How do you know if you have a good person-to-position match-up? The obvious answer would be a happy, productive, engaged and motivated employee. If this is so simple then why are so many employees and employers unhappy with each other? The answer to this question begins with the employer’s awareness of the employees’ natural behavior and communication preferences. This awareness stems from believing that each employee is a unique individual with natural talents and abilities, and with one important common need: to be happy.
Matching people to jobs enables you to reduce the amount of “training” that an individual needs to get them up to speed in their job. Different products demand different behaviors to be successful in selling them and in relating to the customer buying them. High priced fashion apparel requires a totally different behavior than children’s clothing. As does selling shoes compared to selling intimate apparel. Don’t forget to put into this equation the company culture—what I call “company behavior.” Victoria’s Secret is NOT Gap or vice-versa.
This is also not just about skills and knowledge. Some of the most knowledgeable salespeople can’t meet their goals. Why? They don’t have a value and belief system to support and justify what they are selling. And here’s where understanding values and beliefs in conjunction with behaviors rounds out the picture and provides you an “MRI” into the employee or applicant.
To determine an applicant’s or a current employee’s behavior preferences you begin by asking the person to complete a simple 15 minute online assessment. After completion, a behavior profile report is then generated. A behavior profile is not a complete indicator of a person’s suitability to the job or to the organization. Rather it serves as a signpost directing you to dig deeper and profile that person’s underlying beliefs and values – the true motivators of success and failure.
People today are sophisticated, savvy, and street smart. Whether they have degrees or not they are educated. They can’t help but be. Survival today depends on wit. Wit comes from witnessing – watching and being. Too much is out there not to notice. This developed seventh sense is like a search engine. It zeros in and finds exactly what is needed at the moment, for the moment. In an interview this search engine hones in on the interviewer and determines quite quickly what is needed. The responses that follow may or may not be true – but they sure can be accurate. Stories and examples are many from managers who were “bamboozled” by applicants that were too good to be true. They were.
When you clearly know yourself, know your organization, know your employees, productivity and profitability are the natural outcomes.
