5.6.4 Recruitment

Obviously, at some point in time every organisation has to recruit people to work in it.

In the Chapter on Leadership I stated that the first thing that a leader needs is people to believe, – and that the most enduring believers are those who are a little sceptical. I then stressed that the leader needs to take care of believers.

The same is true for organisations.

If we wish to have a leadership role in easing the distress of very hurt people we must firstly identify people who will believe in the path that we want to take i.e. our vision.

We then need to listen carefully so that the vision is a cooperative and collective venture (as I have stated a number of times) of the ideas and energy of the people who matter most and the professional boundaries necessary to work in a safe and progressive manner.

Voices need to be heard, so that a sense of belonging is engendered and everyone feels that they truly have a stake in what the organisation is trying to achieve.

Now if we have experienced a lot of hurt in life it may manifest in different ways in respect of who we choose to believe in.

We might have a bit (or a lot) of scepticism.  This (very wise) scepticism will almost always be because we may have trusted in the past and then felt very let down.  Therefore we may follow at a distance – wondering what will happen or who else will get involved before we make a final decision.

Or in our desperation to have a better life for ourselves and our families we may follow too closely or too quickly – placing all our trust immediately in the organisation only to be disappointed at the (inevitable) slow pace of change and seemingly never-ending problems.

One way or another, early believers are very important, and will set the tone, or culture for people who come along later.

They may not fully control how the organisation will evolve, but (as we know from Systems Theory) they will be influential.

And, when we set up an organisation to assist families in our Focus Group, if no-one from the people who matter most believe, (i.e. are not attracted) it is probably because the leaders are not in touch with the needs, and/or there is no, or insufficient Cultural Matching.

In such a case the leadership group probably needs to follow the lead of the people who may come up with ideas that are a lot better – because they are born of experience.

This Sub-Chapter on Recruitment will propose a different way of attracting believers than the traditional recruitment process.

I propose that one of the best ways to encourage sceptical people within the Focus Group to believe is for the initial leaders to have hope, and that this hope is evident in our initial invitations – reaching out to hurt people.

In addition to hope, a very important characteristic to foster in a staff team tasked with protecting children in the community environment is a sense of adventure.

If people are not adventurous they are not really suitable to work in this kind of organisation, and they might be encouraged to undertake more mainstream type work – which is fine!

I believe that adventure is important because, like creativity and hope, (and, as I also mentioned, compassion) people are naturally attracted to adventure.  Also, adventure is very good modelling for people who are often very fearful of taking risks, particularly in relationships.

We can encourage, or build, a sense of adventure in a staff team by the methods we use to recruit people – sceptical believers — with attitude, that is.

In this Sub-Chapter I contrast traditional methods of recruitment, assessment at interview, terms of probation, and other factors with, perhaps, a more novel and different approach.

Consider the impact, on a prospective employee and the organisation, of the traditional method of recruiting someone to do a job, i.e. advertising a vacant post.

Let us say that it is advertised in a local or national newspaper, or on the internet, or in local jobs offices etc. and streams of applications with well-polished CV’s and cover letters stream in.

All the CV’s and letters contain glowing accounts of educational qualifications, previous experience, fascinating hobbies as well as how the person enjoys taking the initiative, being a self-starter, how interested he is in the job as described, the lengths that he will go to in order to do the job, how good a team player he is and how he is a people person.

After trawling through all the CV’s a selection is made and the day of the interview dawns.

The candidates parade themselves in what we used to call their Sunday best to impress the interview panel.

Each candidate is asked a selected number of questions with no deviation and following the process the scores are added up and the person with the highest score is chosen to be offered the job at the end of the day by a (usually exhausted) interview panel.

The next day, or at least within a few days, the chair of the interview board makes contact with the candidates’ previous bosses and other people of importance that he has provided to vouch for his character and back up all the claims he made on his CV and during his interview.

Everything has to be (well, nowadays anyway) recorded in writing in a very open and transparent manner as disappointed candidates can ask for feedback on what points they fell down.

Even after all the above, many personnel and recruitment/selection experts maintain that the process is flawed.  Because of these well-known flaws there is a six-month probation period where the candidate can be sacked without notice if he does not fit the bill.

The entire recruitment process can be summed up as follows:

Prospective Employee; (Candidate):  “I have to ensure that I please these people that I want to work for, and that I am the person that they want.  I will go to any ends to do it – promoting parts of me that I think they want to see while hiding those parts that I feel might be disadvantageous”.

Employer/Interview Board:  “I must decide whether or not this person has the necessary competences, while at the same time cutting through all the plamásing [1] and flattery, to try and discover if the person is genuine, and will do the job that we want him to do”.

One can see how the process invites a kind of game-playing!

In the next post I propose an alternative where the interview board is less likely to be fooled.

[1]. Plamás is a word in Gaeilge that means excessive, insincere praise – it is often used in Ireland.

Consider the impact of a different way of recruitment to the traditional.

We, the prospective employers, have decided to sit back and wait until someone who is interested in our work asks to be involved in it.

Now this is a bit riskier!

Suppose no one is interested?  Then we will certainly be left in a difficult (and possibly embarrassing) situation. We will have no believers and no one to work in our organisation.

So let me reframe it a little.

Say our organisation is starting up and because there is little or no money available (as happens with many innovative organisations that are outside the Pillars) we have some volunteers who are enthusiastic and committed. Then, after many failed applications for funding, some money becomes available. 

Perhaps the tempting thing to do might be to advertise in the traditional way, trawling the land for a suitable candidate that is well qualified and educated.  This is fine – but, depending of course on the job description, there may be people who have already shown enthusiasm who might be interested.

Just out of curiosity – let us consider what it might be like.

Prospective Employee; (Candidate):  “I am interested enough, in the type of work done in this place, to put myself out there as someone who wants to do it”.

Employer:  “I can respond to this person’s interest in a positive and encouraging manner while at the same time ensuring that the boundaries etc. of what we want done are clear”.

I propose that one way of ensuring that a culture of adventure is fostered in an organisation is for the organisation to put itself out there, wait for interested people to ask to be involved, and then respond to their requests.

Some of you might be familiar with the book The Right Stuff, by Tom Wolfe. (1979), which was later turned into a play and film.  The Right Stuff tells the story of the early pioneers of space travel in the USA in the 1950’s who flew aircraft at high speeds at great heights just within the earth’s atmosphere.  Obviously, it was a high-risk job and there were many casualties.  Pilots were selected not because they were very skillful, or came top of pilot class, but because they really wanted to do it.

I propose that every profession that asks staff to be adventurous, creative, and courageous, and has the aim of achieving goals that most of the population think are unlikely, needs staff who have the right stuff. In my understanding of the term, an important part of having the right stuff is to be so interested that one goes out of one’s way to work within it.

Of course in supporting families we are certainly not asking people to put their lives in danger like early space pioneers – our work is quite different. But in our work, we will experience discomfort, and in particular (mostly, actually) emotional discomfort.

In my experience, in the context of family support with families affected by imprisonment, waiting for interested people to ask to be involved and responding to their requests is not that difficult.

There are many people in the communities most affected by crime who wish to make a difference.  And most importantly, if someone puts themselves out there and asks to do this difficult work, the decision is usually theirs!

Undoubtedly, the most important factor is the response of the leader or leaders.

We need to 1): determine the capacity of people, i.e. whether or not they are either capable of doing the job now or have the willingness to learn how to do it over time, and 2):  have the courage to raise people’s awareness of their unsuitability while supporting them in getting to that realisation themselves.

In 1) above, if we are skilled and experienced in community type work (and leadership) we will have patience in allowing people to get in touch with their gifts, knowing the benefits of training local people, taking note of Systems Theory and Cultural Matching as we already described.  We will also know that people who are from and of the community may have had difficult experiences in life – so in addition to the richness of their experiences, they may have sometimes used up a lot of energy coping.

I mention this because it sometimes takes time for people to build up energy and access their full potential.

In 2) above, almost always – once again, in my experience – people often come to the realisation that they are not suitable for the job after a short time volunteering or being involved with the organisation.  If they don’t – it does require courage and skill on our part to inform them, and invite them to continue to access the organisation for other support [1]. 

[1]. This is a particularly challenging and difficult process.  It is difficult because it is most important not to hurt people who may be carrying a lot of hurt already.  Compassion and empathy are of utmost importance here – as well as emotional support.

The non-traditional method of recruitment described above is quite different to that favoured by the Pillars.

Indeed it is more akin to what happens in the small business sector, where people are attracted to particular enterprises because they feel that they’d be good at whatever work is going on within them, or they like the people working in them and their ethos, culture or methods of working.

While the community sector will never be a for profit sector, we can learn a lot from those who are entrepreneurial and innovative in their thinking – particularly those who are in the much under-rated SME (small and medium enterprise) sector – those self-starters who have energy, vision and originality – and who, in most countries, employ far more people than big multi-nationals.

As with creativity, adventure is inhibited by bureaucracy, fear, and inward looking, conservative attitudes.  Fear is the most potent factor in sucking the alive-ness out of an organisation.

Fear of doing wrong, fear of being sued, fear of losing funding, fear of being different, fear of looking foolish, and countless other fears will destroy risk-taking, initiative and adventure.

Are there any down sides for us when we chose adventurous people?

Well – they might be a bit cheeky or non-compliant!

These kinds of traits kind of go with adventure, excitement, and independent thinking.  So when adventurous people are recruited, it is vital that we honour their sense of adventure and are not too fearful of it, or are not hidebound by rigidity or inflexibility.

It is most important that initiative, adventure and creativity – adventurous people are almost always creative – are rewarded so that they and their work will not, over time, gradually become stale and predictable.

Personally speaking, I find it far easier to rein in enthusiasm and adventure than deal with the kind of work-shyness that results from low energy.

In addition to prospective staff having the right stuff, the right leadership stuff is essential for adventure to thrive.