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Client LoginIn personal healthcare, treating only symptoms without addressing underlying causes leads to recurring illness. The same principle applies to talent acquisition. When organisations face disengagement, turnover, and underperformance, they often respond by simply filling vacancies—treating symptoms rather than causes.
Traditional contingency recruitment operates reactively, activating only after problems arise. This approach:
👉 Focuses on immediate skill replacement
👉 Evaluates candidates superficially
👉 Overlooks team dynamics and cultural alignment
👉 Loses out on attracting passive candidates (80-90% of talent pool)
👉 Creates a cycle of recurring issues
According to Gallup's State of the Global Workplace Report (2023), 68% of employees report feeling disengaged at work. Meanwhile, the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM, 2022) estimates that replacing an employee costs up to 200% of their annual salary. Despite these alarming statistics, many organisations continue treating symptoms through outdated recruitment methods.
The underlying causes of workplace challenges typically include:
👉 Misalignment between people and positions
👉 Lack of insight into team dynamics
👉 Poor cultural integration
👉 Lack of employee self-awareness
👉 Treating people as interchangeable parts rather than whole individuals
Like a doctor prescribing medication to lower blood pressure without addressing the underlying cause (e.g., unhealthy diet, lack of exercise, lifestyle etc.), organisations addressing vacancies without examining these fundamental issues ensure problems will recur.
Holistic hiring methodologies like Ihon Holistic Hiring™ address root causes by:
👉 Assessing & developing team dynamics pre- and post-hire
👉 Analysing behavioural job requirements within the organisational ecosystem
👉 Engaging comprehensively with the market to attract passive & active talent
👉 Ensuring cultural alignment between candidates and organisations
👉 Provide self-development tools post hire
👉 Considering candidates and employees as whole people with complex attributes
This approach transforms recruitment from a reactive exercise into a proactive, co-creative exercise and strategic function with preventative benefits.
Research demonstrates compelling ROI for holistic approaches:
👉 Organisations using multiple assessment tools experience 39% lower turnover (Deloitte)
👉 Companies with improved candidate evaluation report 70% better quality of hire (Brandon Hall Group)
👉 Teams with high psychological safety show 76% higher engagement (CIPD)
👉 High-performing agile teams delivered 30-50% improvements in productivity (McKinsey & Company)
While treating symptoms may seem expedient, addressing causes proves more economical long-term.
Investing in holistic hiring practices such as Ihon Holistic Hiring™ offers exceptional value through co-creative pricing, sharing risk & reward—a collaborative approach where costs are aligned with organisational needs and shared outcomes—yielding significant returns through enhanced performance, engagement, and retention.
Shifting from symptomatic to causal approaches requires a mindset shift:
👉 "What has this person done?" but rather "What could this person become?"
👉 We hire on Skill and fire on Behaviour; shift to hire on Behaviour and develop the Skills
👉 Shift from a B2B relationship (transactional) to a B4B partnership (co-creative)
👉 Shift from Scarcity Mindset to Growth Mindset
👉 Shift from Reactive Contingency to Proactive Co-Creating Strategy
👉 Shift from Treating the Symptom to Treating the Cause
Just like a holistic health approach produces better health outcomes, holistic hiring creates healthier organisations. By addressing the causes rather than symptoms of workplace challenges, organisations can build resilient, engaged teams capable of adapting to our rapidly changing work environment.
The question isn't whether you can afford to implement holistic hiring practices—it's whether you can afford to continue treating only symptoms.
The path to organisational health begins with diagnosing the true causes of workplace challenges.
If this resonates with you as an alternative way of thinking, and way of working, I would love to hear your perspective.
By Marc Leslie, Creator of Ihon Holistic Hiring™