An Open Letter to HR Leaders & Talent Managers
To: HR Leaders & Talent Managers
From: Delmar Davis, President & Founder of Meridiem
Re: My HR confidence problem
Dear HR Colleague—
I used to work for a couple large companies before founding Meridiem. I had both Ops and HR roles, and as a Talent Manager had responsibility for divisions with more than 5000 employees.
There were many great rewards in those positions—many “good days” at work—but also painful periods.
You know what I mean. It's the stuff that leads to the high burn-out rate and turnover among HR professionals.
Here is how I experienced it…
I spent the majority of my time on hiring, compliance, employee relations, and HR legal issues rather than on development, training, and the other proactive and rewarding activities that get a company out of the downward spiral of reactivity.
I doubted at times the level of trust my leadership partners had in HR in general, and by extension in my personal guidance.
I wasn't sure sometimes that what I was doing was really adding value to the company, other than defensively.
Finally, I came to understand I had a confidence problem.
THE PROBLEM
A confidence problem—let me explain…
In retrospect I came to see that I did not have complete confidence in my tools and systems, which led me to not fully trust my decisions, which led my partners to have an opening for not fully trusting my guidance.
And some of them didn't have great trust in HR to begin with, so it was already an uphill battle.
I once sent a candidate to the home office—at some expense, I might add—for a final round of interviews with the company's executive leadership team.
He had been through multiple rounds of interviews with several people, but he was nevertheless “my candidate.”
And he tanked. Bad.
I was out doing site visits and had to step aside to take a call from the Senior VP of HR. She was a great leader and mentor, but regardless, this is one of those calls you don't want to take.
“Delmar,” she said. “I'll give you this one, but send me another like him and we'll have to have a different conversation.”
Yeah—got it. But she went on to give me some coaching.
“Your operational partners will have opinions, experience, and gut instinct to rely upon, but you have to be the one who above all is accurate in assessing the candidate's capabilities and fit for the role and company.”
I never forgot that. The trusted advisor has to above all be accurate to be trusted.
And especially so about hiring, since it's the beginning of the employee lifecycle, and thus the way to elevate an entire talent management strategy.
Or when we get it wrong, to perpetuate the downward talent spiral.
Which is painful in the extreme.
And I found that the key to accurate, confident hiring lies in using the right tools.
WHAT I KNOW NOW THAT I DIDN'T KNOW THEN
To start with the obvious…
Organizational clarity on roles, a legal and consistent screening process, and solid behavioral interviewing skills are all essential to accurate hiring.
But those are the minimum—the "basic hygiene” level, you might say.
We had all those solidly in place in the company where I passed that candidate through to the executive team and ended up getting tuned up by my boss's boss.
Actually, I had taught behavioral interviewing and was very confident in those skills. I still am.
But I happened to be with a multi-billion-dollar company that did not use an essential tool—one that, when combined with a solid process and strong interviewing skills, takes accuracy and confidence up multiplicatively.
Maybe even exponentially.
I know now that the tools they were missing is an evidence-based, reliable, valid, integrated personality and aptitude assessment of work-related behavior.
And by the way, the assessment I now trust would have flagged that bad candidate in a heartbeat.
NSIGHT SUCCESS ASSESSMENT
The NSight was developed over 30 years ago collaboratively by Penny Reynolds and a clinical psychologist colleague.
In addition to her consulting business, Penny worked in assessment publishing and became frustrated by the inadequacy of any one assessment at offering a holistic and well-rounded picture of a client or applicant's skills and temperament.
There were plenty of personality assessments, but most were not made to specifically look at work-related behaviors.
And there were aptitude assessments, but none made to integrate with specific personality factors.
She thus spent five years developing an evidence-based, valid, reliable assessment that reveals 22 personality AND 4 aptitude success factors related to work behavior.
The NSight was the result—a simple, accurate instrument for hiring and professional development that has been used tens of thousands of times in hundreds of companies.
It might be one of the best kept secrets in the world of assessment tools.
Penny consulted for my CEO partner Mike Sheehan's previous company and introduced the NSight to him for selection and development over a decade ago.
It was a key component to fixing his talent issues, which led to explosive growth and ultimately to his sale of the company to a Fortune 100 multinational organization.
And when Penny decided to scale back her professional commitments and offered the NSight assessment to Mike, he reached out to me because of my background in HR and coaching, and we bought the NSight and formed Meridiem.
WHAT TO DO NEXT
At Meridiem we provide assessments, services, and online tools for consultants and companies to support success and organizational wellness.
We are the exclusive publisher of the NSight Success assessment.
If you would like to…
Decisively improve your accuracy and confidence in talent selection…
Improve organizational trust in your company's HR function and advising...
Increase the trust your partners have in you personally as a talent acquisition expert…
Have a “secret weapon” for analyzing performance to both bring the right people into your organization and develop those already with you…
Elevate the quality of your selection accuracy to bootstrap yourself up from the morass of ER and legal issues that can consume your time and energy…
Do more of the parts of your role that are fun and rewarding and that keep you enthusiastic and invigorated…
Then give me your contact info below, and I'll reach out to schedule an exploratory call.
I'm more than happy to brainstorm opportunities for optimizing your selection process.
And if you find you're interested in the NSight Success assessment, we have options that could get you up and running right away—as in within 24 hours, if needed.
So let's talk…
All the best!
Delmar
Delmar Davis
Meridiem President & Founder
3825 Edwards Road, Suite 103, Cincinnati, OH 45209
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