Improving Your Hiring and Promotion Processes
By: Terry Mickelson,

This flawed process results in poor employee retention, inadequate performance due to poor job fit, and high turnover costs and explains why the national average rate of successful hiring is less than 50%. There is a high cost for this failure but almost two-thirds of managers are unable to quantify the cost of this turnover when asked in a recent poll. This cost can vary widely from hourly employees (a few thousand dollars) to top executives ranging from tens of thousands to over $100,000. There are estimates of turnover costs ranging from 25 percent to well over 200 percent of the persons annual compensation. Other, intangible costs include: work and customer relationship disruption, morale loss among remaining employees, loss of employee knowledge base, loss of business continuity, emotional costs, and replacement learning curve ramp-up time. The most difficult cost to quantify is loss of productivity, which is particularly burdensome to smaller firms.

When an employee leaves, all the direct costs incurred to recruit and hire them leave with them. The hiring manager in effect needs to start from scratch and spend time and money recruiting, hiring and training the replacement. The direct costs borne by human resources departments include: advertising, hiring recruiters, screening candidates, interviewing those screened, and finally training.

One strategy being used today is the implementation of assessments to aid in hiring and promoting. These assessments should not be utilized to eliminate applicants, but augment and increase the effectiveness of the process. Managers are able to define the behaviors necessary to successfully perform a “job” or “role” and find a variety of candidates to capture those diverse behaviors that will benefit the company. These assessment tools are becoming invaluable to not only reduce poor hires and promotions but also to enhance the long term development of employees when used in coaching, mentoring, and training. One assessment family that is used widely is DiSC Profiling by Inscape Publishing. http://www.intesiresources.com

DiSC Profiles by Inscape Publishing are an industry leading behavioral instrument that has been in use for over 30 years and are regarded as one of the most mature and valid instruments of its kind available today. It has significant research background and the results are culturally normed geographically to maintain global validity. Behavior drives everything and more than 40 million people in over 40 countries worldwide have used DiSC to create a deeper understanding of self and others and to use that understanding to create greater individual and team productivity.

DiSC describes how people behave as they respond to their environment. It gives valuable insight into one's own behavior as well as the behavior of others. DiSC Profiles are self-administered, self-scored and self-interpreted productivity improvement solutions designed to help adults understand themselves and others.

It is one of the most successful and widely used personal and professional development instruments providing the leading edge approach to improve self-awareness, relationships, performance, productivity, communication, teamwork, and leadership. DiSC Products are based on the 1928 publication of psychologist William Moulton Marston, The Emotions of Normal People.

Successful employers are using and achieving results with DiSC Profiles. All employers will find their ideal strategy and method. Here are some examples:

1.Most “Profile the JOB or ROLE” specifically with the Role Behavior Analysis™ (RBA) Profile, then run a DiSC PPSS General Characteristics Report for each candidate being considered for that particular job, and then run an RBA to PPS Single Comparison Report and use the results to objectively evaluate job fit and behavioral suitability. The Comparison Report also provides +20 personalized questions that can be used for behavioral interviewing of the candidate, saving the need for multiple interviews in order to generate these important questions. It is also used by managers when coaching and grooming the current employee for their next position to uncover “stretch behaviors” before they manifest themselves as “stressors” and result in poor behavioral fit.

The RBA is completed by an individual manager, or a team can collectively respond to begin a discussion around prioritizing behaviors and behavioral expectations of the role and how to use the resulting data to build group consensus.

The completed RBA can also be used to develop job descriptions and the results can be used to develop advertising for an open position.

2.Some define the job or role in their "own terms" without using an RBA and then have the respondent complete a DiSC PPSS General Characteristics Report, adding the appropriate optional supplements and then compare the results without running a Comparison Report.

1.Some use instinct and “fly by the seat of their pants” and are happy with the DiSC PPSS General Characteristics Report and Optional Supplements that provides them with a wealth of information on issues that they overlook or have never considered asking during the process.

2.Some use DiSC Profiles, and even though they know it’s a “bad fit,” hire for reasons that they feel are important, just like the typical American company discussed at the beginning of this article. These employers know they are flirting with disaster but persevere knowing what they are getting by reviewing the DiSC Profile results and take solace that they know where the problems lie ahead of time.

These assessments help determine how candidates compare to the behavioral style that is the best fit for the “job” or “role” as determined by the manager or consensus team that completed the RBA.

Issues Facing Managers

The First Issue
Individuals managing these processes without DiSC Profiles are making subjective decisions in the hope that the "intellectual aspect" of the individual will provide enough data to ensure a good job fit.

DiSC Profiles, when applied properly, will give more objective information and the ability to improve and increase the effectiveness of the process. No process is "fool proof" but it is always better to make decisions based on more data and insight rather than less data and "gut instinct."

The Second Issue
Individuals managing these processes using DiSC Profiles think it will do all the work for them; believing that you administer a DiSC Profile and what results is, information that tells them who should or should not be hired, what current employee should be promoted to their next position, or what career or position an individual is ideally suited for. The flaw in that logic is that NO DiSC Profile, recruiting assessment, hiring assessment, or any other type of instrument can accomplish that.

There is no “magic bullet” to accomplish this complicated and vital task. But DiSC Profiles will provide more objective information, allowing you to make better evaluations and decisions.

The Third Issue
There is no natural DiSC Behavioral Type that fits ideally with a specific job or role function. Understand, even with the help of DiSC Profiles there are no absolutes!!

The Fourth Issue
Some hiring and managing professionals that use DiSC Profiles in the process fail to profile the job or role. They successfully use DiSC to profile the individual, but fail to consider profiling the JOB or ROLE. It is important to consider the behavioral expectations of “how” a job, position, or role needs to be fulfilled to achieve maximum effectiveness; it should not be overlooked.

In Summary
These tools, or any other tools, are by no means to be used as the “sole source” to make a hiring or promotion decision. They will however provide objective data points that can make the difference between good/bad hire or promotion. They can also form the basis for organizational transformations when combined with other DiSC products to make training and organizational development a process rather than an event. When organizations treat organizational development and training as an ongoing journey rather than a destination they can truly reap the benefits of substantial process and productivity improvements.

Intesi! is an eCommerce centric consulting company offering DiSC Products and eLearning courses to human resources professionals and business owners to make them self-reliant in developing training and organizational development processes. www.intesiresources.com
View their website at: www.IntesiResources.com

 

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