When hiring your next employees, what do you focus most on, skills or personality and attitude? Most companies focus on the first however, the question is whether this is the right approach. Skills can be learned, personality usually not so much. Hence, when looking at the long term and at critical factors for staffing for growth, more attention should be paid to the candidate´s personality, because if you think about it, how can someone really contribute to the company´s long-term success without sharing the company´s vision and values?
Your values are what your company stands for, what is really important to your company. Think about how Apple got so successful, after all, they were “just” selling (very expensive!) computers. However, it´s what the company stands for that attracts customers, that makes people want to buy an Apple device. Your values are what you want to your company to be known for so in order to transmit this to your customers, your employees need to work in line with these values and your company vision.
Studies show that only very few employees fully know and understand their company´s vision, business strategies and what is expected of them to reach that higher purpose. It is demonstrated that employees in the weakest-performing organizations don´t have a proper understanding of the connection between their work and the company´s vision. This does not only cause confusion for the employee on their role but also leads to lower productivity and worse long-term results for your company.
Hence, one clear action point with respect to your current employees is to make 100% sure everybody fully knows and understands the company´s vision and values, and works accordingly. Again, the companies with the best business results have employees that fully work in line with, or actually live, this vision and your values.
The second action point is related to your future employees, in order to hire for long-term success you need to make sure your hires match your company vision. And this means changing the focus from skills to not just attitude, but also personality and affinity with the company´s values. This does not mean that skills and experience don´t matter, however, if the values and behavior are not matching, you are running the risk of damaging your brand and negatively impacting the ways of working and morale within your organization.
Hiring greatly skilled people that don´t match your company´s vision and values could, if you´re lucky, still get your company ok results. However, if your employees really match your vision and live your values instead of just working with them, you can get great results.
The best way to find out whether a candidate matches your vision and lives your values is by including a series of behavioral and motivational questions in your interview process. It is definitely not enough to ask a candidate whether they will fit in your company´s culture because a well-prepared candidate will know what you want to hear and give you the right answer. By focusing on behavioral and motivational questions, you force the candidate to step out of the prepared, standard answers and to demonstrate how they have dealt in the past with uncertain situations, solving problems and approaching challenges. Based on these answers you can determine whether a candidate could be a good fit or not.
Your end goal should be to hire the best candidates whose skills and personality matches your company´s vision and core values. Only then you are truly hiring for growth and with a long-term mindset.
How do you staff for growth and ensure your employees match your company vision?