Hello David,

80% of employees self-report that they are not engaged.
80% of managers are ill suited to effectively manage people.
The two 80 percents are closely related.

Successful employees have all three of the following success predictors while unsuccessful employee lack one or two and usually it is Job Talent that they lack.
1. Competence
2. Cultural Fit
3. Job Talent 



Employers do a… 

A. GREAT job of hiring competent employees, about 90%
B. good job of hiring competent employees who fit the culture, about 50%
C. POOR job of hiring competent employees who fit the culture and who have a talent for the job, ABOUT 20%

Identifying the talent required for each job seems to be missing from talent and management discussions. If we ignore any of the three criteria, our workforce will be less successful with higher turnover than if we do not ignore any of the three criteria.
1. Competence
2. Cultural Fit
3. Job Talent

There are many factors to consider when hiring and managing talent but first we need to define talent unless “hiring talent” means “hiring employees.” Everyone wants to hire for and manage talent but if we can’t answer the five questions below with specificity, we can’t hire or manage talent effectively.
1. How do we define talent?
2. How do we measure talent?
3. How do we know a candidate’s talent?
4. How do we know what talent is required for each job?
5. How do we match a candidate’s talent to the talent demanded by the job?

Most managers cannot answer the five questions with specificity but the answers provide the framework for hiring successful employees and creating an engaged workforce.

Talent is not found in resumes or interviews or background checks or college transcripts.

Talent must be hired since it cannot be acquired or imparted after the hire.

Employers keep hiring the wrong people to be their managers and then they wonder why they have so few engaged employees.

Hi Bob–thanks for sharing your thoughts on this. You’ve brought up a great point about hiring people who are “engageable.” That is absolutely a part of the equation and needs to be considered in the employee selection process. In my experience, most employees come into an organization excited and ready to contribute. One area we need to look at more closely is why most organizations end up with a 20-60-20 distribution after a few years with 20% engaged, 60% disengaged, and 20% actively disengaged. An employee’s individual characteristics plays a part–as well as organizational culture and the quality of leadership they experience.

Making progress on employee engagement initiatives would be so much easier if the employer had hired the right people for each job.

Empowering a workforce is easy to do; have all executives, managers, and supervisors do their jobs well all of the time. The hard part is getting the executives to do their jobs well, the next hardest part is getting managers to do their jobs well, followed by supervisors doing their jobs well. Employees will be doing their jobs well if everyone above them is doing their jobs well. Look out, employee engagement is about to take hold. Some employers want to skip the executives, managers and supervisor parts and go right to the employees, but that is not how employees get engaged.

Employers have tried all sorts of things to create successful employees who do need to be managed. Teaching/preaching leadership has been replaced by employee engagement. That won’t work either until managers learn how to hire and manage employees who will become engaged if managed well, treated fairly, and paid accordingly.