The Paradox of Hiring Creative Minds

Recruitment I Employee engagement I Performance I Retention

Balancing Act: Understanding the Paradox of Hiring Creative Minds Without Strategic Engagement and Inclusion.

Whenever we face a desire to move or grow we look for opportunities. It is here where our creative mindset comes forth and lets us focus on ways to develop, grow, create something new, or look for alternatives. Employers too are in search of creative minds to move forward.

The LinkedIn analysis of 50,000 professional skills ranked creativity among the top in-demand job skills in the world for all businesses. A global study by Adobe also found being creative makes people better and happier workers, leaders, parents, and students. The businesses, which invest in creativity increased employee productivity (78%), have satisfied customers (80%), produced a better customer experience (78%), fostered innovation (83%), and have been financially successful (73%). In addition, the survey shows the high impact of creativity on the social and economic wellbeing of a country. 

In the modern world, where many jobs and processes are transformed into technology-driven tasks, creativity turns out to be one of the most human-driven soft-skills.

The creative mindset has an impact on the improvement of other soft-skills such as mental agility, design thinking, ability to observe and analyze, problem-solving, emphatic listening, focusing, noticing, nonjudgmental behavior, resilience, sense of humor, visioning, and emotional intelligence.

Creative thinking techniques are not only focused on the process of brainstorming, generating, and identifying ideas but also on fostering a collaborative environment where everyone is included, equally unique, and diverse. It also improves Mental Health as it stimulates positive thinking. 

Have you ever thought about what really happens with those talents? Here’s the paradox: some employers look for creative mindsets to hire and put them into the “box”. The consequence of this is painful, first of all for the employers.

Recruitment I Employee engagement I Performance I Retention : Navigating the Hiring Paradox: Employers seek creative minds but risk retention issues by confining them to limiting roles.

It is cost-inefficient, no matter if your creative people quit the job, or, which I’d say, is worse, when they stay and work unsatisfied. Whereas, employee satisfaction, let's call it, employee happiness, impacts on the overall performance of an organization.

Often, the hiring cost of employees is underestimated, especially, among the start-up businesses. The cost of hiring includes the cost of time and expenses spent on advertising, interviewing, screening, hiring a candidate, onboarding costs for training and management of the time, plus administrative costs, among them, employment insurance, taxes for workers’ compensation, employer health taxes, Pension Plans (Provincial and Federal), etc.. Additionally, there's another bigger cost behind the curtains: the cost of turnover (the total cost for rehiring a candidate and the cost for rebuilding company reputation after each unhappy talent who quits the job). That's why it is considered cost-effective and efficient to invest in employee retention and engagement programs.

Here are six tips on how to retain and engage creative people at work :

1.     Transfer creativity into a strategy for success: Katja Hunter, Creativity Coach, well defines creativity as an open mindset that encourages you to consistently think, feel, and express yourself creatively. As a result, strategic alignment of creativity with organizational goals, people, and culture is key. Make sure that your employer branding promotes a culture that encourages employees to THINK, FEEL, and EXPRESS themselves creatively, no matter what position they are holding. Implement processes and policies that provide CONSISTENCY in promoting the culture of creative behavior.

2.     Show the true value to creativity in job descriptions: Job descriptions are a part of employer branding. They must not only be job-related in defining job duties, requirements, and competencies but also must be consistent with the business necessity and organizational culture. To give a value to creativity, first conduct job analysis, analyze tasks for each job where creativity is a priority skill, and tasks where it can be an asset but not a must. Reflect this information on job descriptions. Be authentic, accurate, and concrete.

3.     Use creativity to welcome your new-bees on-board: Your new employees must feel the creativity-promoting atmosphere from the very first working day, even if it’s a remote job. Engage them in a creative process; lead them with culture and stories inspiring creative mindset. Here are some examples from the top employee on-boarding programs that might give you some fruits for thought while creating your onboarding package.

4.     Hire, train, and develop creative leaders: There is no way to promote a culture of creativity if we lack leaders acknowledging its importance. Whatever policies we have, people interact with people at the end. According to the Gallup Employee engagement survey, "Managers account for at least 70% of the variance in employee engagement scores." So, it’s a priority to train and qualify your management team on creative thinking techniques. This will further empower your leaders to develop and coach creative teams, implement design thinking strategies, raise innovative solutions, and be agile. Likewise, the ultimate goal of your Talent Development Strategy must be the development of emerging leaders, i.e. your creative high potentials.

5.     Measure, assess, and reward creativity: Set performance objectives, create performance measures, and appraise creative actions meeting and/or exceeding company goals. Your employees must know that creativity is not only welcomed but also rewarded. In your Compensation and Benefits program, plan to reward performances and behaviors of creativity-based results. Ways to reward may vary, depending on the level of positive impact on business goals but it’s a MUST.

6.     Implicate creativity in your Health and Safety program: Workplace health and safety impacts a lot on the creativity of a person and the creative process of a job. Train your employees on workplace health and safety, empower and support them in creating and maintaining their healthy environment on their own. Use art as a creative learning tool such as singing, painting, performing, filming, playing, or other ways of expressing the importance of the workplace physical, social, and mental health of employees. You may also benefit from the Comprehensive Workplace Health and Safety (CWHS) Program. It addresses a continuous improvement of the workplace environment through a set of activities aiming to increase the level of workplace creativity, employee co-operation, engagement, retention, organizational loyalty, employee morale, work productivity, and the quality of recruitment.

Recruitment I Employee engagement I Performance I Retention : Strategies for integrating creativity in staffing and recruitment to foster success and innovation in the workplace.

Be creative and love being so!

What about you? What is your story in hiring creative minds or being hired as a creative person?

Share in comments.

About the Author:

Liana Ohanyan is a Strategic HR Business Partner and a contributing author at Phrcert. She serves as an Inclusive HR and Burnout Innovation Lead at Mentametric and Mentaimage. She is also part of the Advisory Committee for Yesworkability Canada. With her expertise in organizational design and inclusive HR practices, Liana focuses on creating sustainable workplace solutions that balance business outcomes with employee well-being.

Connect with the author on LinkedIn.