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.

Six Management Practices That Can Boost Employee Productivity

Close your eyes and imagine a world where all your employees could work at their full performance capacity, for every minute of every day. A world where your staff don’t steal glances at the clock every minute, and where they aren't taking their 10th coffee break within the hour.

Here are six tips to help boost employee productivity:

Understand your employee

Why is it they come to work? How should you communicate with them? Do they like to receive praise publicly or privately? How do they like to be rewarded, and how do they respond best to feedback? Understanding your employees on a more personal level means that you can cater tasks, feedback and incentives to boost their morale and improve their productivity

Carefully structured incentives 

As a general rule of thumb, a manager or director of a company shouldn’t expect an employee to work for the sole success of the enterprise. Employees may come for social gratification, financial stability, and a whole host of other reasons. When a task is seen to solely benefit senior levels, it will see junior level staff becoming unmotivated to reach the same goals to the best of their abilities. Employees must see worthy and valuable benefits and rewards of completing goals. This means that management should conduct motivation tests to understand the drive behind why employees come to work every day, and reward the team equal to their contribution and according to their desires.

Constantly providing meaningful and constructive feedback

Feedback systems should be implemented, and performance evaluation tests should be regularly conducted to identify talent gaps or to identify where employees excel.

Adequate training

From conducting feedback tests, management should employ talent management tools to improve staff in required areas. Employees who receive complimentary courses or trainings will feel that management is invested in their success and talent – whilst management benefits through their improved skill set and morale.

Personalising the job

Employees all work in different ways – and giving individuals the wrong tools can often cause them to work slowly and more unproductively. Allowing employees’ flexibility in how and when they work – providing that they have a good record of meeting deadlines – can allow them to work at a pace and in a way that is beneficial to both them and the company.

Give credit where it is due

Recognition reinforces good behavior, and allows the employee to realize that their good work has not gone unnoticed. Managers should assume that employees do not realise that they’re doing a good job, and give recognition to show their appreciation for the workers’ efforts.

Performance capacity is largely dictated by management practices, and a manager’s ability to maintain a constant level of motivation through the implementation of performance management activities. So what can you do to boost your employees’ performance?

Boosting employee productivity is not as simple as throwing around some cash. It grows from monitoring and improving your workplace through to understanding the employees, and allowing them to feel the benefits of their hard work. The employees should feel as if they are a valued member of the team.

Tools such as job satisfaction surveys can help you understand your employees, as well as identify what may need changing in your workplace. For more information on job satisfaction surveys, please visit the Psych Press webpage: http://psychpress.com.au/psychometric/talent-retain.asp?job-satisfaction-survey

It’s not what you know, it’s who you know - The disadvantages of hiring friends and family

It’s not what you know, it’s who you know – The effects of nepotism in the workplace are far reaching and can impact employee morale, culture and even threaten business growth.  Nepotism is a form of discrimination in which family members or friends are hired or promoted for reasons that do not necessarily have anything to do with their experience, knowledge or skills. When personal relationships appear to take precedence over actual qualifications, the adverse effects are likely to be felt by all parties involved. 

Why does nepotism still happen?

This kind of prejudice still occurs due to a basic principle that many follow, often without realising, and that is to do with choosing what is more familiar. The saying ‘better the devil you know’ will allow people to choose someone that is ‘passable’ against someone that may be far better but still has a looming question mark around them. Some managers see that it can also be easier or quicker to choose what is under their roof rather than to seek out what may better suit their business goals.

What are the outcomes of nepotism?

One of the main complaints in a company that operates through nepotism is the obvious lack of fairness. It can result in dissatisfaction among workers and employees may have less incentive to perform if they feel that the path to promotion is undermined by nepotism. As a consequence, a company employing such tactics may find its employees looking for jobs where their talent is better recognised. Another pitfall is that by providing opportunities that are not based on merit means that managers will not give other employees a chance to develop, thus not raising the level of competency of employees or that of the business. Promoting under-qualified individuals into more senior roles can lead to an erosion of the company's leadership skills.  Nepotism can make employees feel unimportant and that their contribution to business is insignificant which can ultimately impact overall productivity and growth.  

What is the best way to tackle it?

The best way to prevent nepotism and avoid infringing the rights of the employees is to make employment decisions based on objective performance related reasons such as their skills, competencies and experience. By providing fairness and equality, employers can earn their workers’ loyalty and dedication, boost morale and achieve a more harmonious and productive workplace.

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.