Bench Builder HR Solutions

Introducing a proactive approach to adding top, early career, and high-potential talent to your HR team!

It is a well-known proverb that the primary driving force behind most new innovations is need. It certainly has been a driver for us at TCG for many years.  Client demand-pull (need) was the spark that has ignited the launch of our fourth product offering in our stable of Agile HR Business Solutions. It became very clear to us about two years ago that the playing field for talent was changing and the rate of that change was accelerating. It was also becoming clear that the role and demands for Human Resource departments were becoming increasingly taxed and at the same time, the supply-demand curve for HR talent was going to become out of balance in favor of the HR practitioners. Thankfully, TCG correctly anticipated that the “HR Market” would need more dynamic solutions, not less, to fill talent voids and gaps in their organization further exacerbated by COVID-19 and the Great Resignation.  In 2020, TCG launched its Interim HR Leader and Consulting Services practices, hired Pam Noble, Dr. Tobin Anselmi, and a portfolio of top consulting experts.  TCG appropriately rebranded to properly reflect that we had become an Agile HR Business Solutions firm, not just a firm offering retained/contained search. Building on these successes and by responding to the needs of our clients both current and former – our Bench Builder solution was born.

What is Bench Builder and where does it fit into the talent acquisition model?

Our Consulting Services Division states that a Talent Acquisition Model looks like the following:

I think we can all agree that HR Talent Acquisition departments want and need to move from left to right across this mode while continuously improving. This is fairly apparent and intuitive. Chances are that if you have been able to get to the strategic and highly strategic boxes of this model, you have a dynamic HR talent acquisition department with multiple engines.

Middle and large market organizations likely have built capability (engines) in the following areas:

Where does Bench Builder fit in among all this recruiting horsepower? Bench Builder begins where off-campus recruiting and HR leadership development programs end.  It stops short of what is offered from executive recruiting agencies and boutiques (but not by much) and offers a solution that could best be described as a hybrid between retained search and an RPO.

TCG started having conversations with one of the oldest and largest pulp and paper manufacturing companies several months ago. This company shared with us that they saw meaningful holes in their HR department, particularly their field HR organization. They shared that off-campus hires from the premier HR programs would help but not entirely solve the problem and that the graduates of their Human Resources Leadership Development Programs would fall short of filling real-time needs across their plant footprint. Thus, if you can’t build it or build it fast enough you are faced with the challenge of buying it. This is exactly where Bench Builder HR solutions fit among the HR talent acquisition solution stack.

How does it work and what does it cost?

TCG has been investing continuously in our internal research capability giving us the ability to follow and database the graduates from the leading HR undergraduate and graduate university programs. These graduates are being snapped up by the best HR shops in America like Honeywell, Eaton, Raytheon, Ingersoll-Rand, Goodyear to name a few. These “high potentials” enter Leadership Development Programs where they will begin a series of robust rotations, typically starting as a single site leader of a smallish manufacturing plant perhaps in rural America. The goal of these programs is to prepare these future HR standouts for tomorrow’s Director, Vice President, and maybe even CHRO roles.

Our Bench Builder HR solution mines this data and then actively recruits on behalf of our clients for what is a job common profile that is typically fungible across multiple locations for multiple roles simultaneously.

For example:  A tier one appliance manufacturer comes to TCG and says we have needs, we have a lot of need for plant HR Managers. The roles are chiefly identical, we are seeking 2-5 years of experience, mobility, and stretch.

TCG will stack a project team with one leader, multiple recruiters, and our research team to address the need and Client.  The process generally follows the TCG contained search process (see below image) and includes much of what is included in the Christopher Recruiting System (C.R.S.), a four-point assessment model that includes a TCG Candidate BIO, Search Specific Measurable Competency and Chemistry Models, DiSC Assessment, High Definition Recorded Video Interviews, and a 100% Performance Guarantee.  Right about now you are probably saying this sounds exactly like our search product and you would be right.  What is different is the expanded team approach, the volume to which we are delivering against (we may deliver slates as large as 20+ candidates) and our candidate pools fit a common job profile who are willing to move to multiple locations that our clients offer.  What is also different is that we facilitate and proctor a “draft” like experience for the candidate where multiple stakeholders are participating often in a truncated and efficient hiring process held at a common location over one or two days.

TCG has historically completed these projects multiple times for the likes of Comcast, Komatsu, SC Johnson, and others under an informal Casting Process. Today TCG has officially launched our Bench Builder HR solution. With respect to cost, it would be fair to categorize this product as a Hybrid between Retained/Contained search and RPO.  As such, the cost falls on the continuum between the two.  We take into account the meaningful synergy that exists in the work and pass that savings back to our clients. Trust TCG with all your human resources business solutions.

Call us today and discover how TCG can help you Bench Build(er) your HR Organization with tomorrow’s top-tier HR Talent!