The average person spends around 2,000 hours in work each year. Based on a career of 37 years, this amounts to roughly 74,000 hours spent working – by no means an insignificant amount of time. As such, we need to ensure that we take enjoyment from, and are fulfilled, by our careers. Looking back on our working life and realising that we have spent 1/3 of it doing something we have not enjoyed does not bear thinking about and alarm bells should sound for anyone using the words “it’s a job” to describe their work.
Ensuring we derive satisfaction and enjoyment from our work and making career choices that will enhance our lives requires each of us to first understand what is important to us. We each have a unique set of values, beliefs and ideas that are integral to us, and by which we aim to live our lives. Likewise, we each also have a set of values that are unique to our working lives.

At the simplest level these values help us to understand the environments and roles that will engage us. In the context of work, this could include the need to have regular contact with others, being challenged in our roles or having the autonomy to make decisions. Identifying and making sure that our values are aligned with our careers and roles will mean that we are more motivated and engaged with what we do and consequently more likely to have a fulfilling career. From an organisational perspective, companies that successfully attract people who share the company’s values are more likely to thrive, enjoying the highest levels of employee engagement and commitment.

Making informed choices around our careers also becomes easier once we have identified our core values, for example, considering a promotion or moving companies. In these instances it is vital that we assess how well our values and interests align to that of the company or role. So many people base their decision solely on the role, and as such can find themselves quickly de-motivated due to a misalignment between the company’s and employee’s values. If our values don’t align with the company then it is unlikely to be a good match.

Over time our values may modify, often a result of changes to our personal lives, increased responsibility or the acquisition of new skills, and those values we once viewed as unimportant may become a prerequisite. Taking time out of our busy schedules to re-asses any changes that may have occurred is vital, but admittedly this is sometimes easier said than done as day-to-day tasks often take precedence.

Understanding how your values may have changed will help ensure that you continue to derive satisfaction from your career and also enable you to seek out the right opportunities and environments that will help your grow. Additionally, if you are doing something that does not align with your values you will be better placed to express this and look for a solution, such as role re-design, as opposed to thinking that you need to look for another role within another company.
The pressures of modern life, a tougher economic landscape and the demands of changing business needs mean that it is very easy for us to focus on the task in hand and forget the core values that underpin us. Given the amount of time we spend working, ensuring that our values are aligned to the organisation we work for and the role we perform is a vital if we are to reflect back on our careers with a sense of fulfilment.

Only 38% of leaders consider the leadership in their organisation to be high quality, with HR professionals even more critical, research from DDI reveals.

One in four HR workers believe that the quality of their organisational leadership is high, the DDI Global Leadership Forecast shows. Furthermore, only 20% of HR professionals believe that their organisation has the leadership strength to meet future business challenges.

The report rings alarm bells for leadership development, with only 38% of leaders saying that the development they receive is effective, despite the research finding that the highest quality leaders were 13 times more likely to outperform their competitors in bottom-line metrics.

Steve Newhall, Managing Director at DDI UK, comments: “Research from our last two Global Leadership Forecasts shows that leadership quality hasn’t changed that much over the last six years despite the estimated £14 billion spent globally each year on leadership development.

“If organisations are going to have in place the leadership they need, how they find, develop and promote new leaders is going to have to change”.

The most successful development programmes used a variety of different training techniques – with 73% of respondents favouring formal classroom training and 66% preferring special projects and assignments.

Newhall says: “On the face of it, the Forecast paints a worrying picture – leaders haven’t yet got the skills they need, only 1 in 4 organisations rate their leadership quality as high and 80% haven’t got the leaders they need coming through.

“Yet, the picture isn’t as bleak as it may first appear. Organisations have bought into the fact that they need to develop leaders and it’s indisputable that leadership does matter.

“Leaders are telling us the skills they need and they are clear on what development methods are effective. Put all of those elements together and, if we put our minds to it, we should be able to bring about a step change in leadership through effective, targeted development programmes.”

If, like 79% of firms contacted by the CIPD in 2010, your primary resourcing objective is to attract and recruit key staff, does your budget match your objective? In current economic times, shrewd recruitment is the watchword.

Costly and potentially risky

£700m is spent each year in the UK on job adverts and some 400,000 vacancies are filled through recruitment agencies. At an average cost of £4,500 per candidate, you might be happy with this expense if you find the right person. But what happens when it becomes obvious that you have made a mistake? Not many new-hires come with a money-back guarantee.

Since 48% of CIPD respondents also report that they are putting more time and effort into recruiting quality candidates, it’s clear that getting the right person for the job is viewed as extremely important. It’s also clear that having the right people in place is vital to the continued growth and profitability of any organisation. You need to ensure that your people become your company’s most valuable asset, not the most expensive write-off.

Risk-free recruitment

Wouldn’t it be great if such a thing existed? We’re not suggesting that you can entirely eradicate risk from recruitment, but you can certainly reduce it considerably. You can gain a far better understanding of which person best fits your business, before you even take the time to meet them. Also, by understanding the exact profile of the position you need to fill, you can match one to the other, in the most time and cost efficient way.

The true cost of recruiting the wrong person goes way beyond the immediately obvious – up to 2.5 times their annual salary. You may also have invested in training, support staff or new equipment for this person – all of which is money poorly spent if you have the wrong person in the job. A mistake in recruitment may also compromise your longer-term business plans or the stability of your team – again with significant cost implications.

Getting it right first time

Just think about the value to your business of being able to hire the right person, first time, every time. An effective and well-planned recruitment strategy should include the use of psychometric assessment. Why? Because by understanding the qualities, skills and personality that best fit a particular role, you can make sure you look for and find the right person. By asking all potentially suitable candidates to undergo an assessment, you will narrow the field and interview only the most relevant candidates. This saves you time and money and you can be confident that any of the short-listed candidates would be up to the job.

Assessments do not judge right or wrong answers as far as the candidate is concerned. However, the results will show whether the applicant is right or wrong for your business, giving you far more control over who you decide to employ and reducing the risk factor.