An Essential Tool to Support Effective Recruitment and Resourcing

The impact of a leader’s style and behaviour on employee performance is significant and contributes not only to Team effectiveness, but also the wellbeing of the people and the climate within the group.

“A one-point shift in management practices has the same impact on productivity as a 25% increase in labour force and a 65% increase in capital investment.”[1]

Successful organisations have strong, committed and effective Leaders, at every level. They focus not only on developing in-place leaders, ridding themselves of toxic leaders, and growing talent; but also ensuring they find the right new Leaders and Managers to bring into their business - and they set them up for success from the start.

Deliotte’s 2017 Global Human Capital Trends Paper states that Talent Acquisition is one of the top 10 areas in which organisations will need to close the gap between the pace of change and the challenges of work and talent management. They concluded that:

“As jobs and skills change, finding and recruiting the right people will become more important than ever. Talent acquisition is now the third-most-important challenge companies face”. It highlights how leading organisations use people analytics and cognitive tools to find people in new ways, and determine who will best fit the job, team, and company.

New, focused and targeted technologies can transform recruiting, resourcing and talent development & retention:

The Performance Climate System® (PCS®) is a powerful tool used for driving and tracking team performance, and assessing the effectiveness of Leaders. It provides an objective and accurate picture that crystallises what’s really going on within Teams in order to be able to address issues and improve performance.

Understanding what’s going on, and what’s needed to improve, is not only insightful, it allows attention to be focussed on the areas of greatest need. The clarity provided to a Leader, new or established, and the framework it enables for improvement is critical to advancement and achieving optimum performance.

PCS is a perfect tool for leader specification and selection, onboarding of new talent and positioning Leaders for success in role.

Using PCS as pre-search diagnostic to define people specification:

Understanding the type of leader required to be most effective in role is usually conducted during the selection process. To ensure the right search is conducted in the first place, PCS can be used to define what’s going on within the Team, where there are deficiencies and what needs to change or be focused on urgently to improve overall Team performance.

This useful handrail for HR Directors and Talent Resourcers can assist in circumscribing the fit of an incoming Leader or Manager, based on what the Team needs, not just a binary skill-set and experiences search.

Using PCS to assist with onboarding and embedding new Leaders in position:

Taking a start-setting PCS report on a Team, with guidance on how the first 90-days could be tackled to support a new leader in role, can be critical to enabling success in the formative months. It allows a considered action plan to be developed – targeting areas of greatest need – and allowing the Leader to apply initial effort to best effect. Bespoke support throughout this process can also be applied, with a re-measure after a set period to prove new-leader success; allow for Phase 2 focused planning; and prove the effectiveness of a new hire. An improvement in Climate score and upgrading of previous troubled areas, is a great reassurance for the new Leader, the Team and those responsible for the new appointment.

Using PCS as a fast, onboarding tool can be equally as helpful for supporting Interim Managers and Leaders, who are required to have an impact quickly, by understanding key issues and addressing these problem areas.

Using PCS as a management tool:

Following placement, PCS can be used at any time to assist in-place Teams and Leaders. It can be used as a reactive engagement tool to identify strengths and weaknesses in a Team and with specific actions on how to address the most critical challenges; or as a part of a wider, more focussed improvement plan.

Measuring Climate within teams and organisations is a critical enabler to achieving clarity and focusing effort on the areas that really matter. The results help leaders and team members to review how the team is currently operating, recognising strengths and weaknesses and determining how to overcome the challenges and barriers they may face to maximize potential. For the Team, it acts as an excellent engagement tool, improving awareness and agreement of the key issues standing in the way of improvement; It ensures accountability and Team ownership.

Making Leader and Team analysis part of your normal business activity can have a profound effect in developing an open dialogue, identifying where it’s going well, where it’s not, and taking the necessary steps forward to improve. It can have a significant impact on understanding what new Leaders should be like, relative to the Teams they will lead; and can provide an excellent framework of support for those new in role.

Michael Payne

Director

Performance Climate Systems Ltd

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[1] Bloom, Dorgan Dowdy and Van Reenan.(2007) Centre for Economic Performance & Mckinsey Study of the management practices of 4000 manufacturing firms globally. Source: Eugene Burke Analytics Adviser to the CIPD :People and the creation of value (2016)