Just witnessed a focus group concerned with “Good Corporate Citizenship.”
It seems that in the past 25 years, corporations have reduced Human Resources to a transactional and legal compliance activity. Hiring decisions are made at the lowest, least expensive level possible. Virtually no attempt is made to assess basic intelligence, enthusiasm for the task, motivation or integrity. It has become a simple matter of matching the job knowledge with previous job knowledge. But, when purchasing shares in a mutual fund, we always heed the warning “past performance does not guarantee future performance.”
When treating people like interchangeable parts, or at best like cattle, it is no wonder that employees are no longer loyal to their employers. This phenomena has created significant social consequences. For example, it has increased the average commuting distance, choking the roads and wasting energy. Employees are reluctant to relocate and live near where they work – knowing that in most cases the chance of them losing their job at some point in the future is relatively high. Low employee morale and apathy has reduced productivity. The cost of recruiting, and the cost of making a hiring mistake are substantial.
A bank president gave me this example. He said: "You have a job that needs to be filled (position A). You have an employee (employee B) who is a long term, loyal employee and knows 80% of the job. The company, in it’s desire to be efficient, chooses to pay a recruiter to find a new employee rather than spend the time and resources to teach him/her (employee B) the remaining 20%. The recruiter delivers the new person who claims to know the job 100%, but in fact knows only 85%%. Employee B, who knew 80% becomes disgruntled and quits to take a job with a competitor, convincing them on the interview that s/he knows 100%. It takes the competitor 6 months to figure out that they made a hiring mistake, but in this 6 months the employee learns the remaining 15% and now knows 95% of what is needed." What a stupid, wasteful system.
It is time for the pendulum to swing back the other way, and have corporations treat people with a long term perspective. Motivation comes in many forms. An employee who is smart, enthusiastic, loyal, protective of the company, excited about doing the work, has feelings of pride in accomplishment, is cooperative, and has a positive attitude toward learning will be much more productive than someone who has all of the required job knowledge but feels like an outsider who may be expendable. But attempts at measuring these personal characteristics are seldom made. It requires a higher level of experience and education on the part of the recruiter – which makes it more expensive. This “penny wise” and “pound foolish” mentality is hurting us, and it is time to try something new.
1 comment:
If you want to get some insight into why the employer/employee relationship has deteriorated, read Joanne Ciulla's book _The Working Life: The Promise and Betrayal of Modern Work_.
Much of this began when employers started seeing workers as costs, not investments. The short term quarter-based thinking of American management said to save money fast, you cut labor. You don't give 10% pay cuts, you give 100% pay cuts.
Then as your example exemplifies, companies became obsessed with hiring "the best and brightest," which is clearly one of the biggest hiring mistakes out there. The big driving force isn't to see what are the strengths each candidate brings. Instead, it's all about fear, fear of making a hiring mistake. Which candidate will be the less problematic?
With product cycles being as short as they are, too many employers fret that if they take a chance on a candidate who looks less than 100% that they'll suffer big time. I frequently laugh (sorry, my mercy supply is dry) when I hear fellow managers cry when they bellow how some candidate looked spectacular at the interview, and was lousy on the job. Like a blues song says, "Next time you see me, things won't be the same. You really hurt me my darling, you've only got yourself to blame."
Hiring is no longer about actual job competence. It's about gamesmanship. It's about what employers can pull the latest tricks on candidates. Like any hacker knows, it's only a matter of time before such systems are cracked; look at how many more sites exist on job hunting than actually doing work.
If employers knew what actual job competence was and welcomed that at interviews, we'd see this turned around. They'd also see that really good people come with the skills that makes them grow on the job. Many candidates despise the job hunting process because employers no longer make it a pleasant exchange about doing business and staying around for the long term. Yet they know if they don't job hop (and appear ambitious), they'll never pick up the remaining skills.
If only employers believed in lifelong learning, we wouldn't have this mess, especially in the age of Google.
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