Stop Bringing The Wrong People Onboard

It’s time to change your talent selection strategy

Did you know that hiring the right candidate can save businesses a tonne of money?

An article by Harvard Business Review revealed that “avoiding a toxic worker [is] worth about $12,500 in turnover costs…”

Aside from the cost, a bad hire can affect an entire team’s morale, motivation and productivity. 

So, when a hiring manager realises that a candidate isn’t the right fit for the role, they opt to train them with hopes that things would change.

In the previous article, we spoke about having the right blend of physical and virtual assessments to decide what training programmes your employees need.

However, Accendo’s chief executive officer Sharma KSK Lachu said: “No matter how good your training is, if you bring garbage in, nothing will change.”

This is why some companies spend a lot of time and effort to select the right talent to bring in.

Read More: The Dos and Don’ts of Recruiting Top Tier Talent

Why did HR hire the wrong person?

Accendo’s CEO: Sharma KSK Lachu

Reactive rather than proactive

Sometimes when hiring managers are pressured for time, they resort to hiring a candidate who almost meets the criteria they’re looking for.

“In recruitment, we call it ‘bum on the seats’,” Sharma said.

Insecurity

At times, hiring managers may feel threatened by overqualified or highly capable candidates due to an inferiority complex and ego.

“You need to hire people better than you. Not necessarily smarter, because if you have too many generals, you won’t be able to fight the war,” Sharma advised.

Incorrect measures

Hiring managers may sometimes make the mistake of hiring candidates based on how they compare against each other.

Sharma said: “It’s more of, ‘Oh I think candidate A is better than candidate B.’ Nobody measures whether the candidate fits the job criteria in the first place.”

So, how does a hiring manager find the right talent?

Build a solid talent attraction platform

A press release published by Hays Malaysia last year revealed that “…personal networks offer a way to hear about a job before it’s advertised as well as to learn about the work culture of an employer from someone with inside knowledge.”

This is why hiring managers need to go out, network and build a portfolio of talents, Sharma advised.

Such a portfolio can be built on a talent attraction platform.

The one by Accendo, for instance, uses the same concept as LinkedIn, but serves a different function. A hirer (organisation) adds users (potential candidates) to the platform, and can automatically view the users’ connections and gain access to their social media profiles.

Sharma said: “With LinkedIn, the user is in control of data. With this process, you (the hirer) are in control of the data you want to see and push.”

The platform comes equipped with elements of gamification such as badges and leaderboards which users can earn, for example, by the amount of referrals they get. For a hirer, this shows how capable and credible the user is.

From there, the hirer can devisetalent acquisition strategies by leveraging the user’s mutual connections, Sharma said.

Streamline your processes

According to Accendo’s strategic account manager Ashvin Nair, talent attraction and talent acquisition used to exist separately. At Accendo however, they believe that the two should exist on one platform.

This can be seen in a tool they developed called Simplify. It comes equipped with the talent attraction platform mentioned in the previous point, and an applicant tracking system – a software that manages the recruitment process. 

With the two functions on one platform, Sharma said: “Recruitment becomes a singular process.”

He explained: “The moment a job requisition goes into recruitment, the system automatically tells you there are x number of people ready – from hot to cold. This is based on their level of engagement on the attraction platform.”

Based on that data, the system automatically pulls the resume of selected candidates and this initiates the recruitment process, he shared.

In conclusion

Jim Collins, the author of Good to Great once said this:

People are not your most important asset. The right people are.

If you’re keen on improving your talent attraction and acquisition methods, Accendo will be able to point you in the right direction.

Accendo is a regional HR technology solutions company with two decades of industry know-how. They are firm believers of re-engineering people performance at work. Their award-winning tools and solutions enable their customers to adapt effectively and complement the fast-changing ASEAN market.

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