Collaborative Hiring. June Hiring. Profile raised through the TV series Who s the Boss. A move away from traditional hierarchical selection

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1 Collaborative Hiring June 2016 Collaborative Hiring Profile raised through the TV series Who s the Boss A move away from traditional hierarchical selection The whole workforce has a say on the final selection decision making This article explores the rising interest in Collaborative Hiring, poses fundamental questions and provides some considerations about how to do it meaningfully. The BBC recently raised the profile of Collaborative Hiring in its three part factual entertainment series Who s the Boss ( However, Collaborative Hiring originates in Silicon Valley with companies such as Apple, Google and Facebook putting great store in its value. Collaborative Hiring is a move away from traditional hierarchical selection. It involves people from all levels right across a company collaborating in making selection decisions about prospective candidates. In its purest form, it involves everyone in an organisation voting on the new hire as seen in the BBC s series. Other features of the Collaborative Hiring process include interviews and simulated tasks. The interviews include a variety of people who may not have previously interviewed for that post. Simulations vary but could involve any activity relating to the companies work or the role demands. Importantly, these are shared with the whole workforce to help them decide on who to vote for in the final selection decision making.

2 The benefits of Collaborative Hiring are considered to include: Employee Engagement. It has been suggested that through this form of distributed leadership, where employees have more say, decisions are more devolved and greater inclusivity, there is an increase in engagement from the whole employee workforce not only about recruiting but generally. Employee Support. Once recruited the new hire receives more support from the colleagues and direct reports who helped appoint them. Recruitment Referrals. By having a greater say in recruiting employees are more likely to refer potential new recruits to arising vacancies or put them in touch with the companies HR. Quicker on-boarding. The new hire hits the ground running more quickly and they deliver better performance sooner. It is suggested this is partly as they are more readily welcomed and supported by those who appointed them. True Reflection. The approach uses exercises that simulate work that is done within the organisation. This is considered to provide a real indication of someone s ability in tasks and suitability culturally. Reduced Bias. The increased involvement of more people has been identified as one way where bias arising from managers simply selecting people like themselves has been improved. It has further been suggested that unconscious bias is reduced in the process as a result of this too. Candidate Experience. The quality of the experience is thought to be good for candidates. They meet a wide variety of people from within the company, gain insights to the work the company does, how it does it and what the people are like. Being selected through exercises relating to the company and it s work is also thought to add value to the candidate s sense that the process is valid and accurate. Person-Job Fit. The level of alignment between the person s knowledge, skills and abilities is considered to be high because of the way the selection simulates the work of the organisation and inclusion of people from across the company. Cultural Alignment. The selected individual is considered to be more culturally aligned in their attitudes and behaviour to the organisation. Increased retention. It is reported that those selected tend to stay within the organisation longer. This is thought to be related to the level of fit and alignment resulting from the recruitment approach. Better Selection Decisions. Overall the quality of the selection as a result of the factors above are considered to be better.

3 Collaborative Hiring, the drawbacks Transparency The BBC places the Who s the Boss in its factual entertainment category. It is important to note this is not a documentary. There are elements of it possibly contrived for entertainment purposes which in turn happen to be some of the elements that are likely to undermine its effectiveness as a selection method. One such element is the candidates were unaware that the whole workforce would be making the selection decision. This was to ensure they showed their true-selves. Not telling candidates about what is occurring might be expected to undermine their trust in the organisation and the value it places on transparency, openness, engagement and honesty. In turn, this may conflict with claims about the Candidate Experience. Evidence-base The positive benefits of Collaborative Hiring appear to make intuitive sense so it is an easy concept to buy into. However, before you leap in, be aware that currently there is no evidencebase to support many of the claims for Collaborative Hiring. Fortunately, there is a large body of academic literature and evidence regarding assessment, selection and recruitment. However, this contains no studies that we could find on the effectiveness of Collaborative Hiring. This is not to say it does not have the capacity to deliver some of the benefits it has been described as having - just that no-one has carried out any systematic work to demonstrate the benefits exist. It s fair to say this would be true of any new and innovative approach; however, this highlights a need to consider how possible drawbacks might be avoided and more circumspect expectations might be taken on entering into using this approach. Supporters of Collaborative Hiring, including those involved in the BBC programme, often cite evidence from Schmidt & Hunter (1998) as evidence for the approach. However, their work was about the effectiveness of selection methods which did not include Collaborative Hiring. They found that the most effective selection method was work-sample tests tests that simulate the actual work in the target role. It is this principle of simulations that those promoting Collaborative Hiring are referring to rather than the approach per se. The other evidence cited is the Wisdom of Crowds, popularized by Surowiecki (2004), it is the principle that groups make more accurate decisions because they average out inaccuracies. Cost While some organisations may be interested in using Collaborative Hiring, the complexity of the process and involvement of the whole workforce is inevitably a costly process and there isn t an evidence-base to show this return on investment is beneficial.

4 Doing it meaningfully Here we provide seven steps to approaching Collaborative Hiring in a meaningful way: 1. Assessment Standards. In 2015 the British Psychological Society Division of Occupational Psychology published new standards for Assessment Centre Design and Delivery. Assessment Centres have much in common with Collaborative Hiring and moreover the standards are based on the broader ISO10667 International Assessment Standards. Whether carrying out Collaborative Hiring in-house or seeking a provider you should ensure that the quality, reliability and validity of your practice is maximised by applying these standards. 2. Criteria. The criteria that is necessary and will predict performance in the role and therefore against which the appointment is being designed and delivered should be clear to everyone involved. This is possibly one of the most important aspects of removing bias. Interestingly, it was largely absent in the BBC series. 3. Assessors. Anyone involved in making an assessment of a candidate as part of a selection process is an Assessor. The ability to accurately observe someone s behaviour, make a good record of it to avoid biases of memory, decide what it tells us about the criteria for the role moreover than our own preferences and evaluate its effectiveness is a skilled task. This requires Assessors to be trained and supported with well designed assessment criteria and processes. Possibly the most complex part of Collaborative Hiring, and something that contributes a great deal to cost, is the involvement of all employees. The larger the organisation the more complex and costly this becomes. A more practical approach may be to have a selection, rather than all staff, involved in the appointment. This might be managed in a number of ways. It could be a selection from across the company, or staff more closely linked to the role that s being appointed for. Those involved in the Collaborative Hiring may be representatives from other stakeholder organisations. For example, partner organisations, key customers or other parts of the same Group. 4. Assessment Design. While simulating the workplace sounds simple enough, doing this well can be complicated. It requires the identification of activities that are done by that specific job otherwise they are not simulations! Tasks that are either frequent and/or critical are a good basis for simulations. Ensuring they are

5 designed and delivered in a way that keeps them as realistic as possible adds to their relevance and validity. If they become contrived, they are no longer a simulation! It is not possible to gain a measure of some job requirements through simulations, so these may need to be designed into other exercise types (e.g. aspects of job or industry knowledge that may be included in a presentation). 5. Integrating Assessment Information. Primarily Collaborative Hiring has used a one-person, one-vote approach as shown by the BBC. However, voting means that individual decisions may be linked to the role, or may be a matter of some non-related criteria such as personal preference, attraction or some other unrelated bias. By ensuring the assessment is designed using criteria, evaluation is against that criteria and then this is integrated in some systematic way to reach a decision; this is what the evidencebase suggests achieves the most effective decision. 6. Pre-selection. The BBC series had clearly preselected the candidates. It was unclear how well this was done in each of the three programmes and whether in some instances there was more emphasis on the entertainment than factual aspects of the genre. However, meaningful Collaborative Hiring should seek to ensure that all candidates reaching that stage are appointable to the position. In practice this means careful sifting selection exercises and measures would play an important role. These may include cognitive ability, personality, emotional intelligence measures, preassessment interviewing, pre-assessment exercises or shortlisting. 7. Evaluation. Some of the benefits expected of Collaborative Hiring seem achievable including employee engagement, employee support, referrals and person-job fit. While other claims may be more conditional in particular whether or not it is more effective and whether there is less bias. However, if you plan to use the approach it would be useful to establish the return on investment you gain and consider whether you can be one of the first to publish a rigorous study of its utility.

6 Effectiveness of Reynolds is a UK leader interventions the supply of fruit and veg. They are a family owned and run business and have first-hand experience of Collaborative Hiring; having been the first to star in the BBC s Who s the Boss Jill McDonald (Successful Candidate): Jill told us how she felt very honoured and proud that others could see her people management qualities as a people person. Reynolds is a UK leader in the supply of fruit and veg. They are a family owned and run business and have first-hand experience of Collaborative Hiring; having been the first to star in the BBC s Who s the Boss We had unique access to Operations Director Paul Pegg and Jill McDonald Transport Manager and collaborative hiring candidate, to gain their reflections on the experience. Paul told us that they felt that the Collaborative Hiring process had been a success within Reynolds. It created a real sense of engagement, excitement and positive energy within the company. He said there was a sense that people wanted Jill (successful candidate) to be successful and that they had an interest and goodwill in making that happen. Paul recognised that the approach taken within the BBC programme was probably not sustainable as a longer term approach to selection. Some of the technological requirements would be difficult for organisations to replicate and there would be advantages to clearer assessment criteria. However, overall Reynolds and Jill are happy with the results! For more information, please contact Gordon Ryan enquiries@dovenest.co.uk