The UK is in the middle of the fallout from the election results but don't worry, I will make a conscious effort not to bore you with all that. There are similarities in today's topic but it's so slight you would hardly notice.
If you are an employer you have probably interviewed many people, large employers try to make this process more targetted and focussed by filtering candidates via the infamous HR department. Many in the UK use third party agencies to do the job. But does it work ?
Not to be too scientific, filtering is used to remove unwanted material. It does this by only allowing suitable material to pass though. It's a basic concept isn't it.
Now don't get me wrong, it is obviously necessary to apply some sort of criteria when doing the initial assessment. The problem I have is when this filtering process becomes too rigid, so rigid in fact that the only candidates that get through for interver are deemed such a perfect match that the interview is merely an exercise in etiquette and checking dress sense.
I feel a true life example is necessary here. A couple of years ago I was asked to undertake an assessment on a company's employees to understand why the retention rate was so low. The brief I had been given was that morale was poor and job satisfaction appeared to have dropped off the scale. All the eomplyees were highly skilled and their salary scale was above the national average but still the retention rates were incredibly low, staff turnover was 20% above the average but nobody knew why.
I feared the worst, an evil manager, some sort of interdepartmental infighting. Both could be resolved but I had not been given the job of resolution, merely to identify the root cause.
Anyway, to cut the story short (I do tend to over-explain), in I went, embedded within the department and started to gather knowledge on the pretence that I was working on another project within the company. The information I gathered was initially confusing, there was no fighting, no bullies but also there was no atmosphere. The people simply did their job, at the end of the day they packed away their stuff and went home.
By day three I had resigned myself to the fact that the team simply need to be injected with something that would entertain them, team building exercises are the simplest of things to implement and it's the first consideration of management to get the team working and enjoying working together. I naturally fell into this trap hook, line and sinker.
Activities were organised involving the whole team, both within and and in the evenings. I felt my job had been done, issue identified and solution in place and so I left, 5 days into a 10 day job.
A month later I was invited back in to do a re-assessment. Back I came, expecting the initial seedlings of an office atmosphere, and indeed there was but retenton was only marginally better, within a month two more people had opted to leave so the solution was not having the immediate benefit I had anticipated.
By chance, I had lunch with somebody in HR and we discussed the dilemma. It was explained to me that the HR procedures were rugged, stringent criteria were used for selecting the best people for the roles and only the best were ever selected. Out of courtesy more than anything else I asked to see the cruteria used to select the people in this particular department on the off chance that something pecular was happening.
I spent a quite laborious 2 hours going through the process, candidates were selected on background, skill, educational qualifications and domain experience. Three references were always taken and back-checked. The candidate was then interviewed by a team manager, an independent manager and a member of HR. All seemed pretty normal.
Domain experience, it's one of those things that companies always consider when identifying candidates. Candidates should only apply if they have experience of industry 'X' I went back to the department and sat down to think. In the nicest possible way, everybody within the office were clones, exactly the same background, same skills and the precious previous domain experience.
There it was, the cause of the problem. The filtering problem had resulted in exactly the same type of person working in a single department doing the same job and all they could talk about was their previous experience of doing the same job..... tedium infinitum.
It's one of those moments when you want to scream so i raced back to HR, and sure enough domain experience was number 2 on the order of essentials when assessing candidates.
Within 20 minutes, I, HR and the department managers were discussing the problem and re-ordering the list of essential skills and capabilities for the selection criteria. Domain experience had been relegated to a 'nice to have' not an essential.
The change seemed subtle but the result was startling, people were selected on technical skills and essential capabilities. The differing backgrounds were the essential ingredient the office had been missing. Within 3 months, differing backgrounds were actually considered a benefit in the employment process rather than a blocker.
I could happily take the credit for this insight but the problem was found by chance. The results took a little time to take effect but returning 12 months later to do an assessment the change was dramatic, people appeared to be enjoying their work, they talked about football or the previous evening's take-away but the work quality remained just as high. People were bonding, and experiences were shared. The team was naturally growing stronger, they obviously had no need for team building exercises it was inbuilt.
The moral of the story is simple, if you filter your candidates for domain experience, think again. The world works when people with differing backgrounds mix together, companies grow stronger when new skills and knowledge is introduced and more importantly.... at the start of a career you have no domain experience, zilch, zero. You were clever enough to learn it on the job, so can everybody else.
Have a good weekend, Im now off back to the politics
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