Change Begins
Poornima Rajan - Misra
June 19, 2024
HIRE FOR ATTITUDE OVER SKILL: WHY ORGANIZATIONS NEED TO KNOW THEIR EMPLOYEES
In the context of global dynamics, employee hiring, and management have become fiercely competitive. The key drivers of the competition are the rapidly increasing advances in innovation and development, the demands of business, and long-term sustainability. Companies are no longer merely seeking candidates with prerequisite skills for a particular role. Instead, there is a growing recognition that the 'right talent' encompasses much more than technical proficiency. This paradigm shift pushes recruiters to look beyond conventional metrics and delve deeper into the attitudes and personalities of potential hires.
What does it mean to understand the attitude and personality of an employee?
Every individual is unique, with a diverse set of thoughts, ideas, opinions, and values. When employees interact within organizations, there is a mutual sharing of ideas and belief systems that heavily influence the culture of the environment. It can affect the dynamics of the organization at every level. Understanding the attitudes and personality characteristics of its members can help steer the organization towards growth.
Why do organizations need to know who their employees are?
Organizational behavior and dynamics are heavily influenced by the personality and attitude of its employees. The following are different outcomes that are directly correlated with employee attitude and personality.
1. Organizational Synchrony:
Most visions and directives are achieved through the cumulative effort of the employees and their leaders. There comes a need where the individual goals and the goals of the organization need to align to bring about the best fit. This phenomenon is best described as synchrony preference where individuals are willing to adjust their pace of work to match with others in the organization to complete a bigger task or deadlines. Organizational synchrony can be achieved by optimizing communication within and between teams and introducing complimentary perspectives, attitudes and ideation styles. It allows for a smooth workflow, lesser escalation and better coordination.
2. Positive Organizational Behavior:
Personality traits have a direct relationship with Organizational Behavior. Numerous Studies suggest the presence of positive personality traits and attitudes related to Optimism, Resilience, Altruism, and Adaptability result in a positive outlook towards work and workplace deadlines while personality traits such as pessimism, passive/ active aggression, cynicism, and rigidity are seen to create negative outcomes in the organization. Understanding the individual’s personality and/or attitude can help provide targeted interventions to help keep the work environment positive for all its members.
3. Proactive teams
It is easier to work with like-minded people. Employees' personalities affect group dynamics. The right mix of personalities can enhance group productivity while grouping people only based on skills can reduce productivity if value systems and communication styles are conflicted. Teams that are brought together with complimentary personality characteristics are seen to directly impact creativity, ideation and problem-solving. The teams perform better in high-stress and critical situations and improve the overall satisfaction of work. Proactive teams become the strength of the organization. while skills can be trained to match the needs of the team/project, personality and attitudes are relatively innate and individual-specific.
4. Organization's Plasticity
Plasticity denotes the tenacity to change and reshape priorities and strategies based on immediate needs. An organization’s plasticity is based on the ability of the employees and the stakeholders of the company to adapt to the rapid changes and demands of business and demands. Adaptability is based on the mindset of the employees and the stakeholders. Many socioeconomic and Socio-political factors threaten organizational plasticity and affect the sustainability of an organization at a micro and macro level. Depending on the environment in which the organization operates, the attitude and personality of its potential employees may need to be revised while skills may remain fixed. It is the personality that determines performance and not the skill.
How to Understand Employee Attitude and Personality?
Every organization must have an approach that best suits their needs hiring and people management needs. The most common strategies for understanding employee attitude are as follows.
In Conclusion:
Knowing the employees within the organization creates an impact towards organizational success. Investing time and resources in understanding the employee helps provide answers for the organizations’ silent concerns of drive, performance and growth. These insights can help in building long-term goals for the organization.
