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A wrong hire can cause
an organisation three times the annual salary of the individual
and might also cause irreparable damage. Knowledgeable managers
realise the criticality of hiring the right candidate who can be
a ‘cultural fit’ in their existing teams. While many organisations
conduct ‘cultural tests’ (to find out the character, aptitude
and communication styles), there are other who hold negative interviews
(pressure/no-win situations) to observe how candidates hold up under
stress. The aim is obvious—every organisation has its exclusive
culture and does not want to jeopardise it by hiring a misfit.
 “Organisation
culture is akin to the DNA of a human organism, which is unique
and specific. These are characteristics that have made the organisation
what it is. Each organisation’s culture has its own strengths
and weaknesses. So when an organisation recruits people, it decidedly
wants those who are talented and competitive notwithstanding and
‘fit’ into their culture,” says Pramode Sadarjoshi,
director and head of human resources at Cognizant Technology Solutions.
He adds that organisations do not want any outsider to come and
disturb the cultural fabric of the company—its values and ethics,
work style, leadership patterns, philosophy of running the business
and managing its people. In fact, they are always on a lookout for
people who can enhance their culture. Cognizant, he asserts, is
very conscious of this issue and consequently recruits 60 percent
of employees from campuses so that they can be groomed and nurtured
into the company’s culture.
The concept of culture is very critical
at the time of introducing organisation-wide changes. Sanchita Singh,
senior manager HR of Techbooks India adds that this is one of the
reasons why many strategic planners now place as much emphasis on
identifying strategic values as they do on the mission and vision
of the company—for it hits the bottom line of the organisation.
Disastrous consequences
Singh cites the example of a manufacturing
organisation, where the average age of people was above 35 years
and they were rigid and stagnant in their style of working. The
management hired an achiever from the software industry (which was
at its boom then), to introduce a new style in keeping with the
times. He was known to have introduced drastic changes in the software
companies he had worked with. He was very aggressive in his working
style and had also worked in the manufacturing industry earlier.
The organisation had not checked the ‘cultural fit’ of
the individual. He took charge as the head of operations and started
introducing major changes. It led to a lot of opposition, which
ultimately affected production and he was asked to leave.
Harish Govind, general manager-HR of Blue
Star Infotech gives another example of an organisation where, after
the appointment of a senior person in the commercial function to
deal with internal and external customers, complaints started coming
in from existing customers about the products. This was a new phenomenon
as earlier there had been no complaints. It was later realised that
as the functionary was not behaving properly with the customers,
as per his position, and was not sympathetic to their problems,
the consumers were upset and they decided to protest by lodging
product complaints. “We tried to salvage the situation by having
counselling sessions with the individual but it did not help too
much and he ultimately left the organisation. Had a temperament
check taken place, either through a structured process or reference
check, the company could have saved quite a bit of money and time,”
adds Govind.
In another IT organisation a vigilant HR
team was able to prevent a crises by turning down a candidate highly
recommended by their project team, says Raghav, moderator of HrinIndia
and chief editor of Hrudaya magazine, “We did a couple of reference
checks and found something fishy about the candidate’s attitude.
Eventually HR rejected the candidate (who had an attitude problem)
despite a lot of pressure from the project team. Two months later
he joined a large company and was terminated for the inability to
carry on with other team members and because of his attitude.”
Cultural tests
Many organisations like Techbooks have
started incorporating tests at the time of hiring to check the cultural
fit of the candidates. According to Singh, these tests include:
subjective assessment of the candidate at the time of hiring; reference
checks with previous employer and professional associations; and
psychometric tests (that include different psychological tests for
different levels). At Blue Star Infotech “cultural tests”
are embedded in the interviewing process, particularly for senior
positions. “We ask candidates certain questions and judge the
reactions to certain simulated situations which gives us the answers
we seek,” informs Govind.
Leading executive search firm ABC Consultants,
conducts psychometric and competency tests like SHL (Saville and
Holdsworth) and Thomas Profiling to get an indication of the temperament
of the candidate. “At the client’s end we do a Need Gap
Analysis and first check on whether the competence required are
in place. If there is a choice among the best candidates (after
filtering the best ones in terms of competence, cost to company,
qualifications, etc), then an informal, intuitive process determines
the better culture fit among candidates,” states Tarun Bali,
CEO of ABC Consultants.
Test for temperament
Among the most widely used tests globally
are the SHL, the OPQ (Occupational Personality Questionnaire), the
DISC (Drive, Influence, Steadiness, Compliance), the MBTI (Myers
Briggs Type Indicator), the PAPI (Personality and Preference Inventory)
and the 16PF (16 Personality Factor) test. “Temperament tests
are most important for middle management levels onwards. It is critical
for candidates being interviewed for managerial or leadership positions,
and sometimes even project lead roles should be tested for temperament,”
informs Sadarjoshi, adding that at Cognizant even campus recruitments
(though not in detail), the company finds out cultural “fitness”
through a battery of tests.
While most HR experts believe that these
test are important for mid and senior levels, a few like S N Jadhav,
chief people’s officer at GTL Limited, insist that the IT industry
being people dependent, it is very important to hire people with
the right temperament and therefore the tests need to be used across
levels in the organisation.
Companies, however, need to be aware of
the strengths and weaknesses of the different types of tools and
also do the analysis with care.
Negative interviews
Negative interviews are sometimes used
to test how an individual will respond to a potential negative/
stress situation. These interviews, though less common, helps in
evaluating the true nature of the candidate. “Negative interviews
are done to find out if the candidate is short-tempered or how he/she
can handle stress. Instead of just asking, the interviewer will
make the interview itself as stressful as possible,” explains
Bali of ABC Consultants. His advice: The best way to handle such
a situation would be to answer all questions in a positive and professional
manner and pretend not to notice the interviewer’s attitude.
In HR parlance this method is called a
Stress Interview. “All kinds of questions are asked to understand
how a candidate will react to the stress and his ability to instantly
answer the most intriguing questions,” points of Raghav. According
to Jadhav of GTL, these interviews may be used to weed out individuals
who react defensively or are easily influenced. Stress questions
and techniques are also used in various interviews. “The technique
tests a candidate’s ability to be articulate and graceful under
pressure. An example would be of an interviewer speaking quickly
and aggressively, perhaps opening with why should we hire you?”
he explains.
The best interviewer
And who is best equipped to take these
interviews—the HR manager or the placement consultant? The
opinion is almost unanimous in favour of the HR manager. The reason
is not difficult to guess. It is the HR manager who best understands
the organisation culture and can identify which candidate can fit
in the setup. While standardised tests can be used by HR managers
with inputs from psychologists, Singh warns that certain higher
level psychological tests for assessment of personality and other
attributes, should be used only under strict surveillance and with
proper training. Acknowledging that HR managers are best aware of
company culture while recruitment consultants have a better handle
on candidates (since they meet more candidates of diverse nature),
Bali states that it is better for HR manager and recruitment consultant
to come together to design/ conduct interviews/ tests.
Cultural tests can in fact also used as
a filtering tool. Bali explains how: “When the market is tight
and there are many jobseekers, a culture-fit tool can help narrow
down the applicants pool. Conversely, when jobs are plentiful, the
culture-fit tool allows job-seekers to ‘de-select’ themselves
by reducing the options to these companies they believe would match
well with their values.”
It is not easy to find a perfect match
between a company and an employee. The cultural, temperament and
stress tests, can result in a win-win situation for both the organisation
and the employee.
Send feedback to sudipta@expresscomputeronline.com
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