Hiring for Skills & Firing for Personality

Speaking of the results of a survey he conducted recently on hiring and staff retention-management practices in large and small corporations throughout North America, Abramson says that as a result, ". . . many hiring managers are terminating employees they hired after several months because they don't have the people skills, temperament, work ethic or team orientation to make a longer-term contribution. And many more of these newly-hired employees are leaving their jobs on their own, as they experience these corporate mismatches with their new employers."

In effect, ". . . hiring managers have been hiring for skills and firing for personality, a practice which perpetuates turnover and engenders poor morale," Abramson concludes.

Abramson, who travels the country addressing hiring methods and workforce performance issues with sales organizations and associations and has authored a book, "Secrets of Hiring Top Talent" (http://www.staffdynamics.biz/book.htm), on the subject, believes that the cost to the U.S. economy of employee turnover is "staggering. For each person a company loses that it has to replace, the cost of that replacement is 2-5 times the original employee's salary, when all factors are taken into account. Multiply that times a national turnover rate of 20 million people per year, and you come up with a cost in the $$ trillions."

A former headhunter and staffing industry CEO, Abramson devotes much of his professional time to coaching companies to increase sales and decrease costly turnover.

"My consulting and training practice takes a two-pronged approach," he says. "First, through my speaking presentations, I teach firms and individuals how to structure their hiring processes, to make sure there are enough interviews and that they cover all bases, to ensure that a healthy balance of hard-skill and soft-skill "behavioral" questions are asked."

"Second, I focus on calibrating and benchmarking personality attributes by industry and job type, using the DISC Personality Assessment (http://www.staffdynamics.biz/personalityassessment.htm), an industry-standard tool for matching personalities and work styles. Because DISC measures four factors that occur with differing levels of intensity in every person (D = Dominance, I = Influence [or persuasion, S = Steadiness, C = Compliance), it can provide apples-to-apples comparisons between job candidates, and serve as a gauge of the lineup between the candidate and the task. These measures can be highly effective in setting those candidates who are great matches apart from those who are ticking time bombs."

By combining an optimized hiring process with the DISC Assessment, Abramson reports that his clients are able to break out of the "Hire-for-Skills, Fire-for-Personality" syndrome, produce better hires and reduce costly turnover for their firms. And Abramson's says that his service to his clients is unique in that he makes the 22-page DISC Assessments available on his website (http://www.staffdynamics.biz/store.htm), providing ". . . free telephone analysis of each DISC report that is generated."

Daniel Abramson, President of StaffDynamics, has made performance leadership and "raising the bar" his mantra for 25 years. Prior to StaffDynamics, Daniel was President and CEO of an international staffing firm with 120 offices. Under his leadership, revenues nearly tripled and profits increased almost nine-fold. He's also held executive positions in the consumer products and medical pharmaceutical industries. Daniel is a certified instructor of Xerox Professional Selling Skills and DISC personality assessments, and has completed the Dale Carnegie program. He lives in the Washington, DC area. Daniel is available to discuss the DISC Assessment or his consulting and presentation work via email at Daniel @ StaffDynamics.biz or by phone at 877-568-2222.