People Workflow Audit

This is a sample. Larkspur Community Services is not a real organization, and every count and dollar figure is made up for this example.

People Workflow Audit · Findings memo

Are your key roles filled by their start date, and what's in the way?

To: Chief People Officer, Larkspur Community Services, a 400-person nonprofit
From: Helen Chan, The Reagent Co. · Brett Chappell, Fullstacked
Process: Hiring, from opening a role to a signed offer
We looked at: Your hiring dashboard, 4 interviews, your hiring SOP and offer templates, and all 160 roles hired for this year

1The outcome and the number

The outcomeEvery role is filled by a strong hire by its planned start date.

What you measureTime to fill: 41 days, posting to offer made. It's reported to the board each quarter. Good measure, but it stops counting too early

Where it stands14 of 160 roles were still empty on their planned start date. That's 91% filled on time. Time to fill never showed it.

Time to fill looks healthy because the clock resets every time a finalist walks away. Last year 23 finalists took another job while waiting for a salary, and those lost weeks never showed up. Most of your hiring process is in good shape. One step is leaving teams short.

2Your process, step by step

Good shape Written down, done the same way each time Inconsistent Works, but differently each time Fix first Lives in someone's head, drags the number

#	Step	Rating	What we found	Days
1	Open the role	Inconsistent	Some hiring managers use the request form. Others email the recruiter directly.	4
2	Post the job	Good shape	Templates for every role. Posted the same day.	1
3	Screen applications	Good shape	A written rubric that every recruiter uses.	5
4	Schedule interviews	Good shape	Clear rules, but done by hand over email. About 6 hours a week.	6
5	Interviews and work sample	Good shape	Same questions and scoring for every role.	7
6	Decide on a candidate	Inconsistent	Each hiring manager runs the debrief their own way.	4
7	Set the salary	Fix first	No written rules. One analyst builds each salary in a personal spreadsheet, then it waits on 3 approvals over email. This is where finalists walk.	11
8	Make the offer	Inconsistent	Offer letters are edited by hand. 1 in 10 needed a correction.	3
9	Background check and paperwork	Good shape	Handled by the vendor, on time.	5

Days are the median for this year's hires. Steps 1 to 8 add up to the 41-day time to fill.

3If you fix one thing, fix this

Fix first · Step 7, set the salary

Set the salary in 2 days, not 11, and fill 98% of roles by their start date.

11 daysaverage wait for a salary today

23finalists who took another job while waiting

$129,000estimated yearly cost of restarting those searches

The rules for placing someone on the salary scale aren't written down, so only one person can do it, and nothing moves when they're out. Three people approve every offer, one after another, by email.

The fix: write the placement rules on one page, cut approvals to one, and set a 2-day standard.

Cost per lost finalist is about $5,600: 25 recruiter hours to restart the search at $48 an hour ($1,200), plus 20 days of temporary coverage or overtime at $220 a day ($4,400). 23 × $5,600 ≈ $129,000.

4How you'll know it worked

Track monthly	Today	Target
Roles filled by the planned start date The outcome. Replaces time to fill in the board report.	91%	98%
Days to set a salary	11	2
Finalists lost while waiting for an offer	23 a year	Under 5

5Ready to automate now

Scheduling interviews (step 4). The rules are clear and the calendars are accurate. A tool can book interviews and send reminders, saving about 6 hours a week.
Posting jobs (step 2). The templates are solid. A tool can post to every board at once.
Setting the salary (step 7), after the fix. Once the placement rules are on paper, a tool can calculate the salary in minutes. A person still approves it.

We'll go through this together at the live session. Bring your compensation and finance leads.

#	Step	Rating	What we found
1	Report the departure	Fix first	A site leader or operations manager emails the people team. No form, no required details, no deadline.
2	Assign it to someone	Fix first	The email goes to several people. No one is sure it's theirs. Sometimes two people act, sometimes no one does, and nothing moves when someone is out.
3	Enter the end date	Inconsistent	Entered once someone picks up the email, often days later.
4	Stop pay	Fix first	Staff on automatic pay who had left kept getting paid for months after they left.
5	Turn off email, drive and laptop	Fix first	The people team forwards the email to tech, and the same problem repeats. Former staff still had their email and files.
6	Turn off building access	Inconsistent	Depends on the site. Some former staff could still get into the building.
7	Final paycheck	Good shape	Calculated correctly once payroll knows.
8	End benefits and send notices	Good shape	Handled by the benefits vendor, on time.
9	Review admin access	Fix first	Never reviewed. More than 150 people had full admin rights to the HR system, so people could see pay records they had no reason to see. More than a third of them had already left.

Track monthly	Target
Days from last day to pay stopped The outcome.	Same day
Days from last day to email, files and building access off	Same day
Payments made to former staff	0
Admin accounts held by people who have left	0

Find out if your talent function is delivering what your CEO cares about.

Every audit starts with the question: are you measuring the right thing?

Nobody measures whether it works

It counts effort, not results

It ties to what the CEO cares about

Three to four weeks, three questions answered.

The outcome

What's in the way

What to fix first

What we need from you.

What you get at the end of the audit.

Sample: Hiring

Sample: Offboarding

90 minutes with us

Hiring: the metric stopped the clock too early

Are your key roles filled by their start date, and what's in the way?

1The outcome and the number

2Your process, step by step

3If you fix one thing, fix this

Set the salary in 2 days, not 11, and fill 98% of roles by their start date.

4How you'll know it worked

5Ready to automate now

Offboarding: no one measured it, so no one saw it

Do pay and access end on a person's last day, and what's in the way?

1The outcome and the number

2Your process, step by step

3If you fix one thing, fix this

One departure form, one owner, and pay and access off the same day.

4How you'll know it worked

5Ready to automate now

The live findings session

Time to fill looks fine. Start dates don't.

Set the salary in 2 days, not 11.