Author: Sonya Cowen
It’s a rare to find a leader who has not lived through the pain of a bad hiring decision. Just like our organisational psychologist colleague, Adam Grant, one of Winsborough’s goals is to get more leaders 'to stop acting on intuition and experience and instead be data-driven'.
Competencies and Culture
Selecting employees with high potential using quality personality inputs is a great place to start. By aligning reports with the competencies and challenges of the role, employers can ensure a better match between candidate personality and job requirements, allowing hiring managers can make more informed decisions. For example, a role requiring strong interpersonal skills would benefit from a report highlighting traits such as empathy and communication. Any selection report should not only focus on the immediate hiring information but also offer insights for future development to support long-term career success.
Understanding the candidate’s alignment with the company’s culture can greatly enhance employee retention and engagement. This matching process not only ensures that candidates are a good fit for the role, but also for the organisation’s values and working environment. For instance, a culture that values innovation would benefit from assessing traits like creativity and openness to experience.
As Kristof-Brown et al. (2023) point out, often leaders recognise that there are many talented people who can do the job. Finding a person who also fits with the organisation’s culture is what determines whether the person will come, stay, and ultimately lead the organisation to success (think Schneider’s 1987 attraction-selection-attrition (ASA) model.
A Real-World Success Story
Take the example of a growing tech company that struggled with high turnover in its sales department. After using a personality test in their hiring process, they discovered that their new employees often didn’t thrive in the fast-paced, highly collaborative environment. They revised their personality assessments to focus on traits like resilience, adaptability, and teamwork—qualities critical for success in their dynamic setting. As a result, turnover dropped significantly, and employee engagement and performance soared.
In summary, customising personality reports based on job roles and company culture enables organisations to better identify candidates who will excel in both their roles and within the organisation.
References:
Grant, A. (2023). Hidden potential: the science of achieving greater things. New York, Random House.
Kristof-Brown, A. L., Schneider, B., & Su, R. (2023). Person-organization fit theory and research: Conundrums, conclusions, and calls to action. Personnel Psychology, 1–38, 375–412. https://doi.org/10.1111/peps.12581
Photo credits: Unsplash.com (Kara Eads)
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