Will this job motivate him?

For many, there is no such thing as the perfect candidate.

Even after sifting through 100s of applicants and orchestrating a rigorous interview process, it can feel as if you haven’t found exactly what you’re looking for.  And like many employers who can’t afford to wait for that "elusive" individual to turn up, you adapt the job criteria to suit the individual strengths of the next best candidate.  And then hope they are worth the gamble.

I recently discussed how social media had begun to change the recruitment process, in that it enabled you to broaden your search for talent and tap into passive candidates – who aren’t necessarily looking for a specific job.

But, even if you’ve added Social Media to your recruitment arsenal to source the people you believe will fit seamlessly into your company, what then? How can you ensure that you’re making a worthwhile investment?

LAB Profiling is one way of keeping consistency throughout the recruitment process, ensuring that – from start to finish – you are clear of exactly what it is you are looking for.  So that when you do adapt the job criteria and select the next best candidate you are no longer taking a gamble.  Instead, you are making a confident decision.

The key to making a confident hiring decision, is to understand what behaviours candidates need to have to be motivated to do the job.

For example:

If the candidates are going to be troubleshooting and solving problems most of the time,  they need to be motivated to prevent bad things from happening and have an Away From pattern.

If they are more interested in moving Toward a goal, then they might have trouble recognising what should be avoided or identifying problems.

These two motivations move in the OPPOSITE direction!

The LAB Profile is a conversational tool rather than a psychometric test and is used to assess the candidate's 14 sub-conscious motivational patterns at work.  By understanding what triggers their motivation and then keeps them motivated, you are able to take the risk out of the appointment enabling the candidate to thrive in your environment.

Sound interesting? Why not find out more about LAB and Job Profiling and how it can derisk your recruitment process.

Recrion is a specialist in career and talent management, and works with organisations to streamline their recruitment and retain and motivate their employees. For more information contact us on +44 (0)1780 484910 or visit www.recrion.co.uk

• Get the right people in to your business using advanced selection techniques and spend time gaining an understanding of exactly what you need them to do and how they need to do it;
• Treat people well when they leave and don't miss out on the opportunity to find out why they are leaving – information gathered through a well structured exit process has a direct impact on who you hire next.

To find out more about my take on talent management, you can read the article here.  Any comments welcome!

Katherine Wiid is the founder of Recrion, specialists in Career Management Coaching and Talent Management.  Telephone +44 1780 484910, http://www.recrion.co.uk.

Change management has always been there and various methodologies have come and gone over time. Kurt Lewin’s model of change talked about “unfreeze – change – freeze” which is useful in thinking about the need to break down rigid ways of thinking. However it wrongly suggests that leaders can make people change.

In my experience unless you figure out, together, how people should behave at work, and create the kind of language and systems you need to reinforce that behaviour, you never get there. The most successful companies I know understand that the most important business decisions they make are not what new products they launch or what new markets they enter. What really matters is who they hire — and how they create an environment in which everyone in the organisation can share ideas, solve problems, and develop a psychological and emotional stake in the business.

Take for example, the extremely creative and rigorous methodology Cirque du Soleil has developed for recruiting and evaluating new talent.  Lyn Heward President of the Creative Division of Cirque du Soleil describes their process as follows:

There are no stars here. The show is the star. That's why our evaluation goes deeper than a talent evaluation. We need to learn about the person behind the artist. How many somersaults you can do is not as important as open-mindedness to our process, the tough-mindedness to get through the job, and what we call a 'fire to perform.' That's what we're looking for.

The behaviours Lyn looks for can be identified utilising advanced profiling techniques such as the LAB Profile. And this can be done in normal conversation as part of the interview process not putting your candidate behind a computer screen filling out a psychometric test!

If you would like more information on how to predict how suitable a potential employee is for a job role as well as assess their job performance on an ongoing basis, contact Katherine Wiid of Recrion, a LAB Profile Practioner and Talent Management Specialist on +44 1780 484910 or www.recrion.co.uk.

Talent Management is now the biggest boardroom people issue.

Albeit the ageing population, the survivors of the numerous headcount cuts, or the pressing need for innovation to compete with China and India, organisations need to take action to ensure they have talented and engaged people to make them successful.  And they need a strategy to not only attract talent, but a strategy to retain good people by building trust and transparent relationships.

David MacLeod (co-author of the government review on employee engagement) was the keynote speaker at the Engaging for Growth Conference, and he highlighted the keys to getting the balance right.

• Value and respect people as individuals
• Communicate the strategy of the organisation clearly and in simple terms
• Ensure that  the managers who are managing employees focus them on what is needed in their role and give them the scope to bring themselves to the role
• Organisational integrity - leaders need to be transparent and walk the talk - this means having an open door for any news – not just good news!

The group in my workshop debated whether talent management programmes should be inclusive (everyone in the business) or exclusive (the chosen few).

We decided that the best successes have been those who have nominated themselves as being ready for accelerated progression and are prepared to put in the extra effort to developing themselves.  Whether they stay or leave to work for a competitor is all down to the congruence between the values and behaivours of the organisation they work for.

To understand more about what makes talented people engaged, contact Katherine Wiid, Director of People Specialists Recrion on 01780 484910 or visit www.recrion.co.uk.

The anonymous contributor to Best of Stamford recounts a poor customer service experience.

"I went into our local Subway sandwich shop the other day. It was empty. No-one else in there and no-one was behind the counter.

As I approached the counter I could see the member of staff in the back room busy doing something. I coughed and she looked up, rolled her eyes and reluctantly came out to serve me.

I gave her my order and she made up my sandwich. No eye contact. No conversation.

Then, just as she was wrapping the sandwich and taking my money two other people walked into the shop. "Oh not more customers" she said (emphasis on 'more'!) "When am I going to get my work done?"

I was speechless. She works in a sandwich shop. What 'work' is there other than making sandwiches and serving people? Well obviously something else was on her mind. She really did believe that she had something more important to do than serve customers – and consequently she was sabotaging all the marketing efforts of the mighty Subway organisation, not to mention the owner of that particular shop/franchise".

So what's the lesson for you? Well, I reckon that every business has some sabotage going on somewhere. An employee who is not employed in the right job, doesn't understand how they add value to the company and is not measured on what they deliver.  That results in under -performance and chasing away the hard fought for customers who have several other sandwich shops they can frequent.

Stopping that sabotage could be the single biggest step a business can make to ensure that it survives and thrives in the recession.

If you feel that you want to focus on making substantial improvements to your business performance, then deploying people in the right opportunities and maximising their performance is critical. 

Contact us to find out more about how Recrion can assist with your talent management and performance strategies on 01780 484910 or visit www.recrion.co.uk