The 27th of January is a special day in the world of AxiaMetrics and Axiology for two reasons.

On this day in 1910 Dr Robert Hartman the ‘Father of Modern Axiology’ was born in Berlin Germany as Robert Schirokaur. He was a brilliant scholar and held a lecturing post at Berlin University and was also an Assistant District Court Judge.

Hartman was forced to flee Germany in 1932 due to his vocal opposition of the Nazi Party. Having experienced Hitler’s rise to power and what he saw as the successful organisation of evil , Hartman dedicated his life’s work to trying to answer the fundamental question of ‘what is good’

Hartman is credited with the discovery that all value has scientific order based on trans-infinite mathematical sets and for developing the hierarchy of the dimensions of thought. By combining these two discoveries he developed the first values based profiling tool, The Hartman Value Profile.

Martin Gilsenan, a father of 3 was also born on the 27th of January (as he is still with us we wont embarrass him by naming the year!) Martin is a partner in AxiaMetrics a UK distributor of the Axia Profile, which is based on Hartmans original work and profile.

Whilst Martin is not yet credited with the significant discoveries of Hartman he believes one of the most significant points in his working life was the discovery of Axiology. Never before had he seen such a detailed and accurate assessment tool. Unlike many flawed psychometrics that rely on subjective questioning the Axia Profile identifies the takers values using an ordering task which provides over 6 quadrillion permutations possible from the Axiological Norm established by Hartman. Essentially it identifies how we think and process information, why we make the judgements we do and the likely behaviour that will follow.

Martin is proud to share his Birthday with Robert Hartman and hopes for the following two achievement in his future:

1. To see QPR win the Premiership

2. That his personal legacy will be having introduced the science of Axiology to both business and education in the UK for the betterment of individuals and companies alike.

There is not a lot of chance of number one but to help Martin achieve number 2 contact AxiaMetrics today to see how this powerful technology can help your organisation.

When calculating the above, most researchers accept that it isn’t simply the salary and benefits of a bad hire they need to measure, painful though this is. They reason, quite correctly, that the “real” cost also includes factors such as reduced team productivity and missed client opportunities. The truth however, is the cost is much, much greater than that.

A bad hire has a profoundly negative effect on co-workers’ productivity and morale and can change their perception of the company “How could they have employed this person?” the rest of the workforce will say to each other, “How could they have got it so wrong?” is what they actually mean.

The biggest cost of a bad hire – by far, is the psychological impact on the leadership of the company – I should know I went through it myself with my 2 co-directors and close friends when we ran our own financial services brokerage between 2003 and 2007. “How did we employ this person?” we quite rightly asked ourselves. Then we had the subsequent cost in management time, coming to the conclusion that we had to get this person out of the company, then finally starting the process to actually do it. This, in turn engenders stress both at work and at home – the conversations with your spouse about that person, about how they drive you absolutely crazy, and about how you can’t believe that you ever offered them a job in the first place? The frustration that “you knew deep down” that you were making a mistake, but made the offer anyway and are now living with the consequences.

What a waste of money! More recruitment and training costs are incurred again – but what are you doing differently? It’s all the more reason to be absolutely sure that you’re making the right choices when it comes to adding new staff. Ask yourself the following – are you using a consistent hiring process to ensure that every open role is afforded the same level of care and attention? Do you have a method of filtering CV’s or applications? Do your staff know the right approach during interviews? Are you conducting thorough reference checks?

You may feel you have learned some lessons about people, one being that clients, customers and colleagues can be upset not only by a bad hire’s incompetence but by their attitude – again though, the same question needs to be asked – what are you doing differently to find out whether a person shares your company’s values?

The answer is simple – use the Axia Profile to underpin your recruitment process. New to the UK and based on Nobel Prize nominated research, this quick, online solution is specifically designed to help employers recruit the right people.

David Cameron, PM in waiting, has elevated education and recruitment to the top of the political agenda . Following research on the education model in Finland (who sit at the top of European academic results) the Tory think tank has concluded that by employing only teachers with a first class honours degree we will dramatically improve our current system.

On first hearing this my immediate reaction was ‘ good on them for wanting to improve standards in education’ but is it as simple as just selecting based on the result of a degree qualification?

Firstly, a first class degree in History or Science does not seek to measure the abilities of a person for the teaching profession. In schools as in business there are many horror stories of teachers both new and experienced who have all the right qualifications but are just not ‘good’ at teaching. It is not as great a sound bite but surely Mr Cameron and his team should be pledging to improve the selection process for teachers so that only the best at teaching get in.

Where is his commitment to benchmarking teachers or creating an elite competency model. Like all jobs in all professions it is a combination of competencies, attitudes and motivations not educational success that identifies the elite from the rest.

Looking at the educational model in Finland there are vast differences from our system, education only starts at age 7, the average age of a university graduate is 28, they do not stream on ability but promote equity and quality. Class sizes are much smaller and the class stays together for all subjects.

Mr Cameron wants to make the ‘Teaching Profession’ more respected by raising standards, but he has overlooked the fact that despite teachers in the UK being paid more than their equivalents in Finland, until the recent economic down turn we were struggling to fill teaching vacancies in the UK. This just goes to confirm what most employers know, paying top dollar and hiring the best educated is not on its own the secret of success.