“Steve Jobs described the process of hiring top talent as “the most important job”. Yet, how to find the right employee remains a contested question.” (CIPD)
Those in charge of recruitment and talent acquisition are often pushed for time. With this in mind it is easy to neglect recruitment best practices. Not only is time a constraint in following best practice, but also the more experienced the recruiter, the more they tend to follow their own intuition on who is best to fit the role in question. There is nothing wrong with the latter, but let’s take a look at the strategies involved in undertaking a more robust, evidence-based approach, so that you know you’re hiring the best for your company.
The problem with that ‘gut feeling’:
“There is a multitude of evidence that shows that we hire people like ourselves.” (CIPD)
The decisions on who we hire are effected largely by our own biases. There is a multitude of evidence that shows that we hire people like ourselves: employers seek candidates who are similar to themselves in terms of leisure activities, experiences and self-presentation
styles. By acknowledging and understanding these biases in decision making of both candidates and recruiters, we can design better systems of recruitment and selection.
“Behavioural science tells us that people have hardwired systematic biases in how they evaluate candidates.” (CIPD)
We need to be asking, what are the best selection tools – or combination of tools – to help overcome biases and get the best outcome? HR and others in the recruiting position need to be able to pick out key predictors of performance in a timely and cost-effective way. But what way is this?
The Solution? Science:
“It may seem like a glaring paradox, but in data lies the future of human resources and talent management” (Meghan M. Biro – Forbes Magazine)
HR analytics (also known as HR metrics or people analytics) is a practice whereby people-related datasets are analysed thoroughly to generate new insights. This usually involves merging different datasets (such as staffing, benefits, staff survey responses and performance metrics) to tease out what may encourage, for example, retention in different groups of employees or what may help some employees perform better. Although the number of organisations with dedicated HR analytics teams is rapidly growing, a key challenge remains to use high-quality data such as accurate performance metrics (CIPD 2011).
The journey to improve an organisation through its employees only starts at recruitment. Evidence shows that talent is not fixed (Pfeffer and Sutton 2006). Performance on the job, and thus organisational performance, depends not only on selecting the best candidates, but on the systems that an organisation puts in place to support and develop its staff.
“To really leverage human capital now, we need to turn to the data that is constantly forming, streaming, reforming. Passive and active candidates, onboarding, training, engagement, retention, attrition, performance, recognition: it can all be predicted with Big Data.” (Meghan M. Biro – Forbes Magazine)
In our experience working with customers, these are the things we find really help them:
- Start using workforce science analytics to determine what talent to recruit and hire and also how to deploy, develop and engage them and help them be successful.
- Use social cooperation tools to help employees connect with one another, learn from one another, and collaborate and with customers and business partners to get their work done with better results.
- Cultivate an engaging culture that’s aligned with business strategies. This enables employees to increase their efficiency, their productivity and their agility. In other words, to do their best work.
In short, companies are starting to use talent analytics and social collaboration tools to take an employee-centric strategy that yields better business results. So to take HR to the next level, make it a ‘Smarter Workforce’.
A Smarter Workforce reinvents work in this age of the empowered employee. Taking advantage of behavioural science, predictive analytics, and collaboration tools, it ensures a best-fit, engaged workforce to drive innovation, develop deeper client relationships and move business forward.
