Recruitment based on Organisational Culture

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Appointing leaders may seem to be easier said than done, but this is not the case at all. According to an academic research paper done by the American Psychological Association, the rate of successful hired leaders is around 30%. In the United States alone, 75% of employees have reported that their direct manager has been poorly chosen and it obstructs them from doing their work. Furthermore, 65% of them would accept lower salaries in order to change their manager with someone better equipped for the job.

There are numerous reasons why this situation occurs over and over again. Mostly, this is due to the over-reliance on intuition in the early stages of recruitment instead of using proper scientific validated selection tools. The problem that almost always arises when hiring new leaders is their incongruity with the organisation’s culture. Even though on paper the candidates may seem perfect and they tick all the boxes in terms of skills, leadership capabilities and expertise, organisations tend to overlook the congruence between their values and the candidate’s values. Consequently, leaders hired for their excellent skills and talents are often fired on the premise of poor cultural fit.

What Is Organisational Culture?

In layman’s terms, organisational culture revolves around the collective mindset and norms of employees, as well as palpable aspects revolving around the work environment which directly mirror these beliefs. The effectiveness of organisational culture relies upon the company’s workforce, business market and strategies. Moreover, given the fact that there are countless organisations around the world, organisational cultures are abundant and different altogether.

How Can Culture Be Related to Recruitment?

There is a close relation between the recruitment process and organisational culture due to their association to employee selection and retention. Attractiveness wise, culture represents everything ranging from brand image to company projects. There are organisations that hold culture in high regard and plan their recruiting accordingly. Due to this type of recruitment, only the right people are being targeted and attracted, whilst others are somewhat determined to look elsewhere for employment.

Primarily, experience and expertise are central characteristics to a leaders’ potential, but, unfortunately, they are unsatisfactory in determining leadership performance. To be more precise, personality traits such as: curiosity, self-awareness and integrity won’t help predict a proper leader to fit the role within the company. In order to properly evaluate how fit a leader is with an organisation, their motives and values should be analysed. These characteristics act as an inner compass, revealing how they would conduct activities, in what type of culture they would thrive and what kind of projects they will deem necessary or engaging.

For instance, if a leader truly values tradition he or she will have a strong opinion regarding right and wrong, will have an affinity for hierarchical companies and will exhibit a low tolerance for innovation. Simply put, these types of leaders would struggle in a creative environment. Leaders who value relationships will develop a strong bond with their staff and their focus will be on creating and maintaining collaborative work and social relations. If they are given a role within an individualistic organisational culture, which would isolate them, they will fail. Subsequently, we have altruistic leaders who focus on improving employees’ lives. If the organisations they work at are profit driven, their skills will be wasted.

Understanding the company’s organisational culture

It is absolutely essential for a company to know their own culture; otherwise knowing a leader’s motives and values becomes practically pointless. Regrettably, a vast majority of companies do not understand the importance of pinpointing their culture and generally tend to rely on clichés such as: ‘entrepreneurial’, ‘innovative’, ‘diverse’ and ‘results-oriented’. Of course, there is the off-chance a company hires a leader who can perform in any kind of environment. Unfortunately, these leaders are an exception, a rare breed, because in most cases potential in leadership depends greatly on context.

Although its significance, organisations don’t pay attention to culture, they just let it evolve from within. It is somewhat good news, due to the fact that if companies start recruiting with the idea of developing a proper organisational culture, it can vastly improve employee retention and performance which translates into growth and profits. Another argument for cultural-based recruitment is that while job demands may constantly change, culture will always be a constant within the company. Statistically, people being hired in part to their cultural fit are more likely to become a company asset.

Great People Inside provides easy-to-use tools and processes to attract, assess, match, select, onboard, manage, develop, benchmark and maintain workforces anywhere in the world.

Finding the right talent, the best fit for the job and your organisation, can be a very challenging task. It requires deep knowledge of your own organisation’s culture and keen understanding of the candidate’s personality, strengths, interests, work style and other characteristics. Our technology and solutions will do the work for you, helping you find employees who can flourish and reach the highest performance required to constantly bring your company forward.

Request a free demo:

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Sources:

https://hbr.org/2017/06/when-leaders-are-hired-for-talent-but-fired-for-not-fitting-in

https://www.forbes.com/sites/propointgraphics/2016/11/13/hiring-for-smart-talent-not-direct-experience/#37b671f42dcf

https://hiring.monster.com/hr/hr-best-practices/recruiting-hiring-advice/strategic-workforce-planning/hire-for-the-organization.aspx

Reducing Employee Turnover

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In the majority of cases, a high employee turnover is not regarded as ideal for a company’s reputation, performance and goals. The costs themselves are high due to the fact that people are leaving, thus leading to numerous hirings and training programs for the constant flow of new employees. If your company has experienced high turnover in recent times, it might be time to think about effective retention strategies.

A high employee turnover is bad for any organisation’s bottom line. It has been estimated that the cost of replacing an employee is nearly double their salary for a year. Morale can also go down if too many people come and go through the office doors.

There are a number of ways in which you can reduce employee turnover and they are not as difficult as you might think. When employees feel their work environment offers them the necessary support for them to achieve their goals that is when they thrive the most.

There are many ways in which you can make your employees feel that their work is appreciated enough so they don’t leave or you are not forced to fire them. Let’s go through these ideas step-by-step:

  1. Flexibility – Work flexibility is all about the possibility of working either from home, a café or even while on vacation, as long as employees have a good internet connection (and that is not hard to find nowadays). People are more motivated to produce great results when they have the opportunity to work in the environment they’re most productive. This idea works best on the new generation i.e. millennials.
  2. Honest job expectations – Many companies suffer from high employee turnover due to the fact that employees are assigned something different from what they have seen in the initial job description. When employees are given responsibilities that do not suit their interests and strengths, their drive to perform goes to ground.
  3. Promote a healthy work-life balance – The work-life balance has become extremely important to employees, but many managers fail to realise that. The managers should take care of their team in order for them to avoid employee burnout. Regular check-ups help, because if you observe something is not right with one of your staff you can give them a day off to decompress. It is key you do not bombard your employees with one too many projects at once.
  4. The possibility of professional growth – It is as clear as day that people are more interested in jobs where professional development is one of the advantages. In order to boost your company’s performance, (internal) growth has to be one of the core principles. Whether we are talking about a promotion or a simple salary raise, this will motivate your employees to achieve the organisation’s goals/objectives. Provide the opportunity for career and personal growth through training and education, challenging assignments and more responsibility. Welfare is important to people, undermining their value and pay would be a fatal mistake. Managers and CEOs should work hand in hand with the HR department in order to devise to most appropriate pay plan possible for their employees.
  5. Finding the best candidate from the beginning – It may seem like a pretty obvious idea, but many companies fail to realise the importance of the recruiting process. Besides the necessary skills any employee should have, try and find out if that person identifies with the company culture and gets along with the co-workers and managers.

This is where Great People Inside comes to your aid. Our online platform offers the best solutions and tools for your company to thrive in every type of industry and any possible situation your organisation may find itself. In terms of lowering your employee turnover rates we recommend our GR8 Full Spectrum assessment for hiring and 360° Survey for retention. Finding the right talent, the best fit for the job and your organisation, can be a very challenging task. It requires deep knowledge of your own organisation’s culture and keen understanding of the candidate’s personality, strengths, interests, work style and other characteristics. Our technology and solutions will do the work for you, helping you find employees who can flourish and reach the highest performance required to constantly bring your company forward.

Request a free demo:

Sources:

Theculture.com

Guides.wsj.com

Thebalance.com