Employee/organization fit generates big gains in profit and reductions in turnover for small businesses

Every organization seems intent on finding skilled employees these days.  But focusing only on job skills might leave these companies a few employees short and a bit light on the profits. 

For several years, I've been encouraging managers to hire and promote employees based on a three-way fit:  job, team and company culture.  A study just released by Gevity, an HR outsourcing firm, and conducted in partnership with Dr. Christopher Collins of Cornell University’s Center for Advanced Human Resource Studies confirmed how certain HR management practices were positively related to workforce alignment and resulting firm performance.

The findings should be immediate reading, especially for small businesses.   Overall, companies that followed a person-organization fit showed significanlty higher firm performance than did companies following a person-job fit strategy. Results of the 243 small business study suggested that firms have 7.5% higher revenue growth, 6.1% higher profit growth, and 17.1% lower turnover when following a hiring strategy of attracting, finding and selecting employees that are a fit to the culture and values of the organization.

When person-fit/organization fit is integrated with a self-management strategy, - as opposed to a controlling management strategy - as well as implementing a family-like environment/community, the results for retailers are nothing short of remarkable - 74.7% lower turnover! They are not alone. Low-skilled services enjoyed 57.9% lower turnover and manufacturing watched 19.4% fewer employees walk out the door.

A few key take-aways from the study include:

• Select employees based on their ability to do the job (or have the potential to learn to do it).
• Select employees who can work effectively with other employees.
• Select employees based on their overall fit with the organization's values.

In other words, fit employees to the job, on the team and in the culture and watch your profits go up and turnover go down.

Success Performance Solutions has set a new standard for hiring success using best practice assessments for fitting the right employees to your organization's values. Simplify the complexity of talent management by calling 800.803.4303 or visiting www.super-solutions.com.

Full results and executive summaries of all Gevity research are available at http://www.gevity.com/resource_center/gevity_institute.html.