Behavioral incongruence: The employee attrition driver that no one knows

Behavioral incongruence: The employee attrition driver that no one knows

It's no secret that some roles see more employee attrition than others, and for different reasons. In some roles, lateral mobility is the main driver of attrition, with people frequently job-hopping whenever convenient. Some roles are predominantly seen as a stopgap, particularly for students, with short tenures being expected from staff. Other roles, however, show high levels of attrition and turnover without apparent reason. In these roles, employee misfit just seems to occur more frequently than expected, resulting in a higher turnover rate globally. In these roles, a psychological phenomenon that we call “behavioral incongruence” is often the cause, and has far-reaching implications for employee retention.

In this article, I will outline what behavioral incongruence is, why it impacts employee retention, and how you can use these principles to reduce employee turnover.

What is behavioral congruence?

We know from research in organizational psychology that every role has an ideal personality profile, with key behavioral indicators of performance, retention, engagement, and satisfaction. For example, in sales roles, we know that people who are extraverted, industrious, and resilient tend to do better than people who are introverted, lazy, and emotionally fragile. Conversely, the ideal profile of a software engineer would be very different, with people who are analytical, introverted, and detail-oriented doing better. Each role has its own unique profile, and these profiles can vary significantly from one role to another.

However, there are many roles where that profile includes traits that are very distinct from one another, or even negatively associated with each other. For example, in healthcare professions, staff are required to be empathetic but also thick-skinned. Few people are simultaneously empathetic and thick-skinned; people usually lean toward one or the other. As a result, healthcare professions can be considered “behaviorally incongruent,” as the ideal profile for a healthcare professional is very inconsistent and varied.

Conversely, finance professionals are an example of a highly behaviorally congruent role. Successful finance professionals need to be rational, logical, resilient, and industrious. Highly industrious people tend to be more resilient, as they don’t find pressure, targets, and objectives to be innately stressful. Rational and logical people tend to be more resilient, as they are less susceptible to emotionality and emotional stressors. Rational and logical people also tend to be more industrious, as they can focus solely on objectives without distraction. Overall, this combination of traits is “behaviorally congruent” and thus displays a consistent profile.

How does behavioral incongruence cause attrition?

The biggest problem with behavioral incongruence is that it substantially reduces the number of people who are actually a strong fit for the role. For example, if a role calls for someone who is hardworking, industrious, and driven, but also laidback, relaxed, and slow-paced, almost no one would meet that criterion. These characteristics are substantially inversely related to each other, and so finding someone who is a strong fit all around is very difficult. Inevitably, organizations would settle for people who are either hardworking or laid back, neither of which fully matches the role’s requirements, causing misfit and eventually turnover.

The other issue is that serious misfit is equally rare, and thus people won’t self-select away from the role. For example, people innately know whether or not they want to work in investment banking. For some, a stressful 100-hour workweek sounds like hell on earth, whereas for others that would align perfectly with their personality; we all know where we stand. However, with behaviorally incongruent roles, many people fit to some degree, and thus people cannot be relied upon to self-select. This means that people who are a poor fit apply for the role anyway, as they would meet some, but not all, of the behavioral requirements.

This lack of strong-fitting candidates means that very few people are ideally suited to the role, reducing employee engagement and job satisfaction. Additionally, the higher likelihood of behavioral misfits applying greatly increases employee attrition and turnover, as people need to experience it firsthand before backing out. Because of this, behavioral incongruence can be considered a major driver of employee turnover and attrition in the workplace and can serve as an early warning of future attrition problems down the line.

Conclusion and recommendations

Behavioral incongruence is a little-known problem in organizational psychology, but its effects can be far-reaching. Indeed, HR professionals and business leaders have grown so accustomed to high turnover in certain roles that they don’t even question why anymore; they just accept it. Behavioral incongruence does have a solution, however: the use of personality questionnaires in recruitment. With behavioral assessments, you can literally identify people who may, or may not, be a strong fit for the role and screen accordingly. Poor-fitting candidates can be deselected, and strong-fitting candidates can be progressed, dealing directly with the problem. This gets to the heart of the problem, substantially reducing employee turnover over the long term.