Simpson Dean Revolutionising the Recruitment Industry with Team-Fit™

The use of personality and psychological tests is not uncommon when assessing staff fit in the recruitment process, but Thames Valley based Simpson Dean have taken a huge leap forward with this concept. Their breakthrough model tests the personalities of both the proposed candidate and existing team members, for a match that fits like a glove. With Brexit looming this is hugely valuable.

Based on the Belbin Team Roles model, Simpson Dean’s Team-Fit™ clarifies the necessary roles within a team, identifying the key personalities required to make it function at its best. It then formulates an intelligent understanding of who works best together and what gaps there might be for recruitment.

The Team Roles model was created in 1961 by Doctor Meredith Belbin. Originally designed as a simulation game for Henley Business School, it was later developed as a crucial team study tool and Simpson Dean saw its potential for the recruitment process.

The challenges of recruiting the right people

As the saying goes, ‘there is no i in team’ – teamwork is essential in meeting important business objectives and this needs to work harmoniously. But recruiting the right team of people can be challenging. Often businesses take a scattergun approach and end up having to keep fine-tuning things. Unnecessary money and resources are spent re-recruiting to get it right.

Frameworks to maximise the success of recruitment are not a new thing. Psychometric testing to assess skills, intelligence and personality has long been used to help select the right candidates for a job. More recently the new Task Force model was announced – an essential skills framework created by a handful of organisations including the CIPD, The Careers and Enterprise Company, Business in the Community, the Gatsby Foundation, EY Foundation and the Skills and Builder Partnership. This scheme seeks to highlight the essential skills required for specific roles, so that these can be developed though education and quickly identified by businesses and recruiters.

Task Force is an incredibly useful tool; however it’s only one side of the coin. Yes it highlights what skills are required in a given role, but it doesn’t factor in personality and personality can largely influence how a team functions. It can be both a help and a hindrance in terms of how staff members work together to get a job done so it’s important to get it right. This is exactly what Team-Fit™ does and it enables them to meet a number of crucial objectives for companies, such as:

• Greater staff retention
• Improved productivity
• Less time and money spent on re-recruiting
• A better working environment
• Better staff satisfaction
• Better employer satisfaction

The Impact of Brexit on Recruitment

Last year the CIPD reported that the drop in EU nationals joining the UK workforce has put significant pressure on recruitment, with 44% of employers experiencing greater difficulty in recruiting candidates with the right skills and 34% of employers struggling to retain staff.

Both the Task Force and Team-Fit™ frameworks seek to tackle both these issues head on but whereas Task Force is focussed on skills, Team-Fit™ is looking at both skills and personality together. Not only is it preparing for the recruitment industry landscape post-Brexit, it’s revolutionising the way recruitment works, simply by finding the right talent and creating the right relationships right from the off.