Four types of people you hire
We don’t usually like the idea of putting people in boxes but we’ve got a lot of time for Lou Adler, inventor of Performance Based Hiring because he’s referring to hiring outcomes not personality types. Lou says there are only four types of people you hire in the world:
Type 1: those you should never hire
If you’ve ever hired someone who is a true misfit it’s apparent to everyone else you did something fundamentally wrong. The likely causes: you didn’t look at the resume, you trusted your gut, you didn’t know the job, you hired largely on presentation and personality, you were desperate, or you didn’t conduct a background check.
Type 2: the bottom-third of those who are hired
Typically these people have the basic experiences, technical skills and academic background, but they’re assessed primarily on their personality, first impression, affability and presentation skills. One big problem with these hires is they need more coaching and supervision to do average work. Worse, some demotivate everyone else on the team.
Type 3: the middle-third of those who are hired
These people also have the basic skills and experiences, but in this case the assessment is more thorough. Generally this involves more behavioural-like interviews with more people, a more in-depth technical assessment, a battery of questionnaires, and a thorough background check. This is the interview process most companies use and it’s one designed largely to prevent mistakes. The unintended consequence is hiring people just like those who have always been hired since it’s the safer decision. The reasons these people aren’t in the top-third typically involve lack of motivation to do the actual work, some cultural fit problem, a style-clash with the hiring manager, or lack of necessary drive, leadership or team skills.
Type 4: those who wind up being in the top-third
These are your top performers – the people who produce the majority of the outcomes, the strong leaders who get results regardless of the challenges. They’re highly motivated to do the actual work required, they take on projects no one else wants, and they fit seamlessly with the people, culture and manager.
What can we do?
Obviously companies would like to hire more Type 4 Top Performers. The problem of course is identifying them.
HR Predictive analytics are designed to identify these Type 4 Top Performers and recruit them for hire OR help keep those already employed in your organisation. They allow considered design of hiring and retention processes to maximise your results.
It starts with a data driven selection process to identify the job specific requirements of the role and the company. It continues with development of the employee and individually targeted engagement and retention strategies and finishes with succession planning to identify and train future leaders.
If your business is hiring Type 1 and Type 2 level performers then you’re literally tearing up money. It’s the biggest hidden cost in business as you can see for yourself with our Actual Cost of Bad Hires calculator.
Good management practise measures all aspects of business. Now we can accurately measure, select and develop our human capital too. We think this data has the highest potential to transform business performance outcomes. It’s simple really, to have the best business, you need the best people. To get the best people, you need the best data to make best decisions. Keep in mind the four types of people you hire so you can focus on the factors that are predictive of their performance.