When attempting to build a particular workplace culture, behavioural competencies are going to help you get there. These are behaviours that we think will lead to exceptional performance and success in a particular role or business area.
It’s important to hire people whose values align with those of our organisation. We also want to ensure new employees will demonstrate behaviours that allow them to contribute effectively. Both go hand in hand, which is why it is so important to assess these behavioural competencies as part of the interview process.
When there’s no structure to our recruitment process, it can become subjective. This leads to biases, where people base their judgement around who they feel would be a good fit. Often, that just might be somebody who has a similar personality to them or shares the same views.
Looking at behavioural competencies can be a much better way of predicting performance as well as cultural fit for potential employees.
It’s also not uncommon to be speaking to two or more candidates with similar levels of skill, experience and qualifications. A good way of making unbiased decisions is looking at these behavioural competencies to make a fair comparison of those candidates.
How Do We Do This?
At an organisational level, we need to think about our values and determine which behaviours link to them.
Let’s say one of our organisational values is integrity. A behaviour we might be looking for here is somebody who always tells the truth.
To ensure we incorporate competencies in our recruitment process, it’s important to think about the culture we want to create and how certain behaviours will help us achieve that. From here, we can design a list of questions that will help to assess how people would behave or act in a particular situation.
Recruiting For Business Areas
While we may have a set of values and behaviours at an organisational level that apply to everyone, we may also have some critical behaviours to look out for when recruiting for particular business areas.
For example, hiring a retail employee may require them to display patience as a key behavioural competency. In this instance, we would ask questions that assess how a candidate would act when put in certain customer-facing situations.
Having two sets of interview questions, one at an organisational level and one at a job level, allows us to hire candidates who show potential across the entirety of their contribution to the organisation.
Conclusion
Apart from allocating the required resources for successful talent acquisition, we also need to make sure that our recruitment approach is fit for purpose. Hiring the right people is a big challenge for many organisations. The first step in tackling this is to make sure our hiring process is structured and well-managed.
The second step is to embed behavioural competencies in the entire process, ensuring we hire the right people. With more and more companies asking for people with particular skills or experience, it’s becoming increasingly important to have a reliable and bias-free method of assessing candidates. With this as your guide, you can find the best talent for your business and create a culture that reflects your values.