Our firm is often called in when there is a hiring or turnover crisis. Key positions in the company are going unfilled. The domino impact of unfilled, key positions leads to lower productivity and to higher cost. As productivity drops and costs start to increase, managers become more desperate to find a solution. Unfortunately this desperation leads to making hasty and uninformed hiring decisions. They will settle for “good enough” instead of the best. This, then, starts the cycle all over again. Poor hiring decisions lead to employee dissatisfaction. This results in another vacancy in the job and on and on.
Too many employers look to recruiting as the sole response to retention. “If only we could recruit better people then we wouldn’t have this turnover” or so the logic suggests. I say – WRONG! The solution is not always better recruiting, the solution is better selecting. Only after you have a solid process to select the best will you then begin to address your retention problem.
Here’s an example. I met with the senior executive at a medium size hospital system. The executive easily recognized a retention problem, citing more than a 50% annual turnover in their hospitals C-level ranks. A quick calculation found that this was likely costing the hospital system approximately $8 million annually in both hard and soft costs. They were already throwing twelve separate recruiting firms at the problem, finding more people was not solving the problem. Their recruiting contracts are such that they actually discourage firms from referring the best candidates. Still they were able to attract some “good enough” people. The retention problem could have been reduced somewhat IF the company knew how to assess the candidates. Although their recruiting strategy could use some work, the more immediate issue was in how they selected people to fill the ever-rotating positions.
Their selection process went something like this: After receiving a resume of a presumed “fit”, a quick telephone screen was conducted by member of the senior management team. If the candidate sounded good, they were flown to company headquarters and met several other members of the senior executive team. Afterwards the candidate returned home. The top executive then asked those who met with the candidate what they thought. As long as these five minute conversations were generally positive the company made a decision to hire the person! Given the total costs involved, the impact of this decision was probably $400,000.
Each person who met the candidate had their own set of pet questions to ask. Interviewers had likely first viewed the resume only a few minutes before the meeting. Feedback from these interviews was anecdotal at best. Does this sound familiar? I’ll bet there was more consideration given to choosing a paper supplier than in hiring a new hospital CEO.
Structured selection does not have to be an onerous, over-engineered process. What it does need to be is a consistent process, benchmarked against a standard set of criteria, and strictly followed by all involved. The selection process must include, at a minimum, the following three elements — Objective Assessment, Credential Validation, and Cultural Consideration.
The Objective Assessment should be first benchmarked before any interviewing starts. Only against an established benchmark does any objectivity enter the process. Either there is an objective fit or there isn’t. Behavioral interviewing and assessment testing are tremendously powerful tools to create an Objective Assessment.
Credential Validation proves the resume and checks for candidate integrity. This involves standardized reference checking, background screens, and other forms of validation.
Finally, Cultural Consideration allows the interview team to assess whether the person will blend into the organization. Remember, you never want to blur someone onto the team. They must understand the culture of the team and the company and it must be one that allows them to thrive.
Don’t throw resumes at your retention problems. It is important to have a solid recruiting strategy, but that is not the only way to attack chronic turnover. It is equally important to have a selection process that identifies the right person who is best for the job. This will eliminate hiring desperation and introduce objectivity into the process. If properly structured and implemented a selection strategy means fewer positions will need to be filled. Begin to examine your selection process. Is it objective? Is it structured? Does everyone on the interview team use the same methods? Is your assessments bench-marked against a standard? If the answer is ‘no’ to any of these questions then you’ve got some work to do.
Richard Yadon, CPC, CERS, is the President and CEO of Health Career Professionals, LLC, a health care executive search, selection, and retention firm. To implement any of these strategies, please contact Richard at 866.371.0687 x.110.
Richard, I agree with your Blog post about not baselining standards for selecting a candidate for the role, but I think there is a critical step that most hiring managers miss in the process far before that. Having been a hiring manager in the past, and having dealt with recruiting firms, there’s rarely a meeting of the minds on this point:
1. What is the true objective of the hire you’re making? Meaning beyond the HR-written job description that cites chapter and verse of what an HR recruiter reads of the role, what does the hiring manager want to achieve from hiring the individual, and what key characteristics can make that happen?
I recall muddling through tons of resumes 2 years ago to make a single selection for a qualified project manager. Someone competent, with a match to the experience we needed, with an understanding about the type of organization and the personality traits we needed to make them successful.
Instead, what we received — despite my spending countless hours in the process of finding the right candidate — were recruiters solely focused on keyword matching or trying to use salesmanship to sell a square peg for the round hole we were looking to plug in the organization. I was probably unique in that I actually invested the time in making sure that our recruiters understood in real world terms and solid descriptions what we were seeking. And as both a hiring manager and candidate, I find the lack of dialogue and personalization in the process something that would leave few options but continually selecting the wrong candidate because we thought the process was the problem. Instead, no one was actually spending the time to listen and build the candidate relationships.
When I went back and asked to look at EVERYONE, I found that the most qualified people had been screened out, and ended up insisting on self-screening, and forcing myself to respond in detail on each candidate first. We finally found the right hire as a result. And both HR and external recruiting would have excluded the individual we did select. And she was one of our best hires, succeeding well in the organization.
I enjoyed your post, and wanted to give some additional (albeit lengthy feedback) on it.
All the best!
Andrew
http://www.generalnational.com
Interesting post. I’m guessing that the companies that use a PEO to do pre-screening tests for employees should not just rely on what HR says. I think these companies should allow the PEO to administer the tests, but should review them as well. They should also follow up these results with interviews. It seems that even though companies are seeking ways to make hiring easier, save time and money while making a great selection, there still needs to be work put into making the selection. HR tests don’t seem to be as reliable as employers want them to be, and although they can help, employers should still put in a great effort to ensure their new hire is right for the job.
Great comment and observation Sarah. Actually, selection should use a variety of tools. The issue for most companies is that managers are very poor interviewers and too much hiring decision weight is placed on their interviews.. Often the best candidate is not going to necessarily be a good interviewer. A strong selection process should be very structured and use both testing AND performance-based team interviewing.
RY