method used to help standardize talent-sourcing processes was to implement the knowledge share model, which entails monthly and quarterly formal and informal discussions with the senior account management team at NDK and a series of key stakeholders in DuPont. Stakeholders include the talent director, HR business partners, the leadership team and talent-process team at the HR shared service center in Spain. It was also critical to allow NDK representatives to provide their input on DuPonts existing external talent-acquisition processes, wherever necessary. The system required honesty to enable critique on areas which could be improved. For example, 18 months previous to NDKs involvement, the local HR managers in different regions would often be at different levels of expertise and experience. In order to maintain discipline and consistency in the talenthiring process, NDKs role was to ensure Neil Kelly Peter Cseres high consistent is DuPonts is managing standards in the talent director at new-hire NDK management procedure, so International. He has also held director for EMEA. that each positions at CBC Associates and Peter has 15 years HR experience. TMP Worldwide. He specializes in Prior to DuPont, Peter worked for manager can executive recruitment solutions. Philip Morris International. follow the

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Figure 1. How mentors develop in the DuPont mentoring lifecycle

manager who provided reassurance and clear information about, and explanations for, the organizations wider strategic process. The account manager is the pivotal communication point throughout the process, who encourages complete transparency during discussions in order to facilitate the implementation of the new process and change mindsets in a diplomatic way. The importance of open communication To ensure that nothing was lost in translation when explaining the structure, approach and management of the new processes to the HR teams, NDK and DuPont carried out regular, targeted face-to-face communication, basic e-mail documentation of new processes and maintained consistent messages. Promoting brand awareness Another challenge that presented itself in attracting employees was the issue of employer-brand awareness. By 2004, DuPont was aware that its brand lacked wide recognition. In 2005, a study was commissioned to generate some statistics around this hunch. The European Student Barometer study, which questioned 22,000 European business and engineering students in the final two years of their studies, revealed that DuPont ranked 75th out of 106 employers, when students were asked to complete the following exercise: Here is a list of companies which recruit graduates Please indicate those companies you are familiar with. The study indicated that the top most-recognized employers in Europe are manufacturers and marketers with well-known commercial brands. DuPont significantly contributes to most of these brands with its own products and solutions on average, 14 parts of a mobile phone are made by DuPont but DuPont is a much lesser-known brand than the mobile phone brands. This perception of, and previous lack of, instantlyrecognizable brand identity is being addressed during contact with talented potential employees and through advertising at airports and in business journals such as the New Scientist and Eurograduate. DuPonts core values DuPont also realized it was crucial to acknowledge just how powerful values are for existing and potential employees. DuPonts core values have remained constant in the face of constant change: Safety and health. Environmental stewardship. High ethical standards. Respect for people. DuPont employees report that they get a great deal from the companys values. According to an internal survey conducted among the top 260 high-potential
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Figure 2. The Mentoring Activity stage (4) of the mentoring process at DuPont

t same process when the need to hire a new employee

arises. Once the structured knowledge share approach was agreed by DuPont, NDK were trusted to introduce and instill these processes into the region, throughout the completion of hiring a new employee. Overcoming internal challenges To improve DuPonts internal diversity to match its expansion into a broader, more diverse range of locations, it was critical that if NDK were to source successful middle-management talent, they would need the buy-in from all DuPonts HR stakeholders. This talent-sourcing process was a little alien to many of the local HR managers in certain EMEA regions, because they were used to dealing with local talent suppliers and therefore, on occasions, resistance was met in having to coordinate the sourcing of new hires with NDK. The most significant example of when resistance was met was when NDK was invited by corporate HR to hire for a European finance role. Although the decision to work with fewer talent suppliers in the region had been communicated to local HR teams in the months leading up to that event, some local HR teams still gave a great deal of resistance throughout the introduction of NDKs new-hire initiative. In some cases this was because they were simply resisting change, in other cases it was because they were unaware of the bigger picture in terms of the positive impact the new procedure would have on the business. The situation was resolved by the NDK account

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employees between 2003-2005, 96 percent believe in the core values of DuPont and see them as an important guide for achieving DuPonts vision to be the worlds most dynamic science company, creating sustainable solutions essential to a better, safer, healthier life for people everywhere. All potential DuPont employees are also asked about how important they view values, as a way to help gauge how well they would fit in with DuPonts work environment and culture. Harnessing mentoring expertise In conjunction with DuPonts focus on values, the company recognizes that theres little point in sourcing the right candidates for its key positions if theyre unable to develop successfully within the company. With this in mind, the company uses a successful mentoring system, whereby as a persons career progresses, if theyre identified as a potential leader, theyll be approached to take part in the mentoring program and will choose from potential mentors available on the database usually a senior employee from a different function within the business (see Figure 1, left). The mentors role is to provide the mentee with spiritual guidance and helps the mentee to define and achieve longer-term development aims (see Figure 2, left). HRs role in this process is to facilitate identifying mentees and mentors and encourage their participation in the program and offer mentoring learning tools. Robust staffing and talent management models Due to the success of the DuPont and NDK recruiting project (32 successful new executive talents have been sourced for DuPont by NDK in the past five years), the relationship has now been extended to all five of the DuPont business platforms in Europe. As recruitment solutions are now delivered by trusted partners, strategic HR employees are now able to spend more time with management on developing talent and succession planning, rather than being drawn into more administrative, time-consuming tasks. Since starting the NDK/DuPont EMEA relationship, fewer calls have been made by line managers to the talent director, Cseres, about recruitment matters this reflects that procedures and processes are now clear and straightforward, and Cseres time can now be used to concentrate on other strategic issues. NDKs efforts to generate a diverse shortlist of candidates for a role has contributed to DuPonts international recognition for its race and gender awareness and for its management of an ethnically and geographically diverse workforce.1 This consistent and robust process has also impacted the speed, quality of service, market understanding and ultimately, cost. Since 2005, theres been a 50 percent cost reduction in the recruitment process and DuPont expects to see the costs drop even further when the
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KEY POINTS

In 2004, DuPont realized a need to restructure its EMEA talent-sourcing processes, in order to find and develop effective future leaders for its various business units. Having formed a successful relationship in sourcing new hires in the UK, DuPont tasked recruitment specialists, NDK, with standardizing its talentsourcing system across its EMEA territories. By establishing clearer lines of communication, standardizing recruitment procedures, and ensuring key HR staff have a clear understanding of signoff processes and working-practice guidelines, DuPont now has a robust system for sourcing the best talent and maintaining a good diversity record. Since the new ways of working were introduced, NDK has helped to reduce DuPonts cost-to-hire expenses by 50 percent.

measurements have been calculated for 2006. Aligning processes with organizational goals NDK was originally tasked with continuing to attract and hire high-potential talents, improve diversity and succession planning, and reduce time/cost-to-hire of candidates. These objectives have been met by establishing clearer lines of communication, standardizing recruitment procedures, ensuring new positions are posted on the staff website and developing a clear understanding of sign-off processes and defining working practice guidelines.

, CONTACT
Peter Cseres
E-mail: peter.cseres@che.dupont.com

Neil Kelly
E-mail: nkelly@ndksearch.com

References: 1. For details of DuPonts various diversity awards, visit: http://www2.dupont.com/Our_Company/en_US/diversity/awards/awards.html

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