“Selection-focused talent management” is definitely a luxury for HR. It’s a luxury that has to be fought for in order to be achieved, because the best talent isn’t going to just rush in. In order to be able to do a really good personality-based profile screening of the right amount of candidates, you need a strong corporate image, employer branding managed by a select few, and idol management within the company. It is also important to note that HR’s role should not be limited to simple HR, since in today’s competitive environment, it is necessary to sell the company to the best employees, which is clearly a specific sales and communications task.
A game of patience
It is also certain that when applying such a methodology, it must be understood at the highest strategic decision-making level that patience is required. It takes longer to get the process up and running and to come to fruition than traditional recruitment and talent management solutions, as HR professionals cannot allow candidates into the organisation whose profile does not fit almost perfectly with expectations. In addition, expectations must also be translated into the language of personality, as the presence of a required attribute is not a question to be asked of the candidate, but rather defined on the basis of the analysis of the presence or absence of that attribute. The most important requirement in applying this methodology is to accurately measure the “original personality” and the “present personality”. Since the “original personality” provides the individual with a stress-free life, hence a high level of continuous work and a happy life, the selection should be based on this factor. This is why most personality tests fail in this process, as they assume that the combination of the original and learned personality at the time of taking the test is the personality with which the employee will perform the job. This is true for the first, initial phase of employment, after which the individual perceives the current expectations of the new environment, to which he or she will respond with a new personality. They will not be happy; they will just enter another stress-producing state, which will result in them leaving the company, which of course, has an immediate direct effect on turnover conditions. The “original personality” assessment should be relevant because it is what enables the individual to create and live a balanced, happy life, i.e. it is what ensures that they can be themself without stress. In other words, if the expectations of the position match the candidate’s “original personality” profile, it may take some time after entry to shed the behaviours of the previous job, give up the personality traits required by the previous environment, and be themself. But if your new position pushes you in that direction, sooner or later, you will get an employee who really likes working in your organisation.
The joy of work
Basically, a process has been underway for well over a decade now that the new generation of workers not only wants to come to work, but also wants to feel good about it, as they spend roughly half their lives in this environment. This is not surprising; everyone agrees. It’s just that many people don’t think about when a person can be truly happy. Certainly not by various motivational tricks or by the moral and material rewards that have been chewed to the bone – of course, for certain personality types, these are precisely what is important – but by not having to impose on oneself behaviour that is far removed from one’s own being. Everyone wants to be in an environment where they can be themselves and therefore not be talked down to, criticised or even recognised, because that is what is expected of them. Of course, it fits in with this mood to occasionally slip into a role for a short or medium-term goal, but if there is no hope of ending this role-playing, you will certainly not feel comfortable. The process existed before the advent of the coronavirus, but it is undeniable that the viral crisis and the lock-in that it has brought has dramatically amplified this trend. So while 10-15 years ago, it was looked at oddly when someone talked about a “happy organisation” at an HR conference, today, we can’t have real, sustained HR success without creating it. Of course, we have to be aware that we will not produce it overnight, but we have to start working on it tomorrow if we want to survive in this fiercely competitive labour market!