Are you equipped for the war for talent?

When it comes to the war for talent, Mark Lewis has been well placed to help the organisation he joined nearly two years ago in its fight against high attrition rates.

Having formerly worked with the NZ Army to address retention issues, he learnt early on in his HR career that it’s not always the tried and tested methods that create the best results. Leveraging his background in education, Lewis and his team implemented a strategy that diverged from conventional approaches at the time, he says.

This not only proved successful but Lewis received a Chief of Army commendation for his input.  

Now, as the head of people and culture at Connetics, his “battle plan” has helped reduce turnover from 24% to 18% across the board. In some depots, there’s been a decrease of 26%, despite the country’s record-high employment levels.

“Often organisations’ selection processes are back to front as we select out skills we should select in, and select in skills which are much easier to train. This approach diminishes our talent pool and in the war for talent isn’t a winning strategy,” says Lewis, who will be presenting at the National HR Summit New Zealand in Auckland on strategic recruitment and attracting top employees.

Mark Lewis was recognized as one of the Best HR Executives in New Zealand. Check out all the winners here.

‘Flipping’ the recruitment strategy

Lewis calls himself an accidental HR professional, having spent the initial part of his career working in adventure and outdoor education, then moving into a learning and development role as part of establishing the Army Leadership Centre 20 years ago.

“I've always been really interested in human behaviour, and helping people reach their full potential to grow and develop. I still get a real buzz seeing people exceed their own expectations,” he says.

“Often, our screening criteria focus on literacy, numeracy or language skills, inadvertently selecting out attributes that make people good human beings. We also miss the opportunity to select in attributes like strong social skills, coachability, and a genuine motivation for development, which are more important in finding valuable team members.”

At Connetics, Lewis has implemented a system that’s involved creating a shift in people's mindsets, he says, “flipping” the recruitment strategy around.

Data-informed selection

“We’re using a rigorous data-informed approach to selection to help tell us identify who could be really good in the organisation. It’s helped us widen the talent pool and we're bringing in a more diverse skill set without diluting what's already made the organisation successful.

“We know past performance is a poor predictor of future performance. There are other things we can use which are much better at predicting what someone's potential performance will be.”

To help achieve this, the team at Connetics added some tools and used new ways with psychometric assessments to predict performance. This has helped accelerate their strategy to increase capacity, which in an industry committed to growth has been essential, says Lewis.

The organisation’s also increasingly started using assessment centre methodology, and job-related task assessment in the selection process.

Reducing barriers to candidates

“We’ve reduced artificial barriers to getting a job with us by leaning back our application process and increasing video interviewing early on,” says Lewis, who’s placed on the HRD Hot List for the last four years in a row.

“It means they don’t need to try and write a letter and CV, they can just tell us about themselves. And then we can start bringing people in who show they're already engaged in what we do and are motivated.”

Wins have also been made in recruitment for Connetics by looking outside its sector for fresh talent, he says.

“When people come into our sector, they tend to stay. So in essence, what all the companies were doing was feeding off each other, fighting for the same talent. That was driving up wages and increasing time to fill.

Brand appeal

“We realised a lot of people didn't know what we did or what the opportunities were here, so we broadened our brand appeal and started looking at sectors with more movement - especially in the post-Covid environment.”

Instead of hiring people directly into some of the highly skilled trades roles, the organisation began to recruit for other roles, helping people to then transition into trades, taking a pipelining approach.

“We went and found people who were rewarding to deal with, willing and motivated to learn and develop, and got smarter in how we used our tools, particularly psychometrics, to evaluate their potential success with us,” says Lewis.

“Potential candidates may lack industry-specific experience but we offer abundant opportunities to bridge that gap. By demonstrating the right raw potential, individuals can transition from unskilled labour to highly skilled roles, and even professional positions all with our support.”

EVP and authenticity

The successes contribute greatly to the organisation’s brand and EVP, says Lewis, who emphasises what’s also helped is having been able to demonstrate authenticity.

“Our fundamental message is that you don't need to have your dream job figured out just yet. We are a great employer; join our team and, together, we’ll discover your aspirations, supporting you to turn that dream into a rewarding and fulfilling career.

“The core for me around winning the war for talent is not putting artificial constraints in the process that select people out before they've had a chance to showcase their full potential and demonstrate what they can achieve with the right opportunities.”