Hacking HR to Build an Adaptability Advantage
Attract adaptable people by designing jobs with an emphasis on the organisational culture and by innovating competency assessments. Too often job descriptions and adverts describe only a small snippet of the company culture with the remainder focused on the tasks and candidate criteria. Assessment methods are not always drilling down to the cultural requirements and Line Managers need to be encouraged to diversify their selection by looking at cultural fit as a prime requirement. Many are sticking to ‘what they know’ and how they have ‘successfully recruited in the past’. If adaptability is key to a candidates’ success then highlight this through the recruitment process to attract and recruit people who thrive in ever changing environments.
I hope we can get the rest of this hack up like the others in some sense of a rich set of principles to act upon as this really is a concept we could do with more of.
So where does it go wrong currently? Well maybe in the way jobs are crafted with an acute sense of "that's the job right there" and with little regard for a whole set of hyper-useful "macro" skills and fit with company culture. In creating a box for someone to fit into to get the right person, we get someone that sure, fits in the box, but do they fit within the shelf the box is on and the warehouse the shelf is part of and the complex the warehouse is situated on? You get my drift hopefully. Less a fit into a box and more a strong lead on a role specifically needed but primarily someone who can work across shelves, within the warehouse and even in other warehouses on the complex.
Happy to help flesh this one out more as I think work needs adaptable people to be part of their ecosystem and not some compliant element that just slots in. Work isn't a circuit board; it's more than that.
Very interesting thoughts. An idea for you: One possibility would be to work on discovering people's values. Here are some inputs: http://www.scribd.com/doc/36200010/questions-to-discover-your-values
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