The Importance of Talent!

To remain competitive in the current business climate, you must attract, develop, nurture and inspire talented employees to ensure they remain within your company to meet current and future demands.

It is no longer enough to identify talent once they have been hired and worked for your company for a period of time.   

Identifying talent must begin with the detailed assessment of applicants during the selection and recruitment phase. It is at this time that desirable competencies and skills such as the ability to influence, divergent thinking, problem solving abilities and a strong motivation to learn and be successful will become apparent.

Talented individuals are driven. They want to achieve the best results in the most efficient way possible and often view challenges as opportunities to think more innovatively. Top performers are motivated by others like them, leading to stronger collaboration and higher-functioning teams. This fosters a bolder vision for your organisation and will impact the bottom line in a beneficial way.  Imaginative ideas which facilitate business growth and customer satisfaction will create enhanced productivity and profitability. This underscores the importance of attracting talent. If you can match such desirable qualities with the right position and align a team of like-minded thinkers, business outcomes will improve exponentially. 

First step! Discover what engages high performers so you can create an environment that is aligned to their needs and elicits their best qualities.

Research has found the factors which impact high performers the most are:

•             Employee autonomy
•             Risk Taking
•             Tolerance of mistakes
•             Open Communication
•             Good supervisory relationships
•             Education and training opportunities

Second step! Identify the organisational factors which influence an organisations ability to retain top performers. Research has highlighted that factors associated with retaining talent are:

•             A change driven organisation culture

•             High degree of organisational flexibility

•             Agile and innovative work culture

•             Strong leadership and vision

A final remark! It is possible to train an employee on any product or service. You cannot train someone to have integrity, resilience, self-confidence and work ethic!  So consider how you might assess the presence of such attributes reliably and objectively during the recruitment process. 

The two most favoured approaches are via interview or personality assessment, but with them emphasis on reliably and objectively, it may be more defensible to gather such data as strong hypotheses via a personality assessment and then validate these competencies via structured interviewdo yourself and your business a favour and start incorporating personality assessment into your recruitment strategy. The benefits of gaining talented employees will help your organisation stay aligned and to the organisations strategic mission!  

As in the organisation may well have decided what competence achieve success and set it apart from competitors, whilst the HR strategy might be to align a competency based HR approach with the corporate strategy.

Predictors of job performance: How important is Personality?

It is considered that experience and skill are important predictors of job performance, and traditionally the hiring process has been based on these qualities. In recent years, however, personality has increasingly been recognised as an equally important predictor of job performance. 

Business mogul and entrepreneur Richard Branson is known to place more value on personality than skill set when hiring. Branson maintains that most jobs can be taught relatively quickly, and suggests “if you can find people who are fun, friendly, caring and love helping others, you are on to a winner”. Indeed, more and more businesses are incorporating personality testing into their hiring processes.

Attributes that make up Personality

Motivation, resilience, flexibility, and the ability to take initiative are examples of personality characteristics that strongly affect individual job performance. When planning your next workforce addition/s, it is important to underline which mix of these attributes equals ‘getting the job done effectively’ for the short and long term in your unique setting.

For example, the way individuals approach and complete tasks, adapt to change, and deal with stress are strongly influenced by personality and can have various connotations to performance depending on the environment and culture, not just the role at hand. A receptionist at a health clinic may have to be far more open to sudden adaptation and change than a law firm receptionist.

Predicting environment match 

Personality may also determine the workplace environment in which an individual is most likely to be successful. For example, introverted individuals are more likely to perform well in a job involving independent work, whereas extroverted or outgoing individuals are generally better suited to jobs involving more human interaction. 

Matching personality types together

Employers should also keep in mind how the workplace dynamic is influenced by the personalities of employees, who are more likely to stick around if they are happy in their workplace and get along with their co-workers. Matching younger up and coming employees to more experienced mentors can have great benefits for both parties, but be sure that there isn't a large clash in flexibility or openness.

Recruiting based on personality therefore has a noticeable effect on your organisational goals. Being sure that your chance of turnover is significantly reduced is ultimately going to save costs, knowing that your staff members are adaptive to change will allow larger changes to become successful more quickly, and knowing that your staff are resilient during times of stress will reduce complaints and increase openness to job rotation and potential promotion.

Whilst experience certainly counts for something, the role personality plays in predicting job performance should not be discounted. Businesses can benefit from including an aspect of personality testing early in the recruitment process.

Want to learn more about testing personality directly related to your role and company?

Talent assessment and development Psychologists, Psych Press have a large selection of in-house and customisable assessment tools that link personality to performance prediction for a variety of companies. One such tool, Business Personality Reflections (BPR) has been used for a multitude of roles to ascertain a strong fit for recruiting decisions. Based on a wide field of research and multiple industry norms, this assessment provides a full report for your informed decision. To find out more visit the Psych Press Business Personality Reflections page.

Predictors of job performance: How important is Personality?

It is considered that experience and skill are important predictors of job performance, and traditionally the hiring process has been based on these qualities. In recent years, however, personality has increasingly been recognised as an equally important predictor of job performance. 

Business mogul and entrepreneur Richard Branson is known to place more value on personality than skill set when hiring. Branson maintains that most jobs can be taught relatively quickly, and suggests “if you can find people who are fun, friendly, caring and love helping others, you are on to a winner”. Indeed, more and more businesses are incorporating personality testing into their hiring processes.

Attributes that make up Personality

Motivation, resilience, flexibility, and the ability to take initiative are examples of personality characteristics that strongly affect individual job performance. When planning your next workforce addition/s, it is important to underline which mix of these attributes equals ‘getting the job done effectively’ for the short and long term in your unique setting.

For example, the way individuals approach and complete tasks, adapt to change, and deal with stress are strongly influenced by personality and can have various connotations to performance depending on the environment and culture, not just the role at hand. A receptionist at a health clinic may have to be far more open to sudden adaptation and change than a law firm receptionist.

Predicting environment match 

Personality may also determine the workplace environment in which an individual is most likely to be successful. For example, introverted individuals are more likely to perform well in a job involving independent work, whereas extroverted or outgoing individuals are generally better suited to jobs involving more human interaction. 

Matching personality types together

Employers should also keep in mind how the workplace dynamic is influenced by the personalities of employees, who are more likely to stick around if they are happy in their workplace and get along with their co-workers. Matching younger up and coming employees to more experienced mentors can have great benefits for both parties, but be sure that there isn’t a large clash in flexibility or openness.

Recruiting based on personality therefore has a noticeable effect on your organisational goals. Being sure that your chance of turnover is significantly reduced is ultimately going to save costs, knowing that your staff members are adaptive to change will allow larger changes to become successful more quickly, and knowing that your staff are resilient during times of stress will reduce complaints and increase openness to job rotation and potential promotion.

Whilst experience certainly counts for something, the role personality plays in predicting job performance should not be discounted. Businesses can benefit from including an aspect of personality testing early in the recruitment process.

Want to learn more about testing personality directly related to your role and company?

Talent assessment and development Psychologists, Psych Press have a large selection of in-house and customisable assessment tools that link personality to performance prediction for a variety of companies. One such tool, Business Personality Reflections (BPR) has been used for a multitude of roles to ascertain a strong fit for recruiting decisions. Based on a wide field of research and multiple industry norms, this assessment provides a full report for your informed decision. To find out more visit the Psych Press Business Personality Reflections page.

Source: http://www.businessinsider.com.au/richard-branson-hires-for-personality-2013-9