Employee Selection - Are you Gambling at Work
By Chris Young
Employee Retention begins with Employee Selection.
Gambling is alive and well in the modern work environment! It's
amazing how many organizations gamble at work by not using
advanced hiring techniques that could save resources and future
headaches. Employee Selection is a key strategy that can save
organizations tremendous resources, time, and energy. Proper
Employee Selection is the foundation to an effective Employee
Retention strategy. Few organizations are tapping the potential
of effective Employee Selection. Why? Because today's typical
Employee Selection process is a gamble at best. The good new is
it doesn't need to be. There are powerful tools to help you
optimize your employee selection and hiring processes.
Several years ago, I was in Dallas attending a trade show and
noticed all the beautiful sports and luxury cars and shared that
observation with a friend. My friend said, "There are a lot of
$30,000 millionaires." A lot of people have everything they have
tied up into that fancy automobile. Thinking that a car is
demonstrative of that particular person's overall success is an
incorrect assumption at best.
What situations that you face are similar to this example? It is
sometimes said that a particular person is "all hat and no
cattle" when they look the part - being more image than reality.
How many of your hiring candidates look the part, but deep down
inside, aren't a fit for the position but you won't know it for
90-120 days - long after they have become an emotional part of
your team?
How often are people and situations what we think they are?
Perception isn't always reality. That perception can be
enormously expensive.
Analogously, in your employee selection, inspiring, and
maximization of your team and organization, how often do you run
into situations where things aren't what they seem?
Making a poor to bad employee selection decision is costly to
say the least. Depending upon the industry, the cost of turnover
can be anywhere from 30 percent of the annual salary and
benefits to over 150 percent. Numbers don't speak to what can't
be measured. The wrong hires destroy employee morale and hurt
your Customer Experience.
Consider... Through traditional hiring practices, what are the
"odds" you will hire the right person? How many candidates look
great initially and then when they are on your "bus" they don't
work out? Your "odds" of hiring the right person are a LOT LOWER
than you think unless you are using advanced hiring techniques.
Consider the following statistics (various sources)...
14 percent - Traditional hiring techniques 38 percent -
Behavioral Profile 54 percent - Abilities Testing 75 percent -
Job Match Testing
By the way... Your odds at winning a hand at Blackjack are in
the upper 40 percent range. Yes... You have better odds at
winning a hand of Blackjack than you do in hiring the right
person. Our thought process is "trust but verify." The candidate
wouldn't be applying if they didn't want the job. Therefore,
they are going to do everything possible to get it through the
resume' that is customized to your job description. No, we don't
believe people are trying to be devious. Quite the contrary.
It's best to assume the goodness in others.
However... If you don't use a comprehensive Job Match
personality profile during your employee selection and hiring
process to ensure your candidate is a good job match, you are
taking unnecessary risk. Remember that college course you
absolutely despised? For me, it was accounting. I took a lot of
it and couldn't stand it. I can't tell you how many times I have
seen people who went to college for a particular degree field
and then came out into the real world and hated it. Ever notice
how many people are in careers that are completely different
from their major field of study in college? You've been there...
You know what is scary? With recent college graduates, unless
you are Job Match Testing, you get to pay for figuring out
someone doesn't like the degree field they are going into. Keep
in mind... If you aren't going to the highest level of
understanding your new hire candidate through Job Match Testing,
you won't...
Hire the best candidates. Reduce employee turnover. Prevent
conflict. Maximize your training dollar effectiveness. Know with
certainty who to hire based on future leadership abilities
unrecognized now.
There are several significant reasons to Job Match Test your
candidates...
Employee Selection - Job fit - How well do their behaviors,
values, personal attributes fit the job?
Inspiration - How do you know what "buttons" to push and which
to stay away from if you don't know their behavior profile?
Remember - people leave people, not jobs. Is the way you are
talking to your new hire de-motivating them?
Coaching - How do you know what skills the new team member needs
to maximize their performance? Why not coach immediately rather
than the normal 2-3 months process - after you are beginning to
"know" the new team member? With the Trimetrix Behavior Profile
system, you will know immediately - rather than having to wait
for the "honeymoon" to be over.
Interpersonal Effectiveness - How do you help the team member
acclimate to the rest of the team effectively if they don't know
how to effectively communicate with them? How do you help the
rest of the team acclimate to the new hire candidate?
Employee Retention - If the team member doesn't fit the job,
they won't stay. When you match the job to the candidate, morale
is enhanced as well as productivity.
Succession Planning - How do you know who will scientifically be
the best candidate for potential future promotions. How do you
choose the best future leader between two good,
equally-qualified candidates?
Training and Leadership Development - Where do you allocate
scarce training resources? When you use an effective Job Match
Testing program, you can identify key areas that candidate will
Without at least behavior profiling, you can't possibly know
what the full potential of the new hire candidate is. And you
can't tap what you don't know.
Please keep in mind... It isn't ethical to base your entire
hiring decision on Job Match Testing of any type. Our
recommendation is that it be no more than 20-25 percent of your
hiring decision. These tools are most powerful when used in
combination with your existing hiring program - not by
themselves.
Chris Young is founder of the Rainmaker Group. The Rainmaker
Group is a human talent selection and development firm
specializing in using personality assessments to select and
retain the best employees. Give Chris a shout to learn more
about maximizing your organization's potential.
http://www.therainmakergroupinc.com 1-866-988-7246
info@therainmakergroupinc.com
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