The ongoing G4S Olympic security debacle is a great example of the Human Resources / Talent Acquisition function in the spotlight for all the wrong reasons.
We don’t know the goings-on within G4S or how they managed the process, but it is surprising that an organisation that presumably operates highly complex, systemic contracts could drop the ball in such a way. It has the scent of “human resources” as a necessary evil, a cost of doing business which requires less investment than the other, more important stuff like operational systems and trucks and finance.
This is all about the talent pipeline, the candidate experience, and on-boarding — critical communication touch points in the process — that have been poorly thought through and poorly executed. The question is whether G4S HR people were clamouring for investment to meet their objectives, or whether they were (consciously or unwittingly) complicit in the incompetence.
What an example – an unfortunate one – of where employer brand and talent acquisition has a very real, very visible, and very tangible impact on an organisation’s reputation. G4S’s brand has been severely damaged as a a result.
As ever a point well made Kevin! In our social world whether external or internal there is only one brand made up of the ‘sum of the parts’. the brand only works when all the parts are in synch and contributing to the experience.
Great example of what happens when it all goes wrong, keep them coming!
Graham