subject: How Successful Are You In Selecting The Right People [print this page] We probably all remember our Grandpa telling us about the 'good old days'. When it comes to employing people, your Grandpa's memory was probably not playing tricks on him. It was not too many years ago that employees could be expected to show up to work, on time, every day. But today, finding people to reliably show up on time and then put in a full day's effort is increasingly difficult in many areas of the country. Many employers are finding good people who will show up when scheduled and work hard when they are at work is one of their major management concerns.
How much are these employee problems really costing businesses? John W. Howard, Ph.D., of Performance Resources LLC, reports one large equipment manufacturer clearly explained the impact of absenteeism and tardiness in the typical organization. When a person who was supposed to be performing a certain specific task is not present, they normally have to be replaced by someone else. Because in today's competitive environment, organizations typically do not have extra workers on staff, the average labor cost of the process was increased by 23% during this period of time. In most cases, the worker who is substituting for a missing worker is probably not as well trained in that particular task or the additional duties have to be absorbed along with much of his normal assignments. Not surprising, it was also found that warranty claims attributable to the process increased by about 25% when a normal worker was absent. The revelation in the study came when it was shown that process and warranty costs of the nearest downstream and upstream process also increased by about 11%. The next stage removed in the process downstream and upstream increased an additional 7%. This accumulating effect in a production environment means that for every minute a worker is not doing the job assigned to him or her, for whatever reason, the cost of the production process in their care increases significantly.
Although the above example is in the manufacturing industry, it is a certainty that similar cost impacts apply in every employment environment regardless of industry or level of employee. In addition to the processing costs, the lack of reliability and work ethic dramatically increase hiring costs as well. In an article in the Albany Business Review, Eric Durr quotes an employer: "When we go to new hires, we may hire five people to get one good person." What happened to the other four? They went through the same hiring and training process, but they fail to live up to expectations. Eventually, they quit, were fired, or worse, remained in the organization as unmotivated, incompetent employees doing just enough to avoid being terminated.
It is also true that even employees that are present on the job are not always 'on the job' mentally or emotionally. This may be for a variety of reasons. They may be distracted by something outside the workplace. Maybe they are under the influence of some illegal substance. Possibly they don't care about or don't like their job. Maybe they are potentially good employees, but they not well suited to the job they are assigned. It is well known that employees that are not well matched to their job are more likely to be disinterested, unmotivated, less energetic, and become a major source of tardiness, absenteeism and turnover problems. Whose fault is this? How can this situation be avoided before it results in increased operating costs and lowered morale in your workforce?
In the business world where it is so easy to duplicate products and undercut prices, the key strategic advantage for most companies is the performance of their employees. Employees who are well matched to their position have higher attendance records, lower turnover, higher job satisfaction and superior job performance. Both employee and employer share the benefits of enhanced person-job fit.
There are management tools available today that are designed to greatly improve the probability of matching the right person in the right position. They are commonly known as assessments. The best ones have been thoroughly researched and validated in test studies involving hundreds of thousands of subjects. The Department of Labor recognizes the validity and usefulness of a properly designed assessment in the hiring and selection process.
A good job match assessment should determine whether the applicant or existing employee:
(1) Can do the job? How does he/she think, reason, and solve problems?
(2) How will he/she do the job? How will he/she behave in the job?
(3) Does he/she want to do the job? What is his/her interest in doing the job?
For those employees who have proven to be successful in the position, a job match pattern and scoring range can be established to answer these important questions for each major position in an organization. It is then possible to compare the result from an applicant for hire or promotion to that job match scoring range and determine if there is a significant fit and what areas are required for improvement for the applicant to have a high probability of equal success. One sales organization used job match assessments to reduce their turnover by 43% and saved $330,000 in hiring costs in just ten months.
Obviously, employee assessments are only one of several factors that should be used in making a final hiring selection or placement decision. Used properly, however, these management tools have been proved to significantly enhance the chance of success in finally solving these generation's old problems.
