Module1Case_599

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SELECTING TALENT

T alent se lection decisions are an increasingly impor tant determi- nant of success. For many organ izations they are the most impor- tant decisions they make, oft en committing the organ izations

to high costs and major investments in time and analy sis. It is not new that se lection decisions are impor tant. What is new is their growing importance as a result of human capital becoming a more critical de- terminant of orga nizational eff ectiveness. Also new is the technology that can be used to make them, and the need to shape the se lection pro- cess to fi t the new workplace and workforce.

E F F E C T I V E S E L E C T I O N

Th e se lection pro cess needs to be carefully integrated with the attraction pro cess. In many re spects, se lection is a continuation of the attrac- tion pro cess as it oft en plays a critical role in the decisions individuals make about whether or not to accept a job off er. Th e se lection pro cess says a great deal about what an organ ization stands for and how it oper- ates; thus, it very much determines what kind of individuals will work for an organ ization and shapes its culture.

As an impor tant part of the employer brand of an organ ization, the se lection pro cess must build on what is said about the potential em- ployer in the attraction pro cess and give individuals accurate informa- tion about what it will be like to work for the organ ization if they are selected. If it does not, the organ ization runs the risk that individuals will have false expectations and will become turnover candidates before

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C o p y r i g h t 2 0 1 7 . B e r r e t t - K o e h l e r P u b l i s h e r s .

A l l r i g h t s r e s e r v e d . M a y n o t b e r e p r o d u c e d i n a n y f o r m w i t h o u t p e r m i s s i o n f r o m t h e p u b l i s h e r , e x c e p t f a i r u s e s p e r m i t t e d u n d e r U . S . o r a p p l i c a b l e c o p y r i g h t l a w .

EBSCO Publishing : eBook Academic Collection (EBSCOhost) - printed on 5/10/2020 12:02 AM via TRIDENT UNIVERSITY AN: 1457718 ; Lawler, Edward E..; Reinventing Talent Management : Principles and Practices for the New World of Work Account: s3642728.main.ehost

46 Reinventing Talent Management

the organ ization gets a signifi cant return on the investment it has made in selecting, hiring, and training them. Th ere is also the risk that it will be a negative experience that will drive away good talent.

In addition to being carefully integrated with the attraction pro cess, the se lection pro cess needs to be an eff ective step in the onboarding pro cess. It should introduce talent to the organ ization in ways that emphasize the organ ization’s key features with re spect to per for- mance, learning, change, culture, management style, and interpersonal relationships.

Th e se lection pro cess needs to refl ect the realities and challenges of staffi ng in today’s environment. It needs to focus on the skills individu- als have, make a valid assessment of what they can learn to do, and de- termine if they are a “good fi t” for the organ ization’s management approach and leadership style. In par tic u lar, it needs to focus on those skills that are critical for an organ ization’s eff ectiveness. In many cases the pro cess needs to go beyond assessing what is needed to do an exist- ing set of tasks or a given job; it also needs to refl ect what an individual can learn to do that is relevant to the business strategy of the organ- ization and the rapid changes that are occurring in the world of work.

Given the complexity of most organ izations, multiple se lection pro- cesses may be needed. Th e most obvious basis for segmenting the se lection pro cess is whether or not the individuals being hired are development candidates. It may be that certain employees are being hired for an assignment that requires immediate per for mance, and the key issue is whether or not they can perform a set of existing tasks. On the other hand, they may be entering an area where a signifi cant amount of learning is required and the expectation is that they will continue with the organ ization through multiple changes in work pro cesses, technology, and organ ization design that require continual learning. As a result of this, employment candidates will need to be able to adapt to situations where development over a period of time is critical.

It is fair to say that a lot is expected of the se lection pro cesses that organ izations use. It is also fair to say that many of them have not met those expectations. Th ey have attracted the wrong individuals, they have resulted in wrong se lection decisions, and they have given talent

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Selecting Talent 47

unrealistic expectations about what work life is like. While the se lection practices of many organ izations have continued to fare poorly, the im- portance of se lection has increased.

Th ere has been an enormous amount of research done on what makes for good se lection decisions. It has produced some useful guidelines concerning what a good se lection pro cess should look like when deal- ing with the many complexities and challenges of hiring. Th ere are multiple practices that are appropriate for producing good se lection de- cisions and for helping talent make informed decisions about whether to join an organ ization. Th ese guidelines can be used to develop se lection pro cesses that fi t the new world of work and workers.

Th e major point that should be front and center when it comes to organ izations making decisions about who to hire and what type of po- sition to hire them for is that “past be hav ior is the best predictor of future be hav ior.” Th is is particularly true when the environments and work are similar. Th us, it is very impor tant to gather information about how applicants have behaved in the past and to base hiring decisions on that information. Th is is particularly impor tant when individuals are being hired into positions where they are expected to begin performing well immediately aft er they are hired.

T H E W O R K R E C O R D

Since past be hav ior is the best predictor of future be hav ior, there is no better predictor of how an individual will perform in the future than how they have performed in the past. Th is means that when individuals are being hired, organ izations should do every thing they can to fi nd out how the individual has performed in similar situations. Not surpris- ingly, the more similar the past situation is to the one where an individual will be working, the greater the predictive power of past per for mance data. Increasingly, data on individuals’ past per for mance exists; in many professions it is widely available.

Sports is a very vis i ble example of the great availability of per for- mance data. Just about every statistic you can imagine is now avail- able about the per for mance of athletes, starting from their ju nior high school years. Sophisticated and complicated mea sures are computed

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48 Reinventing Talent Management

and used to make decisions about the eff ectiveness of football, bas- ketball, and baseball players. In this re spect, sports may be a bit of an anomaly with re spect to mea sur ing the eff ectiveness of employee per for mance, but it does not have to be many. Organ izations already have extensive data about the eff ectiveness of salespeople, technical people, and the like. With the growth of big data and the increased monitoring of employee be hav ior through apps and wearable location and activity monitors, more and more information is available about individuals’ per for mance. Th e challenge is to get good data and to use it in a way that produces good se lection decisions.

Many organ izations begin the data gathering pro cess by asking job applicants to complete an application that focuses on their educational and work history. Th is is a good fi rst step as long as the application is not so diffi cult to complete that it drives good applicants away. Increas- ingly, organ izations are using apps as a way to make the application pro- cess more user- friendly. Such companies as Deutsche Bank, Ernst and Young, and Microsoft are using smartphone apps that help people fast- track the recruitment and se lection pro cess by playing games. Th is can encourage more applicants and send positive information about the organ ization and its culture, thus contributing to the attraction pro cess. It can also provide organ izations with behavioral data that can be scanned for relevant experience and skills.

Organ izations oft en ask for references, and they can provide useful information, but there are always issues of credibility and truth when data are gathered in this way. Th us, it is very impor tant that organ- izations do every thing they can to determine the validity of data about the past per for mance of any individuals they hire. Th is may involve hir- ing vetting companies to look at the rec ords of individuals and get data about their work and education history. Th ere is also the option of ask- ing individuals for their work rec ords and accomplishments and then testing that against other sources; this is not only a good way of deter- mining whether individuals are a good hire from a per for mance point of view but also a way to test their credibility and honesty. Frequently individuals do not provide valid information when fi lling out job applications.

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Selecting Talent 49

I N T E R N S H I P S , G I G S , A N D S I M U L AT I O N S

Without question, the best way to give individuals information about what it is like to work in an organ ization and to give that organ ization information about whether an individual can do the job is to have them actually work at the job or a simulation of it. Th is is always better than doing interviews or using tests that give information about people’s personalities, skills, and abilities but may not predict job per for mance. Having job candidates actually do the job tells an organ ization if indi- viduals can accomplish specifi c tasks; it can also make it clear to those individuals what it is like to do the work the organ ization wants them to.

One in ter est ing pro cess that can be used to test individuals is the blind audition. In symphony orchestras, this involves auditioning for jobs behind a screen so that the hiring man ag ers are forced to pay attention to what matters most: how well those auditioning play their instruments; the man ag ers are not distracted or infl uenced by appear- ance, race, gender, and the like. Th ese blind audition practices fi t well as an initial screening pro cess for collecting work samples from writers, coders, customer ser vice representatives, researchers, and others who are being considered to do technical and administrative work.

Th ere are multiple ways to have individuals do the work that the organ ization has to off er without hiring them on a regular employment basis. Th e most obvious is the use of temporary work programs, such as  internships, contract hires, and temporary assignments. Internships have long been used as an eff ective se lection device. Many companies use them as a way to attract, test, and ultimately select college and high school students as well as others who are interested in developing them- selves. Th ey combine a realistic job preview with a work sample, and thus can improve both the attraction and se lection pro cesses of an organ ization. Th ey are an eff ective way to select and manage talent in the new world of work and workers.

Temporary work assignments and internships can last a matter of hours or many months— even years. In many re spects, the longer the time period, the better. Th is gives the organ ization time to observe indi- viduals actually doing the work that they would be doing as employees and gives individuals a chance to see what the organ ization and the

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50 Reinventing Talent Management

work is like. Admittedly, it is one thing to be a regular employee and another to be a temporary employee or intern. Even so, the temporary work assignment is a much better way to give potential employees a sense of what the organ ization and the work is like versus having them observe it or having somebody explain it to them. And, needless to say, it is also the best way to test whether they can do the work.

Th e information technology revolution provides many new opportu- nities to have individuals do work for organ izations before they become regular employees. Gig sites provide the opportunity for organ izations to get work samples that can be very valuable in determining what an individual can do and whether the organ ization wants to employ some- body for a gig or on a regular basis. Technology also provides the op- portunity to simulate work situations in ways that have not been pos si ble before. Simulations can be interactive and can test the responses of ap- plicants to evolving situations and technical prob lems; they can make testing much more realistic and therefore more valid. Video games may also be a good choice, as they have the potential to create simulations that test the judgment and analytic capabilities of potential hires. Th ey have the advantage of putting individuals in work situations and being able to see how they analyze and respond to them.

Overall, the best way to judge if potential employees can do some- thing is to have them do it, not to ask them or others (past employers, coworkers, etc.) whether they can do it. Of course, it may not always be pos si ble to observe somebody performing work, so it may be necessary to get data about their per for mance history. Th is can be extremely valu- able when the source of the data is credible and the work that the ap- plicant has done previously is similar. If the job entails producing a manuscript, fi lm, advertisement, or other identifi able product, a good substitute is an assessment of the work product itself. Unfortunately, job candidates themselves are frequently not a valid source of per for mance data and it is oft en impossible to fi nd someone who is.

A B I L I T Y A N D P E R S O N A L I T Y T E S T I N G

For a variety of reasons, organ izations cannot always obtain a work sample: applicants may require specifi c training for the work to be done, or the work may simply be too complex or involve too long a time span

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Selecting Talent 51

to do for those who are not actual employees. It may not even exist in “doable” form because the fi rst work of applicants is to develop the proj- ect or work that they will be doing. In these cases, an intelligence or targeted ability test may be the best choice.

Standardized psychological tests can be useful when they mea sure an ability like intelligence, which is critical to most or all work that might be performed by job applicants. Skill and ability tests are particularly useful when the work entails learning to perform tasks that applicants may not have any prior experience with.

Organ izations have used many diff er ent personality and interest tests for de cades. Th e most popu lar and most frequently used of these is the Myers- Briggs Type Indicator; among other questions, it asks a job ap- plicant to say whether he or she would rather be considered a “practical person” or an “ingenious person” and whether he or she is a “good talker” or instead “quiet and reserved.” One estimate is that over fi ft y million people around the world have taken the test.

Th e research evidence shows that, in most cases, personality tests are not valid predictors of job per for mance. Th ere is reason to believe that they can be predictive for some kinds of work (e.g., customer contact roles), but that as a general rule they are not good predictors of per for- mance and thus should not be used for se lection unless they have been shown to be valid by studies that are specifi c to the work that will be done by the talent being tested.

I N T E RV I E W S

Th e most frequently used se lection tool is the one- on- one interview. Most interviews are unstructured (the interviewer asks what ever he or she wants) and oft en turn out to be rambling conversations between the interviewer and the job candidate. Not surprisingly, most interviews have little or no validity when it comes to predicting the per for mance of job candidates or the length of their employment. Despite this, the interview continues to be the most frequently used se lection device.

Many man ag ers feel that they can make good se lection decisions about job candidates based on their ability to do interviews. Research on se lection decisions does not support this conclusion; it does show that most man ag ers believe they can make good decisions, but it does

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52 Reinventing Talent Management

not support the notion that they actually do so. Interviews are also fl awed with re spect to giving job candidates an accurate view of what work will be like once they join an organ ization.

Th e validity rec ord of interviews suggests that it may be best to never have interviews as part of the se lection pro cess in the new world of work and workers. Th e prob lem with this is that most applicants want to have interviews so that they can meet the individuals they will potentially be working with and for, and man ag ers also want to know and have a say in who is hired. Having them approve a new hire aft er an interview also helps commit them to a successful onboarding of that hire. Th us, rather than eliminating interviews, the best solution is oft en to direct inter- viewers toward the realistic preview and attraction side of what an ef- fective se lection pro cess needs to accomplish and have them play little or no role in actual hiring decisions.

As far as contributing to valid se lection decisions and attraction, it is critical that interviews be structured and guided by a predetermined list of key questions and points. Th ere is a large amount of evidence that shows that when there is little structure to interviews, interviewers tend to ask questions that are inappropriate, invalid, and in some cases dis- criminatory, unethical, and even in violation of labor laws. For exam- ple, they sometimes ask about childhood experiences, what job applicants’ parents are like, what their hobbies are, and a whole list of things that are not valid predictors of the future per for mance of the prospective employees.

Adam Bryant interviews chief executive offi cers and publishes the re- sults every Sunday in the New York Times. He always asks, “How do you hire?” Th e CEOs all report on what they ask in interviews and al- most without exception they ask about something that is not likely to be a predictor of per for mance. For example, “If you had all the money in the world, and you had one year to live, what would you be doing?” or “What do you do on weekends?”

Questions should be directly targeted at evaluating how well indi- viduals have previously performed work that is similar to the work that they are applying to do. Th e same structured questions should be asked of all interviewees so that comparisons can be made. Th e questions need to focus on the kind of skills needed for someone to do or learn how to do the work they are being hired to do. Th ere is evidence that this type

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Selecting Talent 53

of interview can be valid in selecting some employees. When structured interviews are done, there is also much less chance that the interviewer will ask questions that are inappropriate, invalid, or inaccurately com- municate what it is like to work for the organ ization.

It oft en makes sense to have structured interviews that are guided by information technology. To assure that the right questions are asked across multiple interviews, a key list of questions can be developed and sent to all interviewers. As the interview pro cess unfolds, the interview- ers can connect with each other about what has been answered, which issues to pursue, and which question should be focused on. Th is is a good way to improve the practice of interviewing and to ensure that in- terviews are valid, ask reasonable questions, and are not repetitive.

Interviews should be structured in a way that informs job candidates about what will be expected of them and what it will be like to work in the organ ization. Giving the job candidate a good preview of what work will be like is a much more achievable goal than having the interviewer make a valid hiring decision based on information that is provided by the job applicant in response to interviewer- created questions.

Making an interview eff ective requires training the interviewer to deliver the right kind of information and to ask appropriate questions. It is not an easy task, but it is one that can be accomplished and will lead to much better results than unstructured, rambling interviews that focus on what an untrained interviewer thinks will predict whether or not the interviewee will be a good employee.

Th e point made earlier about past be hav ior being the best predictor of future be hav ior suggests that structured interviews should focus on asking individuals what they have done and how they behaved in previ- ous job situations. Interviews should be constructed to carefully look at the responsibilities individuals had in previous jobs and to get them to talk about par tic u lar incidents in the workplace that they encountered and how they responded to them. Job applicants should also be asked what kind of tasks they performed, what knowledge was required to perform them, and how they dealt with new challenges and learning opportunities. It may also be eff ective to ask what they learned from their past work and how they will approach work in the future.

It is worth repeating that the interviews should be considered part of the attraction pro cess. Clearly, job applicants develop feelings of like or

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54 Reinventing Talent Management

dislike for interviewers during the interview pro cess. Th is can make a big diff erence in whether they end up completing the se lection pro cess and accepting a job if it is off ered. It is thus impor tant that the inter- viewer conduct the interview in a way that produces a positive dialogue with the job applicant.

Fi nally, there is the possibility of having interviews that have no in- fl uence on se lection decisions. I have seen this approach work well in situations where there is a clear rec ord of candidate per for mance avail- able; it is assessed, the hiring decision is made, and then the individual is invited to an interview. Done well, these interviews can provide a chance for the interviewers and interviewees to exchange information about the culture and climate of the organ ization and to start the on- boarding pro cess of those individuals who will ultimately be hired.

S O C I A L M E D I A

Th e increasing use of social media can provide organ izations with new means to fi nd out about an individual’s past be hav ior. Th ey can simply go to prospective employees’ Facebook accounts or other postings and see what kind of interests they have, how they behave, how they respond to friendships and networks, and so on. Th e challenge with information gleaned from social media is determining its relevance to the work to be performed.

In many cases, social media information may be irrelevant because the issues in it are very diff er ent from those of the work situation. Th ere may, however, be instances in which individuals on social media forums state things or behave in ways that are simply unacceptable and do not represent what a com pany would like its employees to be known for. Looking at be hav iors that are extreme also can provide meaningful warnings about how individuals might represent the com pany and how they might behave in the workplace.

Perhaps the best way to think about the relevance of social media is that it is a new and potentially useful source of information. Social me- dia forums should be treated as just one source of information about how an individual behaves, but they are a valid source of information about be hav ior. What candidates post on social media is an example of how they represent themselves and therefore a pos si ble indicator of how they will behave in the workplace.

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Selecting Talent 55

VA L I D AT I O N

Validation is a must for all se lection pro cesses. For a number of reasons, it is very impor tant that organ izations determine whether the methods and pro cesses they are using to select employees produce valid deci- sions. Th e results of the se lection pro cess need to be tested on a con- tinuing basis against turnover, absenteeism, productivity levels, and other per for mance mea sures. Given the rate of change in the world of work, old results are not good enough. A few years ago, continuous val- idation may not have been necessary; today, as work and workers change at an accelerating rate and new sources of data multiply (e.g., social media, gaming, etc.), validation should not be looked at as a one- off but as a continuing pro cess. Validation should look at all the ele ments in the se lection pro cess that infl uence fi nal decisions. It should also al- ways involve looking for new practices that will improve the se lection pro cess.

In jobs where there is a high variance in per for mance, a small in- crease in the validity of the se lection pro cess can result in an enormous gain in the per for mance of individuals and ultimately in the per for- mance of organ izations. In the cases where the top performers are ten to twenty times more productive than average performers (which is of- ten true for technical work such as soft ware engineering), even a small increase in predictive validity can result in a big per for mance gain. In such work situations, having a valid se lection pro cess is particularly impor tant.

Validation is impor tant not just because it can lead to improved se lection decisions, and better cost and productivity numbers in an organ ization; it also provides a defense against lawsuits, charges of discrimination, and unfair employment actions. Th is is where information technology and the era of big data come into play. It is much easier today to get per- for mance data about individuals, and to use data analytics to determine how predictive the vari ous parts of a se lection pro cess are.

D E C I S I O N M A K I N G

In traditional organ izations, job applicants are interviewed and se- lected in a highly hierarchical pro cess; they are interviewed by man ag- ers and the hiring decision is made by their boss- to-be and maybe his

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56 Reinventing Talent Management

or her boss. Future peers, subordinates, and other employees have little or no participation in the interview and se lection pro cess. Th is traditional hierarchical management approach does not fi t the new world of work and workers because it fails to build a commitment to the outcome of the pro cess and ignores helpful information that future peers and subordinates may have about whether a job candidate should be hired.

Many technology fi rms and some retail fi rms (e.g., Whole Foods) recognize the importance of including future coworkers from all organ ization levels in the se lection pro cess. Th ey have future peers and subordinates interview job candidates and in some cases vote on the se lection decision. Th is has the obvious advantage of building their commitment to the success of the new hire and may provide valuable se lection information. It also brings the se lection pro cess more in line with the world of work as it exists in high- performance organ izations. Th at said, a word of caution is in order here with re- spect to who votes on the hiring. As already noted, interviews oft en are not valid se lection methods. Th us, it oft en is best to give peers and subordinates only veto power with re spect to preselected top candidates.

S E G M E N TAT I O N

It is obvious that the same se lection pro cesses and practices cannot be used throughout large, complex organ izations; there are simply too many diff erences in the skills needed, the kind of working conditions individuals face, and the messages that need to be delivered to talent. Multiple se lection practices need to be developed that fi t the skills that are needed in par tic u lar parts of an organ ization. Th ese practices also need to fi t the nature of the work that is to be done. What should be  common across the se lection pro cesses that are used in diff er ent parts of an organ ization is that they attract the right individuals, pro- vide a realistic preview, and have been found to be valid predictors of per for mance.

Given the real ity that how some work is done is a particularly impor- tant determinant of orga nizational per for mance, the se lection decisions for certain jobs need to get special attention. In traditional organ izations,

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Selecting Talent 57

higher- level jobs have always gotten special attention. Th e diff erence in the new world of work is that hierarchy should not be the major deter- minant of which jobs get such attention; it should be given to selecting individuals to do the work that is critical to orga nizational per for- mance and is subject to wide per for mance variation. Th is might be work in research and development or in customer ser vice. In the case of Disney, one critical job is maintenance and cleaning in the com pany’s theme parks, because individuals in these jobs have impor tant interac- tions with customers when they are asked for directions and help. In the case of real estate, sales agents are critical; the best produce many times more sales than other agents.

C O N C L U S I O N

Selecting the right talent for an organ ization is an increasingly challeng- ing and impor tant activity. Because organ izations have become more talent dependent, there is less and less room for making bad se lection decisions and for using se lection practices and pro cesses that do not at- tract the right talent. Many traditional best practices are obsolete because of the changes that have occurred in the world of work and workers.

As can be seen in table 4.1, it is particularly impor tant that strategy drive a focus on the se lection of employees for key work. Th is means that a disproportionate percentage of se lection time and eff ort should be spent on a relatively small percentage of jobs. Of course, careful se lection is needed for all the work in the organ ization, but some work warrants considerably more attention.

Th e se lection approaches that organ izations use need to vary based on the nature of the skills that are needed to do the work well. As table 4.1 shows, it is very impor tant to assess the skills that individu- als have by looking carefully at test results and using work simula- tions, structured interviews, and work histories. Th is point once again emphasizes the real ity that the best predictor of future be hav ior is past be hav ior. Th is leads to the point that se lection should be based on past per for mance; this is particularly true when the work to be done is similar and there is a chance to observe and validate how a person has performed in the past. Th is can be done when organ izations use

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58 Reinventing Talent Management

internships, take work samples, and use simulations and work- related tests.

To be sure that an organ ization develops an agile workforce, talent se lection may require some targeted practices. One is to hire short- term gig or contract employees. Th e other is to look at the history of individ- uals and determine whether they have been fl exible and agile in their work lives. Have they, for example, changed jobs frequently, learned new skills, and gone to training programs? An agility analy sis is particularly impor tant if an organ ization is committed to developing employees either because the skill sets they need simply are not available in the general population or because an organ ization is experiencing rapid changes in its business environment, technology, and/or product mixes that are best responded to by long- term employees.

With re spect to segmentation, much of the se lection pro cess needs to be targeted at the specifi c skill set needed to do the work for which the individual is being hired. Th is means that se lection methods and practices may diff er signifi cantly for diff er ent parts of the organ ization and for diff er ent hiring situations; they need to be designed for the work individuals are expected to do and the part of the organ ization they will be in.

Fi nally, table 4.1 shows that it is impor tant to validate the se lection practices and decisions of organ izations on a continuous basis. Th is is increasingly pos si ble with the big data and analytics capability that is now available, and increasingly impor tant because of the changing na- ture of work and the work environment. What may be a good predictor

Table 4.1 Selecting the right talent

Strategy driven Focus on se lection for key work and be hav iors

Skills based Use tests, work history, simulations, and structured interviews

Per for mance focused

Assess past per for mance; use internship and work samples

Agile Look at history of skills and skills development

Segmented Use work- specifi c se lection practices; focus on work that makes a diff erence

Evidence based Validate all se lection practices and decisions on a continuous basis

Copyright © Edward E. Lawler III and Center for Eff ective Organ izations at USC.

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Selecting Talent 59

of per for mance at one point in time may quickly become a poor predic- tor later because the work and/or the environment in which it is per- formed has changed. Perhaps the best way to summarize is to say that the se lection pro cess needs to become data driven, and the data should be collected and analyzed on a continuous basis.

501-67676_ch01_6P.indd 59 3/24/17 9:18 AM

EBSCOhost - printed on 5/10/2020 12:02 AM via TRIDENT UNIVERSITY. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use