How to develop your workforce and assess future employees
Whether you run a huge organisation or a handful of people the fundamental question you have to answer is: “Do my people feel they matter?”
Your analysis of this question sets the scene for making sure you are developing both your people and your business.
We all play lip service to the old adage: People are at the heart of the business…
But, are they really? In so many cases actually “Profit is the heart of the business… and shareholders come a close second”
If that is true the strategy is all about ROI and shareholder value, not about growing a business and certainly employees are not paramount.
Immediately you might think that I am talking about utopia, but why not?
We’re not the greatest leaders striving to be the best?
So when we talk about ‘Developing your workforce’ is this true or is it really ‘Manipulate the workforce for greater ROI and Shareholder value?
Fundamentally their needs to be some truth in statements like that for the workforce to be able to trust what is being said. And trust is at the heart of an organisations culture and can make or break it.
So to truly develop your workforce you need to ensure the trust is present in three ways:
- trust in the clarity of what the organisation is all about
- trust in the competency of each employee
- trust in allowing each employee control of what he does
Understanding your business – organisational clarity
Whether you are a start-up wanting to change the world or an organisation run by a PE firm where the objective is to squeeze every penny out of it in the next 5 years… it doesn’t matter, the key is, to be honest, and clear about what the organisation is ‘for’. Then decide what its mission is? And the clarity must continue through the strategy adopted and the goals and objectives of each part of the organisation and each person within each group of people. In this way, each employee will understand why they matter to the organisation, and with that comes ownership of their role. From that comes proactively, resourcefulness, innovation, risk-taking and full use of discretionary effort… because they care.
Recognition of Competency in the workplace
People are (hopefully) employed because they have certain things that they are really good at. Whether it be financial acumen, logistics knowhow or people management they have been chosen for what they have and ( if the organisation is forward-looking) what they potentially can achieve. Recognition of that competency is only done through trusting each person’s ability to do the best they can do.
Giving control to your employees
The next step from this is to let go of control to allow those who know best because of their expertise to make decisions. Increasingly I hear of organisations giving a cross-section of people from different departments a project to do with full accountability for their actions. They are trusted to get on with it with no interference from ‘management’. And guess what? They exceed expectations.
The implications for recruitment and assessing future employees
If the organisation is transparent in terms of what it is ‘for’ and its mission then in terms of its recruitment process it should be able to identify what kind of people it wants to do the specific work within individual departments. This should also take into account the need for diversity. By working with people from different backgrounds and with different experiences and working styles, we learn and get another view. Diverse views make for better decisions and thus drive a high-performance culture.
In terms of identification of this diverse workforce certain ‘tests’ may certainly be used to ensure the level of competency in certain areas is of the right level, but this must be integrated into a rounded picture taking into account other factors such as talents, values and aspirations and each hire must be made looking at the value the person can bring not just for today but also for tomorrow.
Why is Pre Employment Testing Important?
There are significant benefits of pre-employment testing to a company, with the obvious being that choosing the right candidate for the role will lead to reduced employee turnover and higher productivity.
How to test job applicants
There is a range of different employee testing formats available to companies to successfully test their job candidates as part of the recruitment process. These include:
- Personality tests
- Aptitude tests
- Psychometric tests
- Honest tests
- Achievement tests
Though many of these examples of recruitment testing can serve a purpose, ultimately a successful testing process should focus on the person you are considering hiring and how their personality could affect their future performance and success within the role.
Future Resume as part of the recruitment process
Naturally what I have been talking about fits with our mission. I am happy to say more and more people are dissatisfied with the way things have been done in the past and my ‘utopian’ vision is starting to gain some traction in the world of work.
Future Resume signals a new era of recruitment and is successfully helping companies choose the best candidate for the job. Find out more about how Future Resume Works.