Tag: eyeployment

Is Eye Care Immune to COVID-induced Employment Challenges?

Human Resources, Managing Others, NextGenOD, Talent Acquisition

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Eye Care and Optical Eyeployment

Managing people as part of clinical practice has never been easy. Staff management issues have always been near, or at the top of the list of challenges that both independent practice owners and optical retailers face.

“If it wasn’t for the people this job would be easy…”
Anonymous

Enter COVID.
To say that COVID  has created employment uncertainty is an understatement. From an array of employment attitudinal studies conducted across a wide swath of different industries, we have a good understanding of how attitudes have changed in the employer/employee relationship as a result of COVID induced employment pressures.

Many employers are bracing for the substantial challenges they currently face and those that will continue to roll over the employment markets as COVID variants oscillate to create waves of uncertainty.

Buoyed by COVID-induced savings buffers and increasing vaccination rates, the YOLO (You Only Live Once) phenomena, first penned by the New York Times this spring, has emerged.

The YOLO mindset, most often attributed to the Millennial generation, has given rise to a tsunami of resignations as individuals pursue long-deferred dreams of new independent ventures and freedom from the grip of their employers.

Resignation Waves, Dominos and New Rules
Tim Brennan, Chief Visionary Officer, FitFirst Technologies,  a company offering candidate assessment technologies using Artificial Intelligence (AI), said recent research indicates “40% of the workforce say they are looking to change jobs in the next year.  53% are prepared to change industries if training is provided. You have a wave of good reliable, productive people making personal decisions to change things up.”

Behind the millennials, a wave of younger workers are looking to step up into the vacancies potentially causing a second wave of resignations. “We can see the signs of this already with Help Wanted signs everywhere, some businesses are operating on reduced hours and all wondering where they are going to find the people they need”, opined Brennan.

The Globe & Mail cites Travis O’Rourke, president of recruiting firm Hays Canada, advising that the competition to hire and retain workers is leading to higher wages. “It’s absolutely a war for talent, and workers are winning,” he said.

Ah, but Our Industry is Different.
Of course it is …  isn’t it?

A new Canadian Eye Industry Survey is available. Your participation can help answer these questions.

Canada Eye Care Employment Survey

 

Admittedly, physical site dependent health care services like optometry and optical may be different. To some extent location dependency diminishes the impact. Few jobs in eye care were moved from the practice to the home, and thus workers desiring to continue their current job from home is largely a moot point.

The veterinary industry, however, has not been immune to the challenges of acquiring and retaining personnel.  Amid the COVID pet adoption surge, Veterinarians are reportedly having huge challenges with employee retention and filling increasing vacancies.

Employees are “Hunkering Down”
The uncertainty has also created a “sheltering in place” phenomena. “ 80% are concerned about their career growth , 72% say the pandemic has caused them to rethink their skill-sets and 59% have sought out skills training without the support of their employer. If even a portion of these people act on their concerns, they will add to the resignation tsunami and it will extend beyond millennials”, according to Brennan.

Quietly bearing the stress but ready to move: These may be the employees in your current workplace, waiting for opportunity.

Kareem Merali, co-owner of C2020, a Canadian recruiting and training firm focused exclusively on ECPs, is seeing the effects first-hand: “With an influx of jobs available, employees and job seekers have a lot more variety to choose from, not only from within the optical industry but outside of it as well.”

Merali further points out that retention of lower paying positions has become a greater challenge and that government COVID subsidy programs, like CERB, make it more difficult.

“I think owners will need to share a larger piece of the pie than they are used to in order to keep the right talent and stay profitable,” says Merali.

Impact in Corporate Optometry
Maria Sampalis, Founder of Corporate Optometry, a networking resource for Optometrists sub-leasing in corporate environments, is seeing a rise in OD salaries in the US.

Sampalis agrees, “Acquiring good talent in a shortage of available candidates is the number one challenge facing Corporations”.

She is seeing corporations respond to the issue in innovative ways, including forging partnerships with professional schools and even engaging in tuition reimbursement programs.

Training and Support: Keys to Retention
Brennan and Merali agree that keeping staff engaged and motivated is vital to retaining great staff and that training and team building are critical elements.

Practice owners should consider team-building events, mindfullness activities, out of the box training rather than simply throwing money at increased wages. Employers will have to be even more aware of the needs of their employees.

We Need Answers
There are no known studies  of the eyecare/optical industry employment trends. “Industry leaders, employers and individuals making career decisions about their future need to better understand the employment dynamics, options and opportunities”, says David Pietrobon, President of VuePoint IDS Inc, and publisher of Eye Care Business Canada. The Canada Eye Care Employment Survey, will help answer these most important questions.

Eye Care Business Canada will be hosting a digital event on November 8th  as part of its “Changing Landscape: Opportunities & Options for Canadian ECPs” series focusing on employment opportunities under the title, “Career Pathfinders: Making Informed Decisions”.

Eyeployment.com, a premier sponsor of this event has launched an online survey to measure the attitudes of both employers and employees regarding the current eye care employment situation. Tim Brennan will provide an overview of the employment situation and share the results of the survey with attendees.

Respondents to the survey will receive a  summary report of the research findings and a complimentary invitation to the November webinar where the results will be shared

The online survey is available now at:  CLICK HERE TO TAKE SURVEY  4-5 mins.

 

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Three Common Hiring Practices that are Completely, Utterly Wrong

Human Resources, Talent Acquisition

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These three commonly-held beliefs about hiring have been around for a long time. They might have been good advice to someone, at some point in time… but if they are part of your unconscious belief systems, you’d best revisit your assumptions.

The thing about ‘conventional wisdom’, is that all too often it relates to things we’ve been doing a certain way for so long we don’t even remember the original assumptions any longer. It’s kinda like autopilot – you set it and forget it. There’s an awful lot of ‘autopilot’ in our lives. Sometimes that’s OK – and sometimes it can hurt you.

Here are three areas where you may be on autopilot without realizing it… and where you may want to consider taking back the controls and charting a different course:

1. The ideal candidate will possess X years’ experience in the job/function/industry.
How often, in your advertising and in your mindset, to you impose the ‘experience required’ rule? How critical is that previous experience, really, or would you be better off to hire someone with a great attitude, a diversity of experience they can bring to bear in a creative way, and a track record of learning quickly and figuring things out? In many cases, that experience that people bring to the table may actually be a liability, in the form of bad habits and narrow beliefs.

2. Hire the very best you can afford at all times.
This may seem like sacrilege, but think carefully for a moment. You have a certain amount you can afford. Stretching financially to hire a rock star can sometimes backfire on you in a couple of ways – one, it can starve you of talent in other areas (think baseball – are you better off hiring an expensive home run hitter, or three far less expensive players who consistently get on base?) – and two, they can sometimes be high maintenance. Are you and the rest of the team up for the challenge of managing the chemistry?

3. Referrals from your existing employees is your best source of quality candidates
Again, there is a nugget of truth here. Yes, referrals can be your cheapest source, and they can yield some of the very best candidates. Generally speaking, though, the very best referrals will only come from your very best employees. That’s because of the old birds of a feather thing – we all tend to surround ourselves with people who share our standards, attitudes and values. Top performers tend to hang out with others who share that standard, and poor performers – well, you get it. So be careful whose network you ask to tap.

There you go – a little unconventional wisdom for a change. It can be fun and useful to flick off autopilot once in a while to take a closer look at the terrain.

TIM BRENNAN

is Chief Visionary Officer with Fit First Technologies Inc, the creators of Eyeployment, TalentSorter and Jobtimize.

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Don’t Hire in a Hurry: Why Panic Hires Can Bruise Your Bottom Line

Human Resources, Talent Acquisition

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If there’s one situation that’s guaranteed to make practice owners and managers break out in a sweat, it’s an open position that goes unfilled for too long.

The pressure to fill open jobs quickly is real, and with good reason; the costs of empty positions are very real too:

  • Uncertainty for patients and customers
  • Increased workload for other employees
  • Reduced revenue
  • Lost productivity
  • Poor employee morale

The best way to mitigate the damage is to get your team back up to full speed by recruiting new staff as quickly as possible, right? Wrong!

Hiring in a hurry may seem like a good idea, but in fact will likely bruise your bottom line even more.

The High Cost of Bad Hires

Unfilled positions are costly, but bad hires are even more expensive in the long run.

With increasing pressure to fill vacancies, it’s tempting to fall into the trap of believing that somebody – anybody – is better than nobody. In most cases, however, a “panic hire” only serves to make a bad situation worse.

In the rush to hire a warm body, shortcuts such as interviewing too quickly, not screening applicants carefully, and failure to assess the candidate’s “fit” with the job and your office culture are common, and costly mistakes.

A U.S. Department of Labour study found the cost of the wrong hire can be as much as 30% of the employee’s first-year earnings. Can your practice afford that financial hit?

Bad hires inevitably result in high employee turnover. Turnover is costly.

A study from Inc. Magazine pegs the average turnover cost for a minimum wage job at $3,200; for managers and higher-level staff the costs increase significantly:

  • Entry level: 35-50% of annual salary
  • Mid-level: 150% of annual salary
  • High-level: 400% of annual salary

Take Time to Hire Right the First Time

As tempting as it may be to fill a vacancy as quickly as possible, a bad hire is more costly than having no hire.

Take the time and use all the resources available to ensure you fill the position with a candidate who not only is qualified, but is the right fit for the job.

It’s easier than you think! Web-based platforms like Eyeployment.com can help reduce the workload and take the guesswork out of the hiring process for businesses both large and small.

By screening candidates both on your criteria, and on their potential fit with the job, these tools help you identify which applicants have the skills, values, work ethic and personality traits most likely to lead to success in your position.

Eyeployment.com even creates customized interview guides for each candidate, ensuring you focus on the right questions that will help you make the best decisions.

Bottom line – don’t panic! Hiring in a hurry is no way to find the best fit for your job vacancy.

Focus on what really matters – employee fit – and you’ll be glad you took the time to hire well.

JAN G. VAN DER HOOP

Jan is the co-founder and president of Fit First Technologies, a company that applies its predictive analytics to the task of matching people to roles. Those algorithms drive platforms such as TalentSorter, FitFirstJobs and Eyeployment.com, which are relied upon by organizations to screen high volumes of candidates for “fit” in their open positions.

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Why Smart Employees Underperform: 7 Hazards to Avoid

Human Resources, Managing Others

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Really intelligent employees who consistently underperform can leave us scratching our heads.  Here are 7 potential issues to look at to discover what the underlying problems might be. It’s the first step to make your diagnosis.

  1. Inadequate Capability

Capability refers to the skills, tools, and experience that a person needs in order to successfully perform their job. When any of these factors are missing, there is an increased chance that the employee will underperform.

It isn’t uncommon for hiring managers to overlook these basic factors, especially if a candidate has previous experience, solid academic credentials and comes across as intelligent and confident in a job interview. Furthermore, it’s no secret that most candidates exaggerate their abilities on their résumés and job applications.

Diagnostics that help you identify if an underperforming employee has adequate capability:

  • Skills – Do you know what skills are needed to perform the job and whether the employee possesses those skills? If they don’t possess the necessary skills, how will you help them acquire the skills, and how long do you expect that process to take? Skills training takes time and money, and results are never guaranteed unless there is adequate commitment from both the practice owner and the employee.
  • Tools – Even if an individual has the skills and experience to do the job, do they have the tools to deliver peak performance?
  • Experience – Just because an employee has the skills to do a job doesn’t mean that they have the experience to apply those skills in a specific position. This is especially true for recent graduates, outside hires from different industries, and internal hires that were tasked in areas not related to the new assignment.
  1. Poor Job Fit

Many people fall into the trap of choosing a profession or job that is a bad fit. We are who we are. Our “mental DNA” is influenced by both our genetics and our early life experiences, and it is almost completely formed by the time we are 20 years old. Rather than trying to understand ourselves so that we can choose a calling that builds on our strengths and aligns with our interests, we choose jobs because of peer pressure and societal influences.

It is important to understand a person’s innate behaviors and interests when trying to match a person with the right job. Know the job, know what type of person is successful in that job, and then hire those who have the behavioral traits that fit that job. This is easier said than done because it is difficult to gauge behaviors in a job interview, but behavioral assessments can be extremely helpful to close this gap and remove a lot of the guesswork.

Behavioural assessments are widely used by the Fortune 500 companies and can be very expensive. However, new technology solutions can bring these tools into the hands of small business owners at a very reasonable cost and be very cost effective when compared to the costs of making a bad job fit hire.

  1. Fuzzy Goals and Accountabilities

Employees need to be very clear about their responsibilities and about the results you expect them to achieve. Daily work and priorities are easily affected by the crisis of the day, new requests, or changes in direction. Setting and tracking smart goals helps your employees focus on what is most important to your business, and clear accountabilities help ensure that the work gets done with minimal conflict.

  1. Poor Relationship with Manager

Managers and employees who understand each other’s preferred styles will better understand how to communicate and work together effectively. We have identified seven factors that strongly predict the compatibility between a manager and their workers: self-assurance, self-reliance, conformity, optimism, decisiveness, objectivity, and approach to learning. Assessing a manager and employees allows them to use objective information about themselves and co-workers so that they can work more effectively toward a common goal.

  1. Poor Relationship with Coworkers

There are four primary factors that harm relationships among coworkers:

  • Insensitivity toward others
  • Unclear accountabilities
  • Poor cultural fit
  • Incompatible styles
  1. Health and Wellness Issues

Approximately $260 billion in output is lost each year in the US because of health-related problems. Whether an employee is absent from work altogether, or present but working at a reduced capacity, employees suffering from physical or mental illness have difficulty performing at their peak.

  1. Physical and Environmental Factors

Numerous behavioral studies have proven that a pleasant and comfortable work environment improves worker productivity and reduces turnover. For example, indoor temperature affects several human responses, including thermal comfort, perceived air quality, sick building syndrome symptoms, and performance at work.

Researchers in Finland showed that when the interior air temperature was 30 degrees C, worker performance was 8.9% below worker performance at the optimal temperature of 22 degrees C.

When an employee you know has the smarts starts to go off the rails of good performance, step back and make your diagnosis. These 7 factors are likely to point toward a root cause.  Only once identified can a corrective action plan be put in place.

JAN G. VAN DER HOOP

Jan is the co-founder and president of Fit First Technologies, a company that applies its predictive analytics to the task of matching people to roles. Those algorithms drive platforms such as TalentSorter, FitFirstJobs and Eyeployment.com, which are relied upon by organizations to screen high volumes of candidates for “fit” in their open positions.

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Recruitment in the Video Age

Human Resources, Talent Acquisition

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Giving people the opportunity to opt in on the basis of knowing the reality of your environment sets a firm foundation and reduces the risk of buyer’s remorse. Thinking about putting your own recruitment video online? From our experience creating our own video, here is our tip list;

Keep it Short
2 minutes is the magic number. After 2 minutes most will move on to something else on your site or leave it altogether. We know. Our 5 minute video gets watched on average for 2 minutes.

Let Employees Say What They Want
You can’t edit reality. Your employees need to be allowed to say what it is really like. On our Culture page we asked each participant these questions and then asked them to use part of the question in their answer.

  • Why did you decide to apply with us?
  • What was it like going through the HiringSmart process with our company?
  • Why do you stay at HiringSmart?
  • In one word how would you describe working at HiringSmart?

If you were to ask these questions to your people today, what would they tell you? If it is something that you would be scared to put on the internet then you may have just uncovered your biggest attraction problem.

Show, Don’t Tell
Bring in a video camera to the office and let people just pick it up and make their own video of co-workers throughout the day. Take a run through the building and show what it looks like. This is more effective than telling prospective recruits that you have a laid back atmosphere.

Know Your Message
Do you want to emphasize a fun atmosphere, lots of advancement opportunities, or promote particular groups, such as women or minorities?

Do It Right
The cost of a good quality video is cheaper than you think. We used Duncan Moss at Moss Media Productions for putting together the final edited version. A little professional lighting can do wonders for the final look.

Promote it Everywhere
Create your own YouTube Channel, attach the videos into your company’s FaceBook group, link to them from your company website, provide links everywhere.Your video will be part of the employment brand promise that is out there on the web just like your product brand is out there. Some will see themselves in your world and others will decide it is not for them. That is the goal – to have candidates self-select themselves out of the process before you hire the wrong fit.

 

JAN G. VAN DER HOOP

Jan is the co-founder and president of Fit First Technologies, a company that applies its predictive analytics to the task of matching people to roles. Those algorithms drive platforms such as TalentSorter, FitFirstJobs and Eyeployment.com, which are relied upon by organizations to screen high volumes of candidates for “fit” in their open positions.

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Six More Hiring Myths That Cost Your Practice Money

Human Resources, Talent Acquisition

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In this two part series, Jan van der Hoop and Tim Brennan of Fit First Technologies bust popular hiring myths to help you avoid making costly mistakes. View part one here.

Myth #6: To really get to know a candidate, you need to rely on a good set of behavioural interview questions. Past behaviour is, after all, the best predictor of future performance.

The concept of asking behavioural questions was a tremendous innovation that improved the value of interviews almost overnight. But that was 25 years ago. Since then, candidates have become very well rehearsed at answering these questions… often to the point where they are better prepared for the questions that the person interviewing them. Add to that the fact that we all have a natural inclination to answer those questions from the perspective of what we know the interviewer is likely to want to hear, and you have a recipe for disaster. What we know we ‘should’ do and what we actually do when no-one’s looking are almost always very different.

The best way to understand how a potential employee is actually going to behave when no-one’s looking is to ask a completely different kind of question… we call it a tertiary-level question. In this case the objective is to ask questions that go beneath behaviour and have the candidate tell you stories about what worked for them and didn’t as it related to other people, jobs and situations. In so doing, you gain insight into their core – the attitudes, beliefs and values that drive them. These are the things that will predict the behaviours that are exhibited when nobody’s looking… and that will give you a clear and reliable indication of how the candidate will fit in your business, in the job, and with co-workers and clients.

Myth #7: There’s no point in investing any time or effort in training and keeping these pesky Gen X and Gen Y kids. They’re too disruptive to our business and won’t stay for more than a year anyway.

There’s no question that having up to four generations at work all at the same time can be a big challenge. There’s also no question that those born after about 1980 have very different attitudes about work than those who came before them. The answer is not to find more people our age to staff our business… that’s a dead end road. Literally. The real challenge is to help our managers figure out how to create a workforce that harnesses the energies and talents of all our employees and converts those energies into profits.

Contrary to popular belief, these ‘kids’ are generally not flighty and they do not want to skip jobs every year or two. In fact, research continues to show that, like most of us when we were their age, they want nothing better than to find an employer where they can do meaningful work, see the value of their contribution, learn, stretch and grow… and put down roots for a long time. Unfortunately for many organizations, these kids also have a lower tolerance for BS than we do, and they are more likely than we were to move on when they encounter it.

Myth #8: The quickest and surest way to gain an advantage over my competition is to hire away their top performer. Their loss is my gain.

True, high performers share a set of characteristics and core attitudes… but so much of their performance is tied up in other factors that are external to them. These factors can be summarised into four primary categories – fit with the manager, with the critical aspects of the role, with the people around them, and the organization’s culture and systems. Most often, poaching talent results in three losers – you, your competitor and the fallen star.

Change any one of those things, and performance will be impacted. The fact they are a consistently top performer in another organization, even in a similar role and industry, is no guarantee that they will be even an average performer in your organization. A far more effective strategy is to identify people who have the capacity to do well in the reality you present. When you find candidates who are at their best in the management climate you offer, who are drawing from their natural strengths and talents in the roles you offer, who engage easily and productively with the rest of the team and your customers, and who are proud to contribute to the organization… you have a winning combination.

Myth #9: Low turnover or no turnover is a good sign we’re doing a lot of things very well. Why rock the boat?

To people in some industries that are traditionally turnover-prone and where double-and even triple-digit turnover rates have long been regarded as just a cost of doing business, the notion of no or very low turnover must seem like an impossible dream. But there are times when very low turnover can also carry a hefty price tag.

The important question is not ‘how many of my people are we keeping’. The far more valuable question is, ‘what is the quality of the people we are keeping’. All too often organizations find themselves in a rut where people aren’t leaving because they are comfortable. And they are comfortable because things are pretty easy – the bar’s not set too high, standards are pretty lax, and mediocre performance is tolerated.

Comfortable employees will choke a competitive business.

Myth #10: Investing in employee satisfaction makes good business sense.

Many organizations believe that satisfied employees are profitable employees… and so they invest heavily in perks they think their employees will appreciate – everything from elaborate cafeterias to on-site concierge services, generous benefits and perks through day care. While those features may add to buzz and ‘cool’ factor, they are expensive and generally have very limited if any ROI.

The truth is, there is no documented relationship between employee satisfaction and business performance. A happy workforce is not necessarily a more productive workforce.

The factor that is a predictor of performance and productivity, and it is in fact the most reliable predictor, is something called engagement. Engagement is all about how focused and committed your people are to hitting and exceeding your shared objectives – how much sweat, effort and creativity they are willing to put in of their own free will.

Myth #11: Not everyone here should be a top performer. We need some “Steady Eddies”, or we’d drive ourselves nuts trying to satisfy everyone’s career expectations.

Don’t confuse performance with pressure to offer promotion opportunities. Many people who are at the absolute top of their class want nothing more than to be left alone to do what they do best, day in and day out.

All too often, we convince ourselves that it’s OK and normal to have a normal performance curve where 70% of the workforce is ‘average’… we too easily accept the notion that ‘average is OK and doesn’t hurt me’. The truth is, average is awful. ‘Average’ in most organizations represents an opportunity cost of 23% or more of payroll – money that gets paid out, but where there is absolutely zero return.

In most organizations, that 23% of payroll represents a staggering sum of money which if deployed elsewhere could materially change the fortunes of an organization.

 

JAN G. VAN DER HOOP

Jan is the co-founder and president of Fit First Technologies, a company that applies its predictive analytics to the task of matching people to roles. Those algorithms drive platforms such as TalentSorter, FitFirstJobs and Eyeployment.com, which are relied upon by organizations to screen high volumes of candidates for “fit” in their open positions.

TIM BRENNAN

is Chief Visionary Officer with Fit First Technologies Inc, the creators of Eyeployment, TalentSorter and Jobtimize.

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Webinar: The Perfect Fit

Human Resources, Managing Others, Talent Acquisition, Webinar

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On Monday March 5th 2018 Canadian Eye Care Business Review hosted a panel discussion entitled The Perfect Fit, Finding and Keeping Great People. Drs. Jeff and Tina Goodhew, independent practitioners from Oakville, Ontario, guide the discussion of current best practices with three subject matter experts in the HR field. Jan van der Hoop and Tim Brennan of Fit First Technologies and Kelly Hyrcusko of SIMI (Simple Innovative Management Ideas Inc.) share their views on the subject. The webinar is rich in practical tips and advixe for eye care professionals on a wide array of topics from candidate screening to best practices in onboarding a new employee into your team. New data driven objective decision models are discussed which can help in providing better insights into candidates and improve hiring success rates.

The webinar was sponsored by eyeployment.com, Simple Innovative Management Ideas, and Optik Magazine.

Click to watch the video recording, or listen to the audio below.

 

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The Art and Science of Successful Hiring

Human Resources, Talent Acquisition

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Successful hiring is a bit of an art. But experts say “Never put the Art before the Science” in order to improve your success rate.

If you’re like me, you have hired a good number of people over the years. And you have likely had your share of surprises and revelations along the way. A few have likely been pleasant, where people have shown unexpected qualities that have contributed to your business, and a few have led to, well, disappointment.

Statistically speaking, if you are “getting it right” even half the time, you are beating the odds. Research in larger corporations suggests that only 20% of hires are an unqualified success, where both the new hire and the manager who hired them rate it a “great decision” after six months.

That represents an 80% failure rate.

What that costs an organization is a topic for another day, but it does beg the question: what are we missing?

“Fit” is the Key

If you dig further into the research, you discover that nearly 9 times out of 10, the reason for the failure has nothing to do with the person’s competence or their skill level. It is directly attributable to their ‘fit’.

If you think of it in terms of the hiring process itself, people are admitted into conversation with an organization on the basis of what they know (skills, qualifications and experience, as expressed in the résumé); while the overwhelming reason for failure is who they are as individuals – their core attitudes, traits, standards etc.

In fact, academic research bears this out. Research over several decades at the University of Manchester into the relative validity of various predictors of job performance shows clearly that the items contained in the résumé have a far lower predictive value than the individual’s core traits and how they process and use information.

Further research into the concept of “fit” reveals that there are actually four critical aspects of fit to consider:

  • Fit with the Manager – this is perhaps the most critical chemistry to get right. Do the two share similar standards, and is the manager’s natural style going to bring the best out of the new employee?
  • Fit with the Job – to what extent does the role draw from the person’s natural strengths and interests, rather than asking them to spend their day doing things they will never be better than “adequate” at?
  • Fit with Co-Workers (and Customers) – again, is this aspect of the “chemistry” right? Does the employee genuinely like and respect the people they spend their day with, and do they feel liked and respected in return? This one seems like a particularly soft factor, but the quality of the “social fabric”, so to speak, is the aspect of fit that correlates most strongly with team productivity. Where relationships are strong and positive, the team will overcome any adversity.
  • Fit with the Practice – can the individual see how what they do contributes to overall success, and does that success matter to them? Do the organization’s values and mission resonate with them?

Science can accurately predict someone’s likely fit, or compatibility, in an environment. There are new platforms that are designed specifically to help organizations screen candidates for fit in the reality that would be awaiting them on their arrival.

The big mistake most organizations make is in relying on conventional techniques to crunch through a stack of résumés (or the old “A pile, B pile, and C pile” technique which I used for most of my career), then do phone screens and interviews, and then administer an assessment with the shortlist.

This method relies on the factors with the lowest predictive (read: nearly meaningless) value in the front end, then investing in science to screen a shortlist that might as well have been assembled by a random-number generator.

When you look at it that way, it’s absurd.

Far better in my opinion is to let the science do the heavy lifting up front by screening ALL your applicants for their likely fit in your open position; then, once you have identified the best people—those likely most compatible—at this point you can check their résumés to make sure their knowledge, technical skills and experience is in the right ballpark and take them through the interview process.

There’s room for both Art and Science in hiring. Using them in the right sequence will yield you a better, more consistent outcome.

 

JAN G. VAN DER HOOP

Jan is the co-founder and president of Fit First Technologies, a company that applies its predictive analytics to the task of matching people to roles. Those algorithms drive platforms such as TalentSorter, FitFirstJobs and Eyeployment.com, which are relied upon by organizations to screen high volumes of candidates for “fit” in their open positions.

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