ABC to look in an employee
ften a question arises in the mind as how to recruit and whom to retain. After working for 33 years in various industries worldwide right from junior level management to senior level leadership, I have developed my own formula for employee assessment called ABC.
ABILITY: The first and foremost thing to notice in a candidate is his/her ability to perform the planned role. So,before searching for a candidate it is important to prepare work profile and role profile. Job profile describes a job to be performed by the candidate while role profile describes the exact kind of person required for that job including qualification and relevant experience. In organizations, the level at which you are recruiting and readiness to pay would also form a part of role profile.
Nowadays, reference recruiting happens in most of the organizations. They try to fit a square in a round which puts boththe candidate and the organization in trouble. No candidate is bad or poor; basically it’s the role which is inappropriate that stops him/her to perform at the best. Hence, the role and candidate need to fit together for 100% talent acquisition.
BEHAVIOR: Here ‘Positive-Attitude’ would have been the right word. But, in order to create an acronym ABC, I selected the word ‘Behavior’. Besides ability, positive attitude play vital role in delivering the peak performance. A person will have a positive or negative attitude depending upon his/her inherent qualities, background, education, experiences, training and organizational culture. According to HR professionals, a person can be trained to develop positive attitude but it’s difficult to modify one’s attitude. Human behavior is so unpredictable that they can change their outlook according to the time, people and circumstances.
It is very difficult to judge a person’s behavior in an interview which hardly lasts for 30 minutes at the max. However, there are various scientific methods and tests available to study the mental state of a candidate. It is always better to take the help of experts particularly for important positions. Past reference checks canalso help us in revealing the candidate’s personality traits. At the same time, behavior traits should also be matched with job requirements in order to get 100% from an employee.
Mostly the job profile falls between two extremities. One, where the person is a solo performer and hardly be interacting with others in an organization such as research fellow or games whose lone performance only matters. Second is where team player is absolutely necessary.
CHARACTER: Integrity is the most important quality needed in an employee particularly for long term association. While recruiting we can’t judge whether the candidate is having strong character or not. Except the past reference check, there is no other way to verify integrity of a person. However, few organizations take help of social media sites to check person connections and posts.
Organizations must have a strict policy to eliminate an employee who demonstrates dishonesty. Management face dilemma if an employee is above average or talented but found to be dishonest. My personal opinion is such employees should be terminated without any consideration.
Character Builds Trustworthiness
In spite of having ABC in an employee, you may not get desired result, in such cases there are bright chances that external factors beyond the capacity of the employee are playing critical role.