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Getting Your Recruitment Right at the Outset: Implementing Psychological Theory To Build Stronger Teams

By Kelley Reynard

Psychology theories and principles and their application to the domain of human behaviour are abundant in the Psychology literature, and many companies are now looking at their underlying principles to understand employee motivation to enlighten them as to why some people behave the way they do. They provide a framework for understanding human behaviour, thought, development, and motivation, and allow us to better understand ourselves and others.

When looking at individual motivation, and what drives a person to go beyond the scope of basic needs and strive for constant betterment, Abraham Maslow’s Social Needs Theory is the most widely-used theory that outlines this premise. The theory is represented as a pyramid encompassing five levels of needs starting with the basic needs at the bottom. They include; Physiological, Safety, Belongingness and Love, Esteem, and Self-Actualization, and describe the pattern that human motivations generally move through. This theory and its fundamental principles, has been transformed by Lou Adler, CEO of The Adler Group, to reflect the motivations of individuals who are applying for jobs at his company, and the factors that drive them to want to work there.

The theory in a work context, known as Maslow’s Hierarchy of Job Needs, proposes a pyramid of three levels in order of bottom up: Economic Needs; Social/Team Needs; and Achievement. Adler proposes that when companies are recruiting and sourcing candidates for vacant positions, they are only hiring people based on the first level in the hierarchy; Economic Needs. If people are only motivated to apply for a job for the monetary benefits and are not motivated by the focus of developing personal relationships with colleagues and achieving career growth, they may be less engaged and inclined to exceed performance expectations.
By fully understanding what drives a person to apply for a job, and comprehend their underlying need to work for your company, Adler suggests redesigning the recruitment process to reflect Maslow’s Hierarchy of Job Needs; starting from the top-down. Adler suggests removing traditional job descriptions (which he calls person descriptions) that list skills, experiences, and academic qualifications, to instead clarifying the performance expectations of the job to determine what a top-performing candidate would look like. He also asks the candidate to convince him why they really want the job, and if they can’t convince him why, he believes they won’t be able to convince anyone else either.

This article by Lou Adler, confirms the importance of working with Psychological theory to better understand human behaviour and motivation in the workplace. The inner drive that directs a person’s behaviour towards goals, and their attitude towards his or her job, employer, and colleagues, can be fully comprehended and understood by the application of Psychology theories and principles.

To read the full article by Lou Adler, CEO of the Adler Group, please click the following link http://www.inc.com/lou-adler/5-ways-something-from-phsych-101-can-help-you-build-stronger-teams.html?cid=sf01001