“JobMatch Talent is a necessity for choosing the right managers”

One might say that in the same way as SCB Statistics Sweden measures Sweden, JobMatch Talent measures skills. For the last few years, SCB has used the JobMatch Talent occupational psychology test as a key tool in improving the supply of competencies in their organisation.

“JobMatch Talent is a vital part of our comprehensive strategic competence development strategy for management, as well as being important in identifying, retaining and continuously improving our managers in the best possible way,” says Martin Lagerström, head of SCB’s strategic skills development scheme.

SCB has been working strategically with both management and leadership since 2013. This is to not only ensure that the organisation’s management have the same competencies as managers in other successful organisations, but also to make SCB an attractive employer in its own right. It is for this reason that last year SCB’s long-term strategy was customised and adapted to meet the demands of SCB’s management system.

“SCB’s management competence development strategy is comprehensive and contains a wide range of empirical and practical approaches to allow our managers to develop the knowledge, skills and abilities that our organisation requires,” says Martin Lagerström.  

Since 2013, SCB’s strategy has consisted of four different areas: a leadership programme for management candidates, one for new managers, one for departmental heads and, finally, long-term support for senior management and all managers at the agency.

“We make a long-term investment in our managers, providing them with the necessary conditions to perform well and thrive for a long period.

“There are many studies showing that when a manager is content, their staff also perform better. We can then provide our customers, users and society as a whole with a better basis for decision-making. Our management programme has also received a great deal of international recognition, which is even more pleasing. I would venture to say that SCB’s strategic skills development is on the cutting edge and is now at the global forefront in terms of breadth, depth and evidential and practical utility,” says Martin Lagerström.

In order to identify the right management candidates for their leadership program, SCB works with competence-based recruitment and decision-making procedures in which, among other things, personality testing and performance tests play an important part. JobMatch Talent is integral to this recruitment and decision-making process.

“JobMatch Talent provides increased insight and awareness of important leadership characteristics, such as decision-making ability, concentration and thoroughness. We use this tool to provide us with an improved basis for our decisions on which candidates are suitable for the leadership programme and eventually for management positions in SCB.”

SCB also uses JobMatch Talent for all other management recruitments, as both managers and HR administrators find it an extremely useful tool which, when used in conjunction with other information, aids the recruitment and decision-making process.

“We have tailored the characteristics criteria in JobMatch Talent to the demands of our management profile, optimising the information it gives us about people’s leadership qualities. This provides candidates and managers with greater insight into important leadership characteristics that they already possess and which they will eventually need to develop.”

The ability to select the right candidate when recruiting is one of the demands the SCB’s leadership profile makes of its managers. In 2005, an international survey of 700 managers showed that Swedish managers believed that 32 per cent of their staff could barely be considered “sufficiently competent” and that 7 per cent of a manager’s time was spent on correcting errors made by their staff. Taken as a whole, this survey aimed to demonstrate that Swedish companies were losing SEK 13.46 billion, or 0.6% of GNP, due to recruitment failures. (Competence based recruitment and interviewing, Malin Lindelöw).

“I personally believe that the costs of recruiting the wrong people are considerably greater than this. This survey only scratches the surface, as it does not take into account alternative costs such as lost productivity, customers and co-workers. “

The recruitment process at SCB is based on informed decisions so that, as far as possible, managers can avoid making ill-considered judgements during recruitments. Research (Kahneman & Tversky) shows how faulty our judgement can actually be and that we have a tendency to suffer from a number of misconceptions.

“We see a number of advantages to competence-based recruitment and the use of JobMatch together with interview guides, performance tests and decision-making procedures when choosing candidates for our leadership programme. Eighty-five years of research shows that the risk of recruiting the wrong individual increases considerably if one fails to use competence-based recruitment. It also shows that unstructured interviews, guided only by length and type of education, work experience and references, have a very slim chance of predicting a person’s actual performance, in fact less than leaving things entirely to chance.”

In order to better predict a person’s future performance, competence-based, evidential and factual recruitment procedures are required. Then, according to Martin Lagerström, recruitment can be based on facts and only then can an organisation approach 100 per cent recruitment satisfaction.

“There are many tools available on the market, but far from all of these are fact-based. When selecting psychological aids for inclusion in the recruitment processes, two things are of extra importance: that they have been scientifically tested and that they are used in the right way and the correct context. If so, tools that measure personality and behaviour patterns, for example, have only benefits. They can even be said to be necessary tools for predicting performance, avoiding misconceptions and identifying areas in which a manager may require help and support at an early stage. In order to improve our procedures we regularly evaluate the tools we use, and those that fail to meet the standards of current research are simply swapped for another tool that works better.”

“At SCB we have used JobMatch Talent in conjunction with other psychological tests for many years and we see no reason not to continue to do so – especially now that we have integrated it so successfully into our recruitment and decision-making process,” says Martin Lagerström, the man responsible for SCB’s management competence development strategy.

Facts:

Supplying SCB’s competency requirements

Since 2013, SCB strategic competence development has comprised

• A 20-day leadership programme for management candidates
   
• A 20-day leadership programme for new mangers
   
• A 10-day leadership programme for departmental heads
   
• A long-term support programme for senior management and all managers

Fact-based recruitment

SCB uses competence-based recruitment tools to aid its managers in, as far as possible, making decisions based on facts when recruiting. Examples of important general questions that are included in SCB’s leadership programme for management candidates are:

• What do you need to know before making a decision about who to recruit?
   
• How can you use an evidence-based approach to identify talent more effectively?
   
• How do you know that you are taking good, fact-based decisions? How do you follow up and improve your decisions?
   
• How do you ensure that you are focusing on the right things?
   
• What do you need to do in order to make good decisions and reduce sources of error when recruiting?
   
• How do you know that you are using the right kind of psychological tests and that you are using them correctly?
   
• How do you know that you are seeking those competencies (knowledge, skills and abilities) that SCB will require in the future?
   
• How do you know that you are assessing the interviewee’s competencies in the correct manner? 

JobMatch Talent newsroom
http://news.cision.com/jobmatch-talent

For further information
Klaus Olsen, vd JobMatch Sweden, 46 (0) 70 190 20 40, klaus.olsen@jobmatchtalent.com
Magnus Sjöbäck, Press Officer JobMatch Sweden, 46 (0) 70 445 15 99, magnus.sjoback@sjobackpr.se

JobMatch Sweden helps companies to learn about their employees using the JobMatch Talent occupational psychology test system The results are used to recruit or develop employees. The test was launched in 2000 and to date has been used by more than 30,000 people. It is certified by DNV according to EFPA. JobMatch Talent is owned and marketed by JobMatch Sweden AB. Its head office is located in Gothenburg. www.jobmatchtalent.com/sv

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