Selection For Retention

Selection for Retention

In seeking to win the talent war, organisations put most of their effort into doing all the right things to encourage people to join and stay. However, these efforts are more likely to be repaid by some people than others. There are various factors about people that make their retention more or less likely, such as their career stage and demographic circumstances. A recent article by American Psychologist Ryan Zimmerman looks at personality differences and retention.

Zimmermans research showed that peoples intention to quit was heightened if they were less emotionally stable, less conscientious and if they were introverted. As for actual turnover, again, conscientiousness and emotional stability are important predictors. In addition turnover is greater among people who score lower on the agreeableness scale and among those who score higher on openness.

Zimmerman concludes that personality plays a role in spontaneous unplanned quitting and advocates the use of personality tests to assist hiring people who are less likely to leave. He suggests this advice is amplified by the fact that both conscientiousness and emotional stability typically are found to be related to performance.

Given these facts why are organisations reluctant to use personality as a selection-for-retention factor? The answer is probably that they do not want to hire average performers who will stay in preference to stars who might be more likely to leave but who they hope to be able to harness with one inducement or another. We would broadly concur with this logic. Generally, we would not advocate basing hiring decisions on personality because the correlations between personality and both performance and retention are generally quite modest. You are far better off determining whether candidates can perform in line with the indicators of excellence for the role and then do your utmost to attract and retain the best performers. Nevertheless, if there is a tie or near tie in predicted performance then it makes sense to hire the people most likely to stay. This logic is particularly powerful in circumstances where retention is a real problem, such as staff in call centres and retail. For them, choosing amongst relatively equal applicants might well be on the basis of who is more likely to stay a decent length of time from Zimmermans research, those who are more conscientious, emotionally stable, agreeable and less open to experience.

How can Human Assets Help?

We can use our expertise in personality to help you think through how, if at all, peoples propensity to leave should be a consideration at selection. Primarily, we design selection procedures to bring you the highest performers. However, peoples propensity to leave might be the tie breaker, particularly in circumstances where retention is a major problem.

To find out more about how we might help you please contact Charles Woodruffe at charles.woodruffe@humanassets.co.uk or telephone +44(0)20 7434 2122.

Reference

Zimmerman, R.D. Understanding the impact of personality traits on individuals turnover decisions: A meta-analytic path model. Personnel Psychology, Vol 61 No 2, Summer 2008, Pps 309 - 348.