When you’re interviewing someone for a position within your company, you look for skills, education and experience. But so many companies ignore one of the most vital elements of a successful candidate – employee engagement. When you’re building a company, a healthy and motivational environment is one of the most important aspects of a good workplace. You need people to work well as part of a team in order for them to achieve the results you ask of them. If people don’t get on, that can quickly spiral into a situation that’s not only bad for their working happiness but also bad for business. The culture and environment you hope to cultivate at work can so quickly be destroyed by people if they don’t get on, yet it’s something that no-one looks for in a potential candidate.
According to some recruitment agencies, employee engagement begins long before the recruitment process – hiring in terms of an employer’s brand is vital in order to find people who fit into the ethos and culture of a company quickly. Ignore that and you’ll find that many people who may be very qualified for the job simply aren’t a good fit. You need to be able to recruit someone who will come into a new working environment and instantly understand the goals and environment of the organisation. Viewing talent as just a list of necessary qualifications and previous employers could be very detrimental to this way of seeking a new recruit.
The philosophy of fit and the concept that engagement is an ambition that begins before the hiring stage is an interesting one, but one that many high-flying organisations aim for. There is a need for more careful screening processes to be put in place in order to find people who are not only qualified and experienced in a role but who also ‘get’ what the company is about. In order to hire people who go the extra mile, not just for themselves but also for the company and their colleagues, it’s important that employers ask potential recruits about previous examples and instances where they’ve worked in such a way. For example, if you’re looking for someone who will ‘own it’ when it comes to a project, it can be useful to ask interviewees to give an example of a time when they’ve taken control or responsibility for the negative impact of a project, and how they learned from the mistakes of that occurrence.
Likewise, asking when they’ve worked well as part of a team or when they’ve shown initiative can all help you to find that perfect fit for your company, without having to wait until they’ve begun working for you. And this is far more than simply good for companies and recruitment – it’s something that can be hugely beneficial to employees as well. When you’re interviewing for a position, it can be difficult to tell if you’re going to like the job without having any first-hand experience of working there. By responding to the sort of questions that a recruiter may ask, you can gauge how well you’ll fit in within the culture and ethos of a brand, and as such, make a decision on whether the role is right for you as well as you being right for them. Employee engagement is something that’s on the rise and with good reason – it plays such an important part in the development of a happy workplace.
Comments are closed.