Values-Based Recruitment: Meaning, Benefits, and Challenges

Managing any business is not easy, and HR professionals must be strategic. One of the challenging business management tasks that require a critical eye is hiring candidates fit for organizational culture. You must ensure that a candidate’s values align with your business culture to keep them around long-term. In addition, hiring candidates based on their cultural preferences makes it easier for them to bond with existing employees and focus on executing their specified tasks. As a result, they stay happy and motivated to be the best performers. Fortunately, values-based hiring is one of the ways to include organizational fit into your recruitment process. Remember, it is crucial to consider candidates’ values and missions whether you are managing a small or large enterprise. This article guides you on using value-based recruitment to help you attract the right talent.

What is Values-Based Recruitment?

Values-based recruitment is a strategy hiring managers use to attract talent to fill various positions in their organization. Implementing this strategy into your hiring process enables you to find talent with the right skills, aspirations, and values. As a result, you get to build a team with common beliefs and goals, making it easier for you to manage them towards achieving your business objectives. 

Note that values-based recruitment is usually applied in education-oriented, care, and support businesses. However, with employers looking for ways to stay on top of the competition, companies in various industries are beginning to embrace this recruitment strategy because of its benefits. So, if you have not tried values-based hiring, you are missing out on the opportunity to meet suitable talent.

Benefits of Values-Based Recruitment

As mentioned earlier, values-based recruitment ensures that you meet talent with the same beliefs, including reliability, honesty, compassion, creativity, etc. The last thing you want is to hire candidates with different values, making it challenging for them to get along and focus on the main goal (productivity). However, note that values-based recruitment does more than ensure your workers get along and are on the same page. Below, we list other advantages of this hiring strategy to help you get a clear picture of why it is worth implementing.

1. Boosts Employee Morale

A happy workforce that shares common goals are high spirited and will be comfortable in their roles. When your workers have a sense of satisfaction, they will likely give their best to show their appreciation. This is a win-win for both parties since you also get to manage a peaceful working environment.

2. Increases Engagement

Having workers with solid relationships helps them handle clients with poise, thus keeping them satisfied. In addition, since they are motivated to handle various tasks, you will witness an increased engagement. In addition, there will be reduced absenteeism rates since they will be incorporating their values into your business culture for more productivity. 

3. Increased Productivity

A motivated and happy workforce will focus on executing daily tasks effectively. Since they have the same beliefs and values, the work environment will be peaceful, making them more involved and engaged in their tasks rather than bickering. As a result, they give their all and maximize productivity. 

4. Reduces Employee Turnover

Values-based recruitment has proven to reduce turnover rates since it brings individuals with the same values and beliefs together for a common goal. When employees get along peacefully, they tend to stay in organizations they work for more extended periods. Simply put, a happy and satisfied workforce is a confident one, making them trust you and remain loyal. 

5. Positive Work Environment

When employees realize that a company’s culture aligns with their values and beliefs, they will be confident. Plus, hiring candidates based on cultural fit creates a peaceful working environment since there will be reduced cases of conflicts. In addition, employees find it easy to approach you with any challenge trusting that you will manage them for their betterment. 

Values-Based Recruitment Disadvantages

While values-based recruitment has plenty of benefits, and you should include it in your hiring strategy, it also has its pitfall. Let’s take a look below at the major challenges of values-based recruitment you might experience while implementing it. 

• Hiring professionals might find it challenging to engage the right personnel in this hiring strategy.
• Understanding business values that your business requires the most for more productivity
• Incorporating a company’s values into appraisal and management system
• Balancing the significant values with candidates’ competencies during the recruitment
• Applying business values practically

How is Value-Based Recruitment Implemented?

Values-based recruitment can be challenging to implement, especially if you do not have a solid plan or use the right methods. To fully benefit from this hiring strategy, it is essential that you include it in every hiring sage. Below is a step-by-step procedure for implementing values-based recruitment to meet top talent. 

1. Identify Your Business Values

Getting started with values-based recruitment requires mapping out the beliefs and values your business works with. Consider values that you apply in daily business operations, including individual, societal, and brand values. Once you figure this out, use them as guidance in choosing employees with the same characteristics, whether regarding honesty, commitment to work, integrity, etc. 

2. Include Business Values in Job Postings

Including your company’s values in a job post helps you attract the right audience to apply. Be specific on how you want the values translated into available roles. Let them know that regardless of their position, they must have the same values that align with your business culture. 

3. Pre-Employment Assessments Are Vital

Evaluating job applicants is essential to ensure you meet the right talent. With pre-employment assessments, you can easily do so through personality tests, values-based interviews, skills tests, cognitive tests, sample tests, etc. As a hiring professional, you should include pre-employment assessments at the first stage of the hiring process. This is so that you can determine a candidate’s capabilities, skills, and values before moving on to the next hiring procedure. That being said, let’s get deeper into understanding the values-based recruitment examples of pre-employment assessments.

Personality tests:

This test focuses on understanding a candidate’s perspective in specific scenarios. This can be regarding emotionality, openness to gaining experience, conscientiousness, and agreeableness. 

Cognitive tests:

They are behavioral tests aimed at understanding a candidate’s problem-solving skills. Plus, you get to know how quickly a candidate can understand and follow instructions.

Value-based interviews:

Like other regular interviews, this assessment aims at identifying an ideal candidate through structured questions centered on your business values. 

Role play tests:

Here, you can understand how cooperative and collaborative a candidate can be when trying to resolve arising work-related problems. You can also include team exercises to know how they participate in group settings.

Conclusion

Value-based recruitment can be beneficial to maximize your potential to hire the best candidate when implemented strategically. By following our guidelines above, you will create a successful recruitment plan. Remember to start by identifying significant values to your organization so that you can efficiently implement them in your hiring strategy. Also, consider using AI-powered talent analysis tools or software to easily analyze job applicants’ traits and values. The best element about such tools is that they improve efficiency, and you get deep insights that can be challenging to obtain manually.