Is Cleverer Recruitment the Key to Reducing Staff Turnover Rates?
So, how to reduce staff turnover?
All managers and lead runners in a company know that it’s not the company that makes the people, but the people that make the company; but how can you tell which applicant that is promising to be hard working, committed and experienced will deliver? Which applicant will help the business grow and be a worthwhile investment into the company?
Senior managers conventionally rely on competency-based methods of assessing their applicants and trusting their HR departments to find the right people for the company, however, with many organisations suffering from huge staff turnovers, which in turn have affected the revenue, perhaps this way of hiring needs to be reviewed.
A change in their way of recruiting was carried out by one company who instead of just looking for people who excelled in their role through looking at their CV and carrying out interviews; they studied their own employees, the ones that were generating the best revenue. They analysed their behaviour, actions and interactions with customers and colleagues. They then used their study to find candidates who had similar qualities – leading to a 40% increase in revenue within 6 months. This way of recruiting is called ‘Strengths-based recruitment’ (SBR).
This way of recruiting slowly made its way through the market until a lot more businesses were using this approach. This helps to identify the ‘DNA’ of great performers and use qualitative and quantitative methodology to pinpoint their strengths.
From this, Engaging Minds was set up in 2010. The aim was to use in depth profiling to ensure companies selected employees who could thrive within their roles. The company also incorporated strengths-based leadership development programmes to help leaders better utilise their own assets. People always perform best when they are doing what they are good at and enjoy doing. There is no template for great leadership but there is evidence that shows that people who understand their strengths and play to them will perform better.
Studies have been carried out using SBR within different companies throughout periods of time. One study showed that SBR achieved a 50% fall in staff turnover within a short period of time. This shows that SBR not only leads to reduced staff turnover but was also cost effective and delivered more engaging employees – when the wrong people are in the wrong job no one benefits, therefore it makes more sense to ask ‘what is this person really like deep down?’ in a selection process rather than whether they can fit a list of skills criteria.
