A recruiter’s work doesn’t end there
With an obvious skills gap in the labour market, it’s easy to focus on attracting the right talent as the key to successful recruitment. If we find an interested candidate with the aptitude, skills and experience required to fill our role then our work as a recruiter is done. The problem with this exclusive focus on talent attraction is that it has partly contributed to the excessive employee turnover figures we now face – currently running at 16-18% annually in the UK. A highly skilled, experienced and learned candidate does not always translate to an employee who will stay with our company.
Reducing turnover
Attracting talented candidates and being able to retain them are two very different things and when we lose a talented employee, particularly within the first 2 years of their employment, we are costing our company, both financially and reputationally. To solve the problem of retention we have opened ourselves up to a wealth of workplace solutions that help us to engage our employees (and hopefully retain them). However, a simpler process might be to consider retention as part of talent attraction and recruitment.
Shifting from culture fit to values fit
One such approach towards including retention in our recruitment process is “Hiring for Cultural Fit” and how if we hire the right fit for our company and team the chosen candidate will not only perform well but they will stay with us. Hiring for Cultural fit means hiring candidates whose beliefs and values are congruent with those of the company. Employees recruited where cultural fit is high, identify more with their company, are more likely to remain with the company, are more engaged and show superior job performance (Kristof-Brown Et al, 2005). But concerns have been raised about the ethical and diverse nature of cultural fit hiring and whether it just means “hire people like me”.
To combat these potential discriminatory practices and ensure an ethical hiring process, there is the suggestion of hiring for value fit rather than cultural fit. “Shifting our focus from culture fit to values fit helps us hire people who share our goals, not necessarily our viewpoints or backgrounds” (Aubrey Blanche, Atlassian).
Values based recruitment
In line with this, at Shine interview, we take the view that if Cultural fit is the desired outcome, a Values Based Recruitment (VBR) approach is an objective method of achieving that outcome. Objectively and scientifically, measuring existing employee values and hiring candidates who share a values alignment with employees will allow for greater success in the recruitment and retention of new employees.
Values Based Recruitment can be used alongside other tools such as Video Interviewing to create a sophisticated workflow and provide detailed insights into your candidates.
If you would like to learn more about how we are successfully implementing Values Based Recruitment into global campaigns for leading enterprises, please get in touch to arrange a consultation.
Rebecca joined the HRreview editorial team in January 2016. After graduating from the University of Sheffield Hallam in 2013 with a BA in English Literature, Rebecca has spent five years working in print and online journalism in Manchester and London. In the past she has been part of the editorial teams at Sleeper and Dezeen and has founded her own arts collective.
