In today’s job market, references are an essential part of the job application and hiring process. An outdated practice still common in many organizations is the method of checking references at the end of the hiring process.
However, researchers found is that the bulk of recruitment managers (39 per cent to be exact) believe that reference checking in its current format is a formality which serves little purpose. 17 per cent also named the reference checking process as the most frustrating element of the hiring process. But even with good references, the hiring team often still needs to go back over the entire interview process and all the other candidates and determines the best fit.
Reference checking is rarely an objective evaluation of an applicant’s past job performance based on information collected from key individuals (e.g., supervisors, peers, subordinates). However, the hiring manager needs to make the best decision possible, thus more firsthand information is important.
Examiz MATCH replaces all the traditional, flawed, time-consuming and heavily biased reference checks. MATCH is able to generate valuable insights in a timely manner, helping managers and recruiters to make informed hiring decisions. MATCH finds the high-performers and high-potentials among your candidates, helps companies avoiding toxic people, and even generates tailored interview questions that target the specific weaknesses of each job applicant.
It was a time of deep loss, psychological questioning and bitter in-fighting over leadership and business that would ultimately end in the band’s split.
Companies need to be aware not to become the Beatles with low performers playing the role of Yoko Ono’s in your high-performance teams.
From a better salary to a sense of purpose, there are many reasons why top performers leave for other opportunities.
A recent management survey reports that:
68% say low performers lower overall workplace morale
44% say low performers increase the work burden on high performers
54% say low performers contribute to a lack of initiative and motivation, resulting in a work culture where mediocrity is accepted
Before Examiz developed MATCH, it has been nearly impossible to identify low-performing job candidates before offering them a job. (www.examiz.com)
Based on the data results, companies may need to adjust their hiring processes accordingly. The cost of attrition is high, especially when it’s your high-performers who are leaving.
“Companies that do not address low-performance issues will likely weaken their culture and drive away their best people.” said Melissa Jezior, CEO of Eagle Hill
In Beatles lore, no person is as divisive or controversial as Yoko Ono, the lover and eventual bride of John Lennon, who arrived on the scene as the band was facing its toughest hardships.
In today’s job market, references are an essential part of the job application and hiring process. An outdated practice still common in many organizations is the method of checking references at the end of the hiring process.
However, researchers found is that the bulk of recruitment managers (39 per cent to be exact) believe that reference checking in its current format is a formality which serves little purpose. 17 per cent also named the reference checking process as the most frustrating element of the hiring process. But even with good references, the hiring team often still needs to go back over the entire interview process and all the other candidates and determines the best fit.
Reference checking is rarely an objective evaluation of an applicant’s past job performance based on information collected from key individuals (e.g., supervisors, peers, subordinates). However, the hiring manager needs to make the best decision possible, thus more firsthand information is important.
Examiz MATCH replaces all the traditional, flawed, time-consuming and heavily biased reference checks. MATCH is able to generate valuable insights in a timely manner, helping managers and recruiters to make informed hiring decisions. MATCH finds the high-performers and high-potentials among your candidates, helps companies avoiding toxic people, and even generates tailored interview questions that target the specific weaknesses of each job applicant.
How can organizations better prepare for what’s coming?
Organizations should embrace a more expansive and dynamic view of their talent supply—one that tosses out the usual preoccupation with titles and traditional roles and looks instead at the underlying skills people have. Indeed, we find that when companies start with skills—the ones they need, the ones they have, and how the mix may change over time—they can free up their thinking and find more creative ways to meet the inevitable mismatches.
In the book Leading Organizations, McKinsey senior partners Scott Keller and Mary Meaney address the most basic issues facing leaders: attracting and retaining talent, developing the talent you have, managing performance, creating leadership teams, making decisions, reorganizing to capture value quickly, reducing overhead costs for the long term, making culture a competitive advantage, leading transformational change, and transitioning to new leadership roles.
Why is talent important?
Management guru Jim Collins concurred: “… the single biggest constraint on the success of my organization is the ability to get and to hang on to enough of the right people.”
The late Steve Jobs of Apple summed up talent’s importance with this advice: “Go after the cream of the cream. A small team of A+ players can run circles around a giant team of B and C players.”
A recent study, called “THE BEST AND THE REST: REVISITING THE NORM OF NORMALITY OF INDIVIDUAL PERFORMANCE” conducted by Ernest O’Boyel Jr. and Herman Aguinis found that 10% of productivity comes from the top 1% of employees and 26% of output is a product of the top 5%.
How to match talents with value to let the top 5% generate the highest value for the organization? Apple started with identifying the top five percent of their employees. With Apple’s share price having steadily risen since then, it appears that Steve Jobs was right. Successful companies recognize that getting the right talent in the right place can make or break their overall performance.
Once the 5 percent of roles that create 95 percent of the value are identified, the question becomes whether your most talented people are in these roles. We rarely find that the best leaders in the company are methodically deployed as such. Further, keeping the right talent in these roles typically requires significant adjustments to job design (removing administrative burdens), career paths (rapid advancement opportunities and special projects), compensation (above market), location (high flexibility), development (high touch beyond formal programs and the formal performance management process), leadership exposure and influence (more, sooner) and the like.
Citations from McKinsey Business Insights | 2017 – 2020
Great talent is scarce
The competition for top talent is only going to intensify in coming decades. Employers in North America and Europe will require more than 11 percent more college-educated workers than will be available in 2020, according to a recent study by the McKinsey Global Institute. Developing economies will face a shortfall of 45 million workers with a secondary-school education and vocational training.
Organizations are always looking for ways to improve employee productivity, and they can learn from high-performing companies. Companies like Google, Apple and Netflix are 40% more productive than the average company by using a mix of employee performance management strategies that focus on organizational structure and trust-building.
David Mizne from 15five Blog stated that according to research by Bain & Company, the way companies construct their teams has a significant impact on productivity. Apple and Google for example, dedicate 95% of their top talent to key business functions, as opposed to spreading top talent across many areas.
Without talented and dedicated people, a business is little more than a great idea. While this seems obvious, companies didn’t always focus on employee performance management to stimulate growth and satisfaction as they do now. Developments in this area over the last few years have brought this truism home like never before.
What Is Work Performance?
Work performance is an evaluation of employees based on how well they are executing their expected work. It includes an individual’s performance with respect to documented responsibilities, goals, and reasonable expectations with other associates of the company. Work performance of an employee is directly influenced by his work engagement.
So, How Do We Define Work Engagement?
It’s a positive, fulfilling work-related state of mind which is categorised by vigor, dedication and absorption. It is very recent that scholar across the globe has shifted from negative aspects of working life to the positive aspects. The well-being of an individual is not a responsibility of their employers but also of that individual himself. A mentally, emotionally and physically heathy employee can not only increase his productivity but also his own performance. Work performance is optimal when an employee is in a healthy- motivational state of mind.
Is Work Engagement And Work Performance Related?
Yes, the more the employees are engaged with their work the more is their productivity. Demerouti & Cropanzano (2010) explains that work engagement is beneficial for both employees and organization because an employee with high level of energy and enthusiasm, fully concerned and happily engrossed in his work can easily increase his work performance. This person exudes positive emotions such as happiness, joy and enthusiasm and helps building a positive work culture around him.
There is a direct and positive correlation between happiness and performance. Happiness can be measured through work satisfaction and well-being. Examiz TEAMS evaluates what teams actually think, what concerns them and what holds them back to become high-performance teams. Job satisfaction is considered as an evaluation of the experienced job and motivational; whereas, well-being is considered as a motivational state of mind. A combination of both, well-being and satisfaction, is a measure of work engagement.
Further, as per the well-established Broaden and Build Theory by Fredrickson (2001), “Positive emotions share the capacity to broaden people’s momentary thought- actions repertoires and build their personal resource”. Personal resources are the physical, intellectual, social and psychological resources that widen the array of thought and actions of an individual. Action repertoires are the behavioural repertoire that builds skills and resources. Personal resources and simultaneous action help an individual to cultivate positive emotions.
How Does Work Engagement Impacts Work Performance?
If the manager of the company has high anxiety level, this could easily pervade in the work culture, which leads to fight or flight response. However, if a manager is determined, enthusiastic and focuses on his well-being and that of other employees, the work environment is healthy one to work in. Engaged workers are more likely to fulfill their jobs and also accomplish the diverse range of work tasks and responsibilities, that they are required to fulfill.
What A Company Should Do To Ensure Work Engagement?
CEO of Campbell’s Soups rightly states, “To win in the marketplace you must first win in the workplace”.
The company’s top priority other than to earn high returns is to keep people engaged with them happy. A company should endeavor to focus more on work engagement rather than just getting the work done. They should find ways to motivate the employees and enhance their well-being. Only when an employee is happily engrossed in his work, is enthusiastic and resilient towards his work he can perform the task in hand in the best possible way. Employees around the globe feel happy when the companies pay them fairly, provide them with safe working conditions and good benefits. In addition, developing a positive work culture in an organization where the employees feel recognized and appreciated, helps maximize an individual’s personal capabilities and ensures the overall growth of the company and the individual himself. With such benefits that an employee earns, he will not only complete the task in hand in stipulated time but will also be willing to share responsibilities with others and help this around him to become better.
People Analytics tools like Examiz TEAMS helps organizations to map the personality-driven DNA for their high-performance teams and enables organizations to form their teams be be the best-performing in the respective industry or market.
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