With the debate currently raging around the proposed amendments to the Employment Equity Act, which looks to enforce racial representation across geographical areas, it is perhaps a good time to think about what we are looking for in terms of skills and the type of candidate your business is looking to attract.
I often hear companies looking to enforce a rigid set of job description criteria against which they can “select-out” and manage performance. The question I pose in turn is – “are you designing a candidate around the job, or the job around the candidate?”
Too often it is my experience that we miss out on a great recruit, a talented individual with potential to grow and add value in different ways. Indeed, contemporary studies in motivation show that the young and “new generation” workforce of today are motivated by autonomy, self- mastery and significance of the role they play within their careers. Traditional, ”lock-step” job roles will not provide this type of environment.
Successful businesses are taking a long view in their hiring decisions. They are growing talent, nurturing it from within and more importantly providing the environment within which to do this.
This also helps to avoid the so-called talent crunch or shortage which looks set to continue.
This considered longer term process of developing strategies helps to overcome talent shortages. Such strategies include training current staff to meet talent shortages, and seeking staff from outside the locality. What is interesting is that a key coping strategy being used by businesses, was appointing people without the required job skills but with the potential to grow. That is “Hiring for Potential”.
However this strategy is often hindered by inflexible hiring practices which mean that candidates must meet rigid skills, experience and education requirements before even being considered. One commentator suggested that “Job Descriptions are focused on De-selection rather than Selection”, a kind of negative recruitment.
Consider the story of Fishbowl, a company whose certifiable success has been built on hiring for potential — plain and simple.
A listed multinational they are not, but Fishbowl, (featured in Forbes recently), have achieved record growth (over 70% over the last three economically turbulent years) and have won regional and national awards for product and management quality and have miniscule labour turnover of 2% – since inception in 2001.
The beauty of the story is that Fishbowl’s success was based on a strategy of hiring potential stars, (they call them Champions) as they could not attract “superstars” (especially in the early days) and building a learning environment that encourages them to grow.
To be seen as a potential star recruit at Fishbowl, candidates must exhibit 7 non-negotiable traits which are: Respect, Belief, Loyalty, Commitment, Trust, Courage and Gratitude.
Sound familiar? This is Behavioural and Value based Recruitment and Hiring for Potential.
The Fishbowl model is an excellent example of how values based rather than skills based recruitment can help a business find potential future stars during a recession and a global talent crisis.
This is an approach which could be adopted more widely and to good effect within businesses that are suffering talent shortages. Especially entrepreneurial start-ups faced with a barrage of legislation and talent shortages.
However, there are three important factors that must be considered if a values based, hiring for potential strategy is to work. These are:
- Accurately profile the behavioural traits/values of your current superstars and put these at the core of your selection criteria for future potential stars.
- Establish learning and competency goals so employees have a very clear direction in which they need to be heading from a developmental point of view. Don’t leave it to chance.
- Build a learning organization that nurtures and encourages the acquisition of skills, which might include out of the box work experiences, secondments, buddy systems, e-learning and self-learning.
With non-traditional career paths opening up like never before, new job titles and business models taking advantage of technology available – these companies have the opportunity to recruit great talent out there, many of whom may not fit the traditional box, but whose potential is yet to be discovered. This talent may be a great fit for your company culture and add the type of value which no job description could ever hope to define.
– Courtesy of RA EDWARDS, JEN X PEOPLE STRATEGIES