Why you should hire for attitude and behavior, and not skill
In this article, we've tried looking at the problem from a different perspective. If you need loyal and trustworthy people, we believe you need to stop checking only the candidates’ skills and start looking at their attitude and personalities as a point to hire from. In other words, you need to hire for a good cultural fit. Here's why.
Hire for Attitude to Avoid Cost and Disappointment
Tony Hsieh, the recently retired CEO of Zappos, one of the biggest online shoe and clothing stores, explains in an interview to Inc. Magazine that bad hires result in $7.5 million in additional costs for the company per year.
As huge as that amount sounds, we believe that it doesn't even begin to cover the entire loss.
Material Costs
When an employee departs from your company too early, you are left with a number of expensive loose ends and wasted resources:
you still have to pay the recruiting agency;
your internal HR managers have a sunken cost to processing all of the paperwork;
your team lead and a few team members have wasted time onboarding the newcomer;
your ex-employee will have received paychecks for unfinished work and/or limited contribution;
you may have paid for medical insurance for your ex-employee;
This list is only partial; the point is, there are a lot of expenditures involved in each new hire and onboarding that go to waste when an employee leaves. In the worst cases, the firing procedure may cost some money as well.
Psychological Impact on the Team
Remember, your employees value stability on the team. Every time someone has to leave — even if each team member agrees that it is necessary — it is exceptional situation that may disrupt normal routines in your company. This is especially the case if unpleasant events preceded the dismissal. In addition to the financial impact, therefore, a failed hire has significant psychological impact.
Hire For Attitude, Train For Skill
Top Five Reasons for Employment Termination
There are several reasons an employee might be fired, and understanding these reasons can help you to understand why an unfortunate hire can influence the whole company and its core team. According to the Balance, the top reasons for termination include:
inflicting damage on the corporate property;
drug and alcohol consumption at work;
manipulation of company records;
subordination violation;
various kinds of general misconduct, including sexual harassment of co-workers.
What a quick look at this list reveals is that many of the behaviors underlying failed hire situations are the result of a wrong attitude on the part of the employee. These attitudes are not something you can easily train an adult person to change, emphasizing the importance of hiring for attitude.
Hire for Cultural Fit
The solution is to prioritize applicants based on their working attitudes in the first place. Experts say that a candidate with a positive attitude towards work and customers but little industry experience may be preferable to one who has spent years doing the same job but has failed to develop a proper attitude.
Cultural fit goes beyond any particular industry. Attitude is embedded in the personality and will manifest itself regardless of any training. Hiring for attitude can help you avoid the risk of a failed hire. Training for skill but hiring for the attitude is important for your company’s climate, short-term costs, and long-term overall performance.
Train for Skill: Meaning
When you hire for attitude rather than skill, you may need to boost your new hire's skills in certain areas. The good news is that, unlike attitudes, skills are something we obtain when we are already adults and can pro-actively filter knowledge and behavioral patterns. We can also reject training if we feel it’s contrary to what we stand for. We consume and integrate skills consciously, and we can be trained to develop new skills.
There are numerous methods to train your new employee for skills. Here are a few of the most common ones.
On-the-Job Training
You can consider this as a kind of advanced onboarding. Your existing employees will need to invest a bit more time explaining to the newcomer basic things that are not only specific to your business but the industry in general.
On-the-Job Training
You can consider this as a kind of advanced onboarding. Your existing employees will need to invest a bit more time explaining to the newcomer basic things that are not only specific to your business but the industry in general.
Onsite Training
There are various onsite training courses for corporate clients that can teach your employees pretty much anything. Look for a provider that offers courses for beginners and book a place for your new staff member.
Online Courses
In the digital era and especially during the pandemic, this option may be both more attractive and cheaper than other options. Nowadays, there are hardly any professional spheres for which you cannot find an online academy. These online training platforms can provide a very high level of education.
Tips for Improving Your Employment Process
So, how do you go about hiring people with the right attitudes? There are two possible directions for improvement:
a better frontend for your hiring process;
digging into manager and team-member feedback about your ex-employees, including performance reviews and exit reviews.
Technical Solutions for HR
Do not hesitate to engage technical solutions to improve your hiring process frontend. Technology allows you to save time and track the recruitment progress more carefully.
It can also help to make assessments and reviews less personal, boosting the effort that your employees put into them.
Performance Reviews
Performance reviews or surveys can be used to perform a machine-based analysis to generate precious insights and come up with efficient actions. They are a valuable source of employee data.
A lot of people feel uncomfortable when they have to talk about their concerns during a one-to-one in-person or virtual meeting. Completing a well-prepared survey may be a good alternative, allowing your people can invest as much time as they want to.
Long reviews provide useful information but take time to finish. If you need up-to-date information, stick to pulse surveys: short questionnaires.
Exit Reviews
When someone leaves, you can capture your team's unique insights with an exit review. An exit review can take the form of an electronic questionnaire sent after an employee leaves, capturing key perspectives before they are dimmed by the passage of time.
Conclusion
You don't need to go through the painful learning process of hiring and firing the wrong people. Keep your team strong and dedicated by letting only people with the right attitude join it. Team Rocket can help you build a technology-supported hiring strategy that will hold your team together and protect your company from costly mistakes. Grow your team strategically with Team Rocket.