Page 18 - MetalForming June 2013

Human Capital
By Debbie McGrath
Three Out of Four Hires Fail—
Here are Tips for Beating the Odds
Posted to HR.com by Sharyn Orr Maldonado, director of human resources, Petra Risk Solutions Baseball Hall-of-Famer Ted
Williams famously said that
baseball is “the only field of endeavor where a man can succeed three times out of 10 and be considered a good performer.”
Maybe not the only one; the same could be said for hiring.
Hiring and retaining the best people is one of the most
right seats” is the most essential task in business. You can’t train your way out of a bad hire, either.
The worst part? While good hires energize those around them, bad hires become energy drains. Bad hires damp- en productivity and suck up manage- ment time and attention.
Often, it’s not skills or credentials that predict success. What really mat- ters is whether the prospective candi- date fits the job. Do they have charac-
help us develop a performance model—a benchmark—for that posi- tion. The questionnaire reveals per- sonality traits as well as language and math aptitude. We look for a close match between the applicants’ scores and the performance benchmark. You can use the information to coach employees, as well as for promotion and redeployment decisions.
3) Develop customized perform- ance models.
One size does not fit all. Slight dif- ferences in the model may have a big impact on performance. Start with crit- ical or problem positions where pro- ductivity or turnover may be an issue. Be certain that your performance met- rics are objective and clearly identified so you can differentiate between top and bottom performers. The model that derives from this process will help you improve performance in all of your positions.
4) Have the supervisors take the assessment.
This way, they can better under- stand themselves and their direct reports, and coach them toward increased productivity. The reports give supervisors a “user’s manual” for each direct report that shows challenge areas, how to motivate them and how to get better performance.
5) Repeat for every hire, for every position.
More input will produce better benchmarking. If this sounds like reverse engineering, it is. This method has proved to be highly reliable, help- ing achieve good hires three times out of four.
One thing is clear: If you don’t start out with the right person, nothing else you do will turn out well. A bad hire never works out for anybody. There’s no crying in baseball, and there should be less of it in hiring.
critical jobs the owner or manager of a company has. In surveys, most rate their success at about one excellent hire out of four. The other three either weren’t a good fit or didn’t have the abil- ities that their train- ing or resume indi- cated.
Our top performers embody what success looks like, so we ask them to take the assessment to help us develop a performance model.
teristics that match those of your top performers? It sounds a bit squishy, and yes, hiring may be part art, but it’s also a science. You can assign metrics to the characteristics that make a differ- ence in perform- ance and better predict candidates’ success.
That’s a huge
problem. As Jim
Collins wrote in his indispensable man- agement book, Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap...and Others Don’t, getting the “right people on the bus and the right people in the
Here are five suggestions to help you hire and retain
top performers.
1) Use a structured hiring process that goes beyond resumes and inter- views.
We begin by determining the appli- cant’s basic employability character- istics: integrity, reliability, work ethic, and attitude toward drugs. This assess- ment helps screen out people who are not likely to perform well or fit our performance culture.
2) Gain an objective understanding of your best people.
We use a normative assessment that measures learning ability, occu- pational interests and behavioral char- acteristics. Our top performers embody what success looks like, so we ask them to take the assessment to
Content for Human Capi- tal comes courtesy of Debbie McGrath, founder and chief instigator of HR.com, Aurora, Ontario, Canada. McGrath has a degree in computer sci- ence and business administration from the University of Guelph. Founded in August 1999,
HR.com aims to help build great companies by connecting them with the knowledge and resources they need to effectively manage the people side of business.
www.HR.com
tel: 877/472-6648
16 MetalForming/June 2013
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