How cutting out the box mentality can future-proof any organization

When you’re hiring people regardless is if its for a existing organization or during a re-org, you of course want to make sure they’re capable of doing the job you hire them to do.

The general job recruitment process is one where they review if you are a good fit for the job and if you are a good fit for the current organization. But this is the worst assumption to make during a re-org. As your organization is shape-shifting in to the future, so will your current jobs. The job and organization you hired for may no longer exist in this future.

What is a Person Organization Fit?

When an employee’s personal and professional values and ambitions align and complement the organization vision, we call this a person organization fit. Imagine you’ve just recruited or promoted a great candidate. Three months into the job your employee seems a little unmotivated, or overwhelmed... They get in late, leave early, are apathic during meetings, etc.

As a good manager you will address this and ask questions. Do they enjoy the job? Does the job bring them energy or is it consuming energy? Is the compensation & benefits package ok? The answer to these questions can indicate that they feel out of place.

They might feel that they don't fit in to the role they are assigned.

From this moment on the clock for resignation is ticking. It won’t be long before your recently hired superstar leaves the company, forcing you to start the recruitment process all over again.

I have wrote in the past an article on why so many people are quitting their job. If you are interested on reading more about that specifically, check out my article on this topic below.

What is Person job fit?

Person job fit refers to how the person is suited for the specific role. Does the professional has the ability to fulfil the job description requirements. And either has the qualifications, the specific hard skills, soft skills, cognitive ability and requisite experience to carry out the role they’re being considered for, or they don’t.

While the personal job fit?, referring to how the person is suited for the specific role, is undoubtedly crucial to hire the candidate more importantly is critical for retaining your employees.

Occupational Experience

Occupational experience, is experience gained in a particular vocational area over a period of time, and is validated by either years of experience doing the job or by additional education or mentorship program.

We all have seen this a new brand shinny opening opens up and you see occupational unexperienced professionals hunting for the job. Just to find out that they lack the experience to grow, flourish and grow.

Qualified People for New Positions

In order to hire or retain a professional in a organization we must have synergy between Person-Organization Fit, Person-Job Fit and Occupational Experience.

While there are likely to be quite a few good person-job fit candidates to fill roles in any organization, ensuring that there is a good match in both Person-Organization Fit and Occupational Experience, without this points employee retention is an unlikely outcome.

Bellow a list of key advantage of hiring qualified people:

Retention?– When an employee feels a sense of fit with an organization this can result in them having a strong sense of involvement, a strong bond with their work colleagues, identifying with the organization’s mission and values and ultimately increase their desire to stay on with your company.?

Productivity?– An employee with good Person Organization fit will likely strive to achieve the best results they can through their work, not because they feel they should, but because they want to, meaning their productivity increases and their output is higher.?

Engagement?– Employees who fit positively with an organization tend to be happier, resulting in them being more actively engaged, contributing more, collaborating with colleagues better and demonstrating more creativity in their work.??

Don't get trapped in the box mentality

Organizations or Re-organizations that first set the job title "boxes" and then go around trying to find who of their professionals fit in the correct box are doomed to fail. Every single job title that has ever existed had a person behind that job title first before it was ever created.

In 2022 and just after the pandemic we are seeing organizations struggling to find enough of talent to be able to properly operate. This means professionals have the unique opportunity to look for great Person-Organization fit, Person-Job fit and Occupational Experience and will take it.

To create an evolving organization that’s human-led and digitally enabled, is an absolute must to take the human centre approach to organizations.

Organizations or re-organizations that don't take a human-centered approach to their employees will soon find that the employees will:

Lack motivation?– Job titles that don't fit to your employee it will mean that the employee will underperform, resulting in other employees picking up the slack, leading to resentment among the team, and causing collective low morale. Not to mention a decrease in output from the employee, unsatisfactory or lower quality work, and ultimately costing the organization in terms of lost revenue.

An increase in stress and exhaustion?– If someone feels like they don't fit in the organization it will cause them stress trying to stay positive and trying to stay on top of work that doesn’t interest them, for an organization they feel doesn’t suit them. This can be both mentally and physically draining.?

Leave– As mentioned before, it costs the company every time someone leaves, not only in terms of increasing costs for hiring and training a new recruit, but also because a role remains unfilled for even longer.?

Force-fitting boxes can lead to the majority flying the coop.

Too many companies?approach the retention of key employees during disruptive periods of organizational change by throwing titles and financial incentives at professionals or star performers. That money is rarely well spent. In my experience, many of the recipients would have stayed regardless of the job title if there was good dialogue and process of qualifying the candidates inside of an organization.

HR and line managers need to work together during times of major organizational change to identify people desires, dreams and qualifications and ensure the job is tailor made.

Too often companies simply round up the usual suspects in roles that are critical for business success.

Few look in less obvious places for more high performers whose skills or social networks may be critical both in keeping the lights on during the change effort itself as well as in delivering against its longer-term business objectives.

And therefore we see that this action will cause qualified individuals to depart to make a first void in the organization, followed by a second wave followed very closely by a group of individuals that don't have a Person-Organization Fit, Person-Job Fit and Occupational Experience.

3 tips for any organization

Tip #1: De-Risk

Create an evolving organization that’s human-led and digitally enabled.

This means that organizations should concentrate now on building the leadership, culture, competencies and skills needed for future competitive advantage. This includes redesigning jobs and titles to fit the professionals desires. This will more likely means that you will have a more fluid organization hierarchy but the main responsibilities should still be covered.

Tip #2: Get close to your employees

Design processes that are employee centric. It starts with understanding and building the various employee personas in an organization, and then mapping there development towards program for each.

Tip #3: Empower

Organizations must identify what their professionals want most out of work, and understand employees challenges and experiences in the workplace. Organizations must start investing in the kind of experiences they create for their employees to build a work environment that appeals to the future workforce.

Might you be interested in discussing structures in your organization, or if you are considering re-org, please feel free to contact me as I am always willing to share my experiences and in return learn from others.