How to help employees succeed?
It’s expected that people are varied in their skills and ability to interpret, learn, and process information. For people in the workforce it’s no different, and can be challenging when you factor in the following considerations:
- Generational gaps
- Company culture
- Personality differences
- Leadership styles
- Individual adaptability and willingness to learn
- Previous employment experience
Learning how employees work best can ensure managers and employees have a productive, healthy, and efficient working relationship. Additionally, this ensures you have the right people doing their best work and helping the company to grow from the inside out. A study found that 78% of hiring managers and CEOs stated “personality” was a more important factor in hiring than skill set.
Resources to Help Employees Succeed
It can be challenging to accommodate a generous mix of styles to appeal to a variety of employees. But incorporating visual cues, auditory stimulation, kinesthetic experiences, or a mix of each stimulus to maximize retention and employee engagement, minimizes these challenges. Managers juggle this unique communication hurdle daily to foster teamwork and are often aided by resources, such as The Predictive Index. It helps to provide insight, using scientific assessments, into workplace behavior and how to recognize strengths and put employees in the best position to lead, follow, and be successful. This particular resource helps managers to know how employees react to leadership styles, how they might prefer appreciation displayed, and the level of oversight necessary to get the most employee engagement.
Other resources, such as Gallup’s Clifton Strengths and the DISC Profile Personality Test, eliminate some of the mystery of knowing how people think or will react to feedback by giving managers the opportunity to recognize strengths and relate to employees on their own level. For example;
- Would a direct approach be best or do you prefer a more soft delivery?
- Are facts and figures necessary for comprehension because the employee needs to understand the why as well as the what, when, and where?
- Is the person reserved and needs to have more trust built before they consider your input viable?
- Do the relatable personal interaction and social nature of the employee’s personality drive them, and foster collaboration, making them an excellent team players?
Outside Assistance
If you’re not sure what the best move is for your company and hiring team, consultants are a great way to bring an outside perspective in to evaluate and assess where you need to improve. If this is the route your company decides to take, be sure to take their feedback to heart and execute change or this will be an empty gesture and counterproductive.
Focus on the Good
Encouraging a healthy atmosphere where employees are doing their best work, means your business is doing what it does best. Focusing on your core competencies ensures you have a distinct piece of the market. Considering partnering with a BPO firm for services that aren’t meshing with your core focus to free up your unique blend of employee personalities and business offerings.
By delving into how your employee learns and best gives and receives feedback employees feel supported and contribute greatly to the health and success of a company. When employees feel supported and heard buy-in is increased, managers see morale rise, productivity and company culture improve, and misunderstandings decrease. Overall, happy employees foster teamwork, encourage positive company culture, and help retain competitive talent that helps all of your employees do their best.
