Why You Should Hire For Potential, Not Experience

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Great Fastcompany article By Dinah Wisenberg Brin

When you’re hiring, look past the experience candidates come with, to the potential for them to grow into the perfect fit for your company.

An electronics retailer hires a CEO who seems to possess the ideal credentials and skills, only to find him ill-prepared to handle changing market dynamics.

A small brewery, in contrast, picks a project manager lacking in relevant industry experience, based on a hiring consultant’s feeling that the man will succeed. The new hire quickly ascends to a key role in a strong management team that turns the company into a conglomerate.

What’s the difference in the two hires?

Read article to continue

If you want to accelerate talent, contact John Inman at john@johninmandialogue.com or at 425-954-7256

A Data-driven Approach to Organizational Change in Healthcare

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A Data-driven Approach to Organizational Change in Healthcare is copied from the September 2014 issue of  PI Worldwide News and Insights.

Data-Driven

 

In a new era of healthcare technologies and policies, American Health Network (AHN) medical group recognized it needed more effective procedures and methodologies to help its employees navigate the nuances. The organization turned to workforce analytics to optimize its business structure and enable leaders to guide the change process effectively while reducing turnover, enhancing employee morale and strengthening clinical teams. AHN’s approach leveraged PI Worldwide’s 4 Pillars of Successful Change Initiatives.American Health Network

Pillar 1: Communication and retention: By leveraging the Predictive Index® (PI® ) behavioral assessment to understand employees’ motivating needs and behavioral drives, AHN was able to develop a targeted communications strategy in line with individual styles and needs. This helped increase employee engagement and minimize turnover. AHN’s Training and Development Manager Monica Wearren explains, “With nearly 2,000 employees and 75 offices, a ‘one size fits all’ approach will not work. It is important that we can communicate to different people in different ways to ensure everyone gets the message.” AHN believes PI enables their leaders to communicate in ways that resonate with employees so they provide the very best patient experience.

Pillar 2: Managing culture shift Workforce analytics helped AHN create a culture of action plans and productive discussions around personality differences which led to noticeable changes. An employee survey conducted by AHN following the implementation of workforce analytics showed:

  • 80% of respondents cited increased self-awareness of personality and motivational style as the number one tool they incorporate into their daily jobs.
  • 75% feel they can use the increased self-awareness to adjust behavior/communication.
  • 75% feel they can share results of their own assessments with managers and peers.
  • 53% of respondents cited an improvement in satisfaction with their job and the company overall.

Pillar 3: Strategic Workforce Planning AHN turned to workforce analytics to assess current behavioral fits and gaps and inform future talent needs. Armed with this insight into their existing workforce, the organization was better able to set internal goals that would align with the changes happening in the industry. For instance, AHN used the PRO™ job analytic to reevaluate the behavioral requirements of several critical positions. This provided managers with stronger job targets that could be used for hiring, development and coaching. According to Wearren, the broader program incorporating workforce analytics has helped reduce turnover as AHN has been able to hire more strategically and successfully redirect employees into other positions or reshape their jobs as needed. P

illar 4: Conflict resolution With greater awareness of their own behavioral styles and those of their peers, employees are reporting increased confidence when communicating. Furthermore, managers cited (1) Communication (2) Resolving Conflict and (3) Team building as the top priorities for which they would like to further apply behavioral data. Wearren notes, “With the Predictive Index insight, we can better anticipate personality clashes and thus surround our clinicians with the appropriate personnel and resources that will not impede on efficiency or patient care.”

“The PI is and will continue to be helpful in smoothing some of the edginess that comes with change by enabling our leaders to communicate information more effectively and in ways that resonates with the employees. As new initiatives come down the pike in the market and in our company, the PI will be instrumental in making these processes much more manageable.”
-Monica Wearren Training & Development Manager American Health Network

If you would like to learn more about this process, workforce analytics, and people big data and how it can transform an organization, please contact John Inman at john@johninmandialogue.com or at 425-954-7256.

New Seminar: Winning with Natural Talent

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New Seminar Roll Out

Winning with Natural Talent: Developing High Performance through Selection, Development, and Leadership of Natural Talent

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Ski jump

 

Length: 60 minutes. Capable of expanding with experiential exercises to meet the needs of longer format

Setting: In person instructor led or virtual instructor led

Audience: Any group of organization leaders: Association meetings, peer to peer groups, community meetings, or in house management meetings

Audience size: 15 people or more (if in the Puget Sound region or virtual, 5 or more). Available to sit down one on one with those who are serious about learning more without participating in a seminar

Investment: This is a free session. I can also deliver as a paid breakout for an association event.

Value to participants: Learn how to address one of the most intractable problems faced by organizations of all sizes, getting the right people into the right positions. We will address:

  • Learn what forward thinking organizations are doing to hire talent, not resumes
  • Learn easy and cost effective talent selection processes and tools
  • Learn how to eliminate the 70-90% of failed hires, external and incumbent
  • Learn how to generate a substantial ROI on invested solutions, rather than incur a cost
  • Learn how to use predictive talent analytics for evidence based people decisions
  • Learn how to accelerate the performance of your top performers
  • Learn why organizations are selecting on potential rather than on past performance
  • Learn how to eliminate the discrimination against early talent inherent in resume screening
  • Learn what to ask for when selecting a solution for your organization
  • Learn how to be an effective leader in a VUCA world (volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity)
  • Like to add 40% to EBITA? Easily within the range of validated results
  • Those individuals who become certified in Predictive Index (PI) receive 16 hours of credit towards their PHR, SPHR, or GPHR certification.

Background: Organization leaders are frustrated with the high cost of putting people into positions and having those people fail or underperform. Organization leaders are asking that their investment in training and development show quantifiable financial results. Organization leaders are seeking to learn how to lead in a VUCA world. Organization leaders have assumed that these issues are pervasive and are just part of doing business yet they continue to spend (not invest) to try to address these issues. But the problems continue. There are efficient and cost effective solutions available, leaders just have not been introduced to them. John Inman Dialogue provides these solutions.

Current research points to the need for selection based on talent, not resumes, as the first step in this process. At the center of the conversation are predictive talent analytics and cognitive assessments. These solution sets are designed to actively solve people problems in the organization with a focus on strong ROI for the organization. If current spending on products and services does not actively solve business problems, they are a cost to the organization.

Recent research:

Customer quotes:

  • PI is used extensively in Inside Sales during the recruiting phase to ensure the candidates have the DNA to be successful in their roles at SAP.
    —Shawn Robertson, Global Vice President, Global Inside Sales — Optimization and Innovation, SAP AG, Inc.
  • There is no question about it, we are better today because of our people. The Predictive Index system is a big part of that. PI gives you the insight to make a good hire.
    —Howard Tenenbaum
  • …the Predictive Index system is quick and easy to administer and it will give you 100 times the return on your investment.
    —Donald McConnell, Regional Developer, Massage Envy
  • With the Predictive Index system, I was able to build a strong team that would push the business forward. Today, I can’t imagine running my business without it.
    —Jill Berg, President/Owner, Spherion
  • The Predictive Index system can be used for far more than just a hiring tool. It identifies individual traits, but also gives you the entire scope of people’s behavior, and a deeper understanding of how to motivate and impact their performances.
    —Bruce Wade, Director of Human Resources, Bloomington Hospital
  • PI results are used to support sales managers and their teams, to increase collaboration and understanding among the team, provide highly targeted and more effective coaching and support, and to enable more data-driven succession planning.
    —Rebecca Sherrill, Vice President, GCO University North America, SAP America, Inc.

Brief Biography: John Inman, Ed.M., M.A., PHR, DDPE; John Inman Dialogue, Founder/Talent Accelerator. Excels in:

  • Developing leaders that thrive in volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity
  • Workforce analytics focused on performance
  • Organization processes that rapidly respond to continuous change
  • Adult learning, growth and progress

20 years of sales and marketing leadership. 14 years of internal and external organization and leadership development consulting and coaching. Major industries include medical, bio-technology, software, telecommunications, financial, and gaming entertainment.

Full Biography: John Inman, Ed.M., M.A., PHR, is the founder and principle of John Inman Dialogue, a Seattle based consultancy focused on designing containers, convening, and hosting conversations for organizations and communities of all types. His passion is for developing healthy and productive social systems where individuals are treated with respect and are able to thrive and grow, accelerating the delivery of value to stakeholders. Areas of expertise include leadership and organization development, coaching, adult education, and workforce analytics. His work is founded on the emerging field of Dialogic OD.

John is a long standing organization leader and developer of leaders in technology, financial, non-profit, government, education, scientific, and service firms. He focuses on the local conversations that create organization and community cultures, which provide his clients with the mindset shifts necessary to lead in these challenging times. John invested 20 years in business development and marketing starting in critical care medicine field sales and progressing to senior leadership in small to medium sized bio-technology and technology enterprises. Has worked for the last 14 years as an internal and external leadership and organization consultant in finance, secondary education, service, technology, and gaming entertainment.

John has a bachelor degree in business management, a master of education degree in adult education and organization development, and a master of arts degree in human and organization systems. He is a doctoral candidate in education leadership and change. John published “Using dialogue then deliberation to transform a warring leadership team” in the Spring 2013 edition of the OD Practitioner, the international publication of the OD Network. John recently added a suite of workforce analytics solutions and is bringing predictive talent analytics to executive teams to help pinpoint opportunities for accelerating performance.

John lives with his wife, son and daughter near Seattle, Washington and enjoys walking, road biking, researching, and time with his family.

He has worked with several early phase start up enterprises in industries including: Retail, Bio-technology, Consulting, Software, Restaurant, Education and Pre-IPO Internet.

John can be reached at john@johninmandialogue.com or at 425-954-7256. His business site is www.johninmandialogue.com. Specific to workforce analytics www.johninmandialogue.com/people-analytics and blog on talent acceleration is at www.johninmandialogue.com/blog

A bad hire is not just bad for business—it’s costly too.

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An outstanding webinar from PI Worldwide. Highly recommend if you would like to reduce bad hires. If you have questions on how to apply within your organization, contact me at john@johninmandialogue.com or at 425-954-7256.

Cost of a bad hire

On average, experts estimate the cost of a poor hiring decision is equal to 30% or more of that hire’s first year’s probable earnings. Factor in productivity loss and lost opportunities, morale implications, turnover and recruiting costs and the price tag starts to swell quickly.

Fortunately, organizations can prevent the costs associated with poor hiring decisions by recognizing the challenges at different steps of the talent acquisition process.

Listen to PI Worldwide’s recent webinar: Avoiding the 7 Mistakes that Lead to A Bad Hire for expert tips and best practices on improving your talent acquisition process.

Sincerely,

Michelle Kozin

Vice President of Learning & Communications

PI Worldwide

PIWW Landing Graphic

Winning with Natural Talent

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This may be an obvious question but why would we try to win with people who do not have the talent to do the work? Unfortunately that is exactly what most organizations do as they are unwilling to screen for talent when selecting incumbent or external candidates. I encourage you to read the June 3, 2014 article in Gallup Business Journal on this topic, To Win With Natural Talent, Go For Additive Effects.

Gallup to win with talent cropped

 

The authors state “Though researchers have made huge strides in understanding human behavior and motivation, few businesses are actually applying these findings. As a result, companies miss out on unprecedented opportunities for growth and revenue because they don’t understand the impact of human nature in the workplace.” I wonder what it is going to take to shift organizations away from selection practices that were developed in a world that no longer exists. It is as if managers and HR teams are holding on to the past in a futile effort to prove that past practices should never be abandoned. Yet researchers and thought leaders consistently suggest that the skills that have created past successes are not necessarily those that will create future successes. Just doing more of what was done in the past will not help organizations thrive in complexity, ambiguity, and uncertainty. There needs to be a profound shift in practice and that is a shift to screening on talent.

The authors explain “Gallup discovered that four human capital strategies combine in a powerful way to add up to 59% more growth in revenue per employee.” Three of those four human capital strategies are directly related to talent selection. With that level of revenue potential lost, I wonder why executive teams are not demanding a change in HR practices to transform the organization. The strategies include:

  • Strategy 1: Select managers with natural talent
    If someone is not suited to be a manager, do not put them in a management role. The question is how do you know? There are specific business behaviors and cognitive requirements for a manager to be effective and selecting for those attributes is critical. Past performance is not the best predictor of management talent, assessing potential is. Luckily there are excellent solutions in the market to help in this process.
  • Strategy 2: Select the right individual contributors
    For the same reasons that one selects a manager based on talent, one selects individual contributors on talent. Why would you hire a person who had the talent to be a bookkeeper for a sales position? You would not. Luckily the same solutions that are used to select management talent are used to select individual contributors.
  • Strategy 3: Engage employees
    Organizations invest a huge amount of resources both internally and externally to gauge and improve employee engagement. But here is the rude awakening, if all of these dollars are being spent on people who should not be in their positions. the investment is wasted. I often tell organization managers, do not expect me to fix a bad hire with training and development. It simply is not going to happen. Nor are employee engagement strategies invested on bad hires going to improve the lives of those team members or the organization. You want engaged team members? Give them work that they are suited to do then treat them with respect. Seriously this is not as hard as we make it.
  • Strategy 4: Focus on strengths
    How many review processes and coaching processes within organizations are focused on addressing weaknesses. Although Gallup research has shown again and again that focusing on strengths is what accelerates performance, many managers and HR departments are still operating in the stone age of trying to force people to do what they do not have the talent to do. If you want employees to be engaged, motivated, and productive, give them work that builds on their strengths, read natural talents, then treat them with respect. Generally people will demonstrate strength in those things that they have talent to do. I am a broken record on this. The damage to team members and organizations is staggering with current practices of trying to fix people or force them to be who they are not.

I encourage you to read this excellent Gallup article and reach out to learn more about how to implement talent selection in your organization. If you would like to learn more about talent selection, workforce analytics, and people big data and how it can transform your organization, please contact John Inman at john@johninmandialogue.com or at 425-954-7256.

 

How the American Red Cross Benchmarks and Boosts Skills with Workforce Analytics

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Recopied from PI Worldwide News and Insights, August 2014

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When the American Red Cross needed a new development strategy to increase donors and dollars, they turned to data.

To gain a competitive advantage in an increasingly crowded non-profit arena, the American Red Cross needed to improve fundraising skills in a measurable way and introduce a formal process for engaging prospective donors and expanding existing donor relationships. The program would also need to scale nationally across seven regional divisions and support fundraising efforts for its five lines of service: disaster relief, military family aid, blood services and health and safety education and training.

The American Red Cross selected PI Worldwide’s Selling Skills System and used the Selling Skills Assessment Tool™ (SSAT) to benchmark each individual’s strengths and diagnose areas for improvement. Armed with analytics, the team then implemented the Customer-Focused Selling™ (CFS) skills training to optimize performance in five core fundraising activities including building trust and credibility with different types of donors, identifying donor needs and creating long term donor relationships. Customized case studies and terminology improved the relevancy and success of the program.

“In the fundraising community, people are very passionate about there being a difference between fundraising and sales. In our business environment, development is all about relationship building. Similarly, CFS enables Red Cross Fundraisers to engage with donors through a consultative process to ensure long-term success.”  Susan Rowell Director of Training American Red Cross National Headquarters Development

After leveraging skills assessment data, customized training and workforce analytics, the American Red Cross:

  • Established a metric-driven training and development culture scalable across divisions
  • Heightened confidence in building stronger relationships and implementing donor growth plans
  • Heightened confidence in building stronger relationships and implementing donor growth plans

Download the full case study on this effort. To get more information on sales performance improvement, predictive talent analytics or other services from John Inman Dialogue, call 425-954-7256 or email john@johninmandialogue.com.

Talent Spotting: The 21st Century Mandate

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Let’s lead this conversation with the cover story in the June 2014 edition of Harvard Business Review, 21st Century Talent Spotting: Why potential now trumps brains experience, and “competencies” and challenge the common wisdom that we should be screening for talent using resumes. We should not.

Using predictive talent analytics to find talent

Using predictive talent analytics to find talent

More and more articles are emerging indicating that the market is way too fast paced and volatile to depend on old knowledge catalogued on a resume to make hiring decisions. Companies across the globe are moving to predictive talent analytics to help spot not only specific talent profiles that can and will do the job, but early talent that has little or no job experience in the job posted. Companies like Google are investing heavily to try to spot talent and companies like SAP international now use Predictive Index to screen all external and incumbent applicants in an attempt to find early talent that resume screening discriminates against. Where many HR organizations may feel that this is a risky move and may want to wait and see what happens before making a decision to move this direction, this is actually the safe move as it will guarantee the organization is getting the best talent for each and every job posted. Really how safe is it letting an organizing underperform or outright fail because of selection processes that do not deliver the talent needed by the organization to not only compete but thrive in a world that is best characterized by complexity, uncertainty, and ambiguity.

In the HBR article, the author, Claudio Fernandez-Araoz provides some compelling insights. I suggest that this article be mandatory reading for any leadership team interested in delivering improved engagement and performance across the organization. Although the article does not address predictive talent analytics specifically, this use of these talent spotting tools is exactly what executive teams are looking for. Tools such as Predictive Index put people data at the front of the decision making process. Consider this evidence based talent decisions rather than the current process of making decisions based on feelings, intuition and competencies that no longer are relevant to the success of the person in the position. The author describes this new era as the era of selecting on potential. The last era was the era of selecting on competencies. The era that proceeded selection based on competency was an era when selection was based on intelligence, experience, and past performance. And just imagine just how many companies as still selecting based on era practices that were created 50 years ago, in a world that no longer exists. The author states “Geopolitics, business, industries, and jobs are changing so rapidly that we can’t predict the competencies needed to succeed even a few year out.”

The opening scenario in the HBR article provides a clear example of what many executive teams are battling on a day to day basis, not only at the executive level, but at all levels of the organization. Read this opening paragraph and ask yourself if this scenario isn’t one that you have witnessed or experienced. And wouldn’t you like to have a different way forward? The author opens with the following story, “A few years ago, I was asked to help find a new CEO for a family-owned electronics retailer that wanted to professionalize its management and expand its operations. I worked closely with the outgoing chief executive and the board to pinpoint the relevant competencies for the job and then seek out and assess candidates. The man we hired had all the right credentials. He’d attended top professional schools and worked for some of the best organizations in the industry, and he was a successful country manager in one of the world’s most admired companies. Even more important, he’d scored above the target level for each of the competencies we’d identified. But none of that mattered. Despite his impressive background and great fit, he could not adjust to the massive technological, competitive, and regulatory changes occurring in the market at the time. Following three years of lackluster performance, he was asked to leave.”

Two questions that I would immediately ask, Did this person have the cognitive profile to learn at a extremely fast pace? He would have needed a high cognitive profile to perform in this position. Did this person have the behavioral profile to excel in this job, in this company, in this industry, at this time? I would suggest that he did not. Someone with the potential but with a Skinny Resume would probably have exceled in this position. Too bad they did not select for potential, the game change would have been significant. So can you imagine the bottom line impact on this organization. I suspect it was millions. A small investment in predictive talent analytics would have had an extraordinary ROI. Predictive talent analytics are not an HR cost to be managed, most organizations make an executive decision to improve performance and view the move this direction as an investment with a predictable ROI.

If this conversation has not convinced you to explore predictive talent analytics yet, maybe this last thought from the HBR author, Claudio Fernandez-Araoz will. “As business becomes more volatile and complex, and the global market for top professionals gets tighter, I am convinced that organization and their leaders must transition to what I think of as a new era of talent spotting – one in which our evaluations of one another are based not on brawn, brains, experience, or competencies, but on potential.” I totally agree.

If you would like to learn more about talent spotting, workforce analytics, and people big data and how it can transform your organization, please contact John Inman at john@johninmandialogue.com or at 425-954-7256.

 

Data-Driven Development: How Informed Coaching Can Accelerate Sales Performance

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Accelerate Sales Performance

 

This article is reprinted from PI Worldwide, News and Insights, April 2014.

Oracle research cites 89% of sales reps want more coaching. Fortunately, sales managers are recognizing this need and are actively seeking to deliver more informed coaching that is enhanced by analytics. PI Worldwide research shows that the coaching dynamic can benefit tremendously from insight into a rep’s behavior (what motivates a person), skills (what are the strengths and weaknesses), and performance data (sales results). Leveraging this trifecta, managers can pinpoint precisely what a rep needs to improve and sustain performance, and where the manager should invest time and energy to get the desired sales results.

Here are four scenarios where informed coaching using workforce analytics makes a measurable impact:

The Muscle Scenario — High sales results, Low sales skills: This is an example of a top producer who gets the job done but likely in his or her own way. Success may come from years of experience, superb product knowledge, or simply hard work. The good news is that they get superior results. Unfortunately this is often achieved by being overly reliant on just one key selling skill, such as closing skills, presentation skills or questioning skills. As a result, producers in this category are likely to be working inefficiently, and have a strong opportunity for improvement. Coaching to develop those additional selling skills will increase performance and efficiency substantially.

The Execution Scenario – Low sales results, High sales skills: These are the folks who know what to do but have trouble executing on that knowledge. They’ve attended the sales training, absorbed the information, but still struggle to deliver. This classic “knowing-doing gap” may be from lack of confidence, lack of drive, or simply lack of coaching. Through focused one-on-one coaching, a manager can help the rep see how judgment and knowledge play out, and provide the necessary feedback to optimize follow through. Often, when a person has the necessary sales skills for the role but isn’t succeeding, it can be helpful to use a behavioral assessment to uncover the drive behind their selling style.

The Knowledge Scenario – Low sales results, Low sales skills: A sales rep that scores low on the selling skills assessment and has low sales results needs training. A manager can hire the best rep with all the drive necessary to succeed, but if the individual lacks core sales skills, he or she becomes a rocket without a direction. Start with solid sales training and reinforce with focused skill builders. By increasing a rep’s core sales skills, a manager helps provide the tools necessary for the role. These reps tend to be sponges and the sales skills training is absorbed and used.

The Leverage Scenario – High sales results, High sales skills: When the rep has strong sales skills and outstanding sales results, what could be the problem? Sales superstars can fade if they feel constrained by a lack of selling time or worse, boredom. In either case, top producers need to be kept engaged, challenged and leveraged. A manager should examine all aspects of the person’s role and identify ways to minimize distraction and maximize selling time. For instance, this could mean providing better technology systems or hiring support staff to manage administrative duties.

In each of the four scenarios, high performing organizations leverage workforce analytics, the data trifecta of behaviors, skills, and results, to augment any coaching strategy. The outcome will be a highly targeted and consistent coaching experience that drives predictable results faster over the short and long term.

If you would like to learn more about this process, workforce analytics, and people big data and how it can transform an organization, please contact John Inman at john@johninmandialogue.com or at 425-954-7256.

 

 

Decision Science: Predictive talent analytics – Questions to ask if seeking a solution

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Decision Science: Predictive talent analytics tell us whom to hire and how we should manage them. This is the title of the cover article in the July 2014 T&D Magazine.

Decision Science

 

The author states “If baseball teams can use player statistics to predict performance, thereby gaining a huge competitive advantage, why can’t companies do the same with their employees?” I could not have said it better. In fact, I am amazed that there seems to be so little interest in creating a conversation about predictive talent analytics. I ask myself if it is because HR teams are so vested in not delivering powerful people analytics to the organization because they have not done so in the past or is it just fear of change. Or maybe it is simply a lack of curiosity. If I were presented with a people analytics solution that would help place people that have the talent to do the work required into positions that fit their talent, I would jump at it.  Yet even with a powerful solution like Predictive Index available in the marketplace, there is no rush to learn more, no one beating down the doors to explore how to accelerate performance, not even a whimper. With that said, 100 of the Fortune 500 use Predictive Index to do exactly this, so it is not fair to say that no one is interested.

Of course there are always concerns about compliance and legal issues. These concerns are justified. If you decide to explore a solution or if you are using a solution within your organization, there are a couple of questions that you should ask yourself to make sure you are getting the best solution for your investment.

  • Does the solution help keep you out of legal entanglements by being EEOC, ADA, and European Union compliant? The bottom line, a solution that is free of bias and approved for the full employee life cycle.
  • Does the solution provide built in robust job modeling so that you can screen applicants against a job model for every position? You should be screening all applicants, incumbent and external first with the solution.
  • Does the solution allow you to efficiently and effectively screen for early talent?
  • Does the solution provide coaching and interview guides that are based on the gap between the employee profile and the job model?
  • Does the solution train and certify you to be a licensed analyst so that you can implement the solution where ever you go?
  • Does the solution provide executive dashboards to highlight team talents and compare with team performance so that you can improve the performance of teams?
  • Does the solution provide unlimited use of the complete solution based on a site license?
  • Does the solution come with coaching and consulting at no additional cost from your associate?
  • Is the solution based on a knowledge transfer model to insure complete implementation?
  • Does the solution deliver the big data that your executive team is demanding of you on people analytics?
  • Does the solution provide ongoing continuing education both in the form of self directed e-learning and webinars?

These are just some of the questions that you should be asking of yourself and your solution provider. To me this is a must have conversation. We can transform employees lives, hire the best people for the jobs, and improve organization performance by using predictive talent analytics.

Call or email me for more information on predictive talent analytics. It may not come as a surprise to you that our Predictive Index solutions absolutely deliver on every question above. John Inman 425-954-7256 or john@johninmandialogue.com.  

 

7 Talent Acquisition Mistakes to Avoid

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Hired

This article is reprinted from PI Worldwide, News and Insights, July 2014.

A bad hire is not just bad for business—it can be very costly as well. International talent management experts estimate the average cost of a poor hiring decision to be equal to 30% or more of that hire’s first year’s probable earnings. For example, replacing a senior executive can reach upwards of $50,000. Factor in productivity loss and lost opportunities, morale implications, turnover and recruiting costs and the price tag starts to swell quickly. Fortunately, organizations can prevent the costs associated with poor hiring decisions by recognizing the challenges at different steps of the talent acquisition process. Here are the sevenmost common mistakes that can lead to a bad hire, and how to avoid them at the outset:

  1.  One Job, Different Definitions. Different stakeholders often have different perspectives on what makes someone successful in the role. Using a job analytic, organizations can objectively align all stakeholders on those activities critical for success.
  2. Poorly Written Job Description. In addition to noting activities and tactical goals of the job in the description, it’s important to detail all of the Knowledge, Skills, Abilities and Other characteristics (KSAOs) that an employee will need to be successful in the role.
  3. Attracting the Wrong Behavioral Profile. A candidate that meets the minimum requirements of the job may not necessarily be a strong fit. Consider behavioral tendencies and attitudes in defining what makes a strong candidate and compare applicant profiles against the job target to determine compatibility.
  4. Screening Challenge. While technology can help organizations manage hiring volume, some systems will eliminate good fit candidates and retain applicants who prove to be a poor fit. Use a quick and practical assessment to measure each candidate’s behavioral assets.
  5. Unstructured Interviews. When hiring managers lack the training to conduct effective interviews, they often resort to generic interview questions that don’t evaluate the candidate in the areas that matter most. Using assessment data to inform the interviewing process helps all members of an interviewing team develop structured behavioral interview questions to determine job and culture fit with greater accuracy.
  6. Compelling the Candidate to Accept the Offer: In today’s hypercompetitive market for top talent, the key to getting a candidate to accept a job is presenting an offer that resonates with their innate motivating needs and drives. Organizations that do not align an offer with the behavioral profile of the person risk losing a strong candidate.
  7. Ineffective Onboarding: Once the hiring process has culminated in a great new hire, managers must embark on getting that individual embedded in the culture and productive quickly. Managers should continue to leverage the data and insight collected thus far to customize the new employee’s socialization and learning.

For more tips and best practices on improving your talent acquisition process, listen to our Webinar: Avoiding the 7 Mistakes that Lead to A Bad Hire and download our Infographic, “ Can You Afford to Make A Bad Hire? “ on the Sidebar.