By | David Klaasen | Helping You Create Clarity, Inspire Your People & Drive Performance | Retain your best people | Changing Management Mindsets and Behaviour | Practical Behaviour Analytics
What makes an ideal team player? What qualities would you want them to demonstrate? How do you assess job applicants or even current members of your team, to make sure that they have the qualities you want?
I frequently get asked these questions because it is a constant challenge for managers to select the best candidates for the job, especially in a very tight labour market. The cost of getting it wrong can be very high. The other day I was speaking to a senior manager who told me that shortly after he joined a business he had to remove a middle-manager who was causing a lot of damage. There was massive inconsistency in this manager’s department due to his management style and his behaviour was causing very high labour turnover. It was also causing unnecessary friction with other departments. A previous manager had employed him and not addressed the issue allowing it to fester. This can sometimes happen because of our personal biases and it is not unusual to go into denial about the initial bad decision to hire that individual in the first place. It can also be that the thought of having to replace a manager is just too stressful to think about. However, all of this can be avoided by taking some care with recruitment in the first place.
Eligibility and Suitability
While it is relatively easy to assess the ‘eligibility’ of a candidate by checking their CV and references, it is far trickier to measure their ‘suitability’. Eligibility defines the key skills, experience and qualifications that show a person has the capability to do the job. Suitability looks at whether the individual is a good fit for the role, including the culture and values of the business. It is important to be able to check suitability and assess if candidates have the right combination of traits that ensure they will enjoy the role and become passionate about it because it plays to their natural strengths. It is also important to assess if their behavioural tendencies are a good fit with the way you want people to interact with one another.
