Recruiting for engageability means screening out two types of potential employee. The first type is the kind of person that is always miserable, and never cheers up all their life - the kind of employee for whom the glass is always half empty, whatever you try to do to please them. They moan about management, their working environment and the organisation at any opportunity and bring down your engagement scores in every staff survey, yet never leave.
The second 'no no' when recruiting for engageability is the manager who will never be able to manage people. It may be because they can't stand people, or because they're simply not interested in nurturing others to achieve results. Often it's because they've been let loose without expectations or training in how to manage people for so long that they are impervious to learning new ways. After all, to finally have it confirmed that you've been doing it wrong for 20 years is pretty frightening.
Audiences invariably nod vigorously to indicate agreement that their organisations are home to both types of engagement dampeners. And then they ask how you can improve your selection processes to screen them out. I advise as follows.
Firstly, ask competency based questions that test people's natural tendency towards adaptability and resilience as these are very highly correlated with a predisposition to be engaged.
Secondly, for any sort of job that requires interpersonal skills, run a role-play exercise. For managerial posts we always set up a scenario where the would-be manager has to take to task an employee who is underperforming. Artificial it may be, but very revealing in my experience.
Thirdly, I always use a couple of killer questions in the interviews; 'Tell me about a time when you were given personal feedback that you found difficult to take?' and 'How did you react to it?'
And then of course there is the much maligned and under-rated reference. Difficult in the commercial sector and increasingly in the public where overly risk-averse companies refuse to give information. But invaluable if you can get full and honest references and you ask for brief statements against your competency and conduct requirements, including teamworking. After all, nobody knows better what somebody is like to work with than those who have worked with them in the past.
There are other tips I give in relation to promoting engagement. But I can assure my audiences that if they focus on getting the right attitudes in the first place they will be able to hike up their engagement score by as much as 100% in one fell swoop.
Helen Giles is HR director of Broadway Homelessness and Support and managing director of Broadway's Real People HR consultancy.
