When you decide to hire a new employee you can either decide to go it alone and hope you make the right series of decisions or you can review hiring practices that have proven effective over time. Let’s face it, in this new, emerging economy it is becoming more important to make sure that we are hiring smarter.
There has been a lot of information about the nature of our workforce, yet the most persuasive comment for me is attributed to Peter Drucker: “. . . the center of gravity of the work force is shifting from the manual worker to the knowledge worker.”[1]
Think about it – employee selection practices require even more that we understand what talents, behaviors, and motivators are required for employees to be successful performing their jobs. Understanding your employees better can help you to drive your company’s success, growth, and performance.
Does it make sense that an aligned workforce increases performance and profitability? What can you do to get a handle on how you can align your hiring practices to hire the right types of people?
Why does someone want to work at your company?
Do you try to understand what motivates someone to apply for a position in your company, what their talents, values, and behavioral preferences are? Once you understand these factors have you developed a way to maximize their performance so that the employee and the company benefit?
Most often I find this understanding helps to avoid costly hiring errors that so frequently have occurred in the past and which can no longer be tolerated in this new economy. In my management coaching training programs I advise business owners to better understand what types of people they need for their company to succeed so they have a better chance of to get where they need to go – and have a more aligned and focused workforce.
How can employees contribute to business success?
We all understand that you need people to run your businesses but do you understand how people can contribute to the success of your businesses? Here are six ways to help you work better with your applicants and employees.
- Develop a process to define and communicate your company’s needs by defining and communicating your long-term company strategy and plan (with your employees);
- Develop your recruitment strategy to include communication of your strategy and plan to attract who you want and need for your future success;
- Develop a series of questions within your application and interviewing process to gather information (intelligence) about candidate talents and job advancement potential and interests;
- Use assessments and profiles to understand an applicant’s current work potential and to diagnose what talents are important, and then perform an apple to apple match;
- Use those assessments and profiles to understand how an applicant’s long-term potential can match with your company’s long-term strategy; and
- Based on the results of those assessments and profiles be willing to restructure job roles to better fit a person’s natural talents, values, and behaviors – think more discreetly on how you can leverage those talents to benefit your company’s growth and the applicant’s growth. Try to develop a better “person-future fit.”[2]
Position your company for long-term growth
The economy and world we occupy continues to increase their global reach. The competitiveness and reliance we have with each other as businesses gives us a unique opportunity to position our businesses for sustainable, long-term growth. While certain companies continue to utilize management principles that worked well in an industrial economy I believe we need to adopt our management practices that recognize and cultivate our knowledge-based economy.
Utilizing good sound people management practices involving the use of diagnostic profiles can positively impact your company’s bottom-line. As you look at your business, ask yourself – are you using strong employee selection practices? Is your workforce aligned for positive, long-term company growth? What can you do now to foster that alignment and increase your business growth?
[1] Management: Tasks, Responsibilities, Practices (1973)
[2] Collins, C. J., Ericksen, J. & Allen, M. (2005). Employee outcomes: Human resource management practices and firm performance in small businesses (CAHRS Working Paper #08-09). Ithaca, NY: Cornell University, School of Industrial and Labor Relations, Center for Advanced Human Resource Studies. http://digitalcommons.ilr.cornell.edu/cahrswp/485
Image: “worker standing on a virtual connection/Shutterstock“
