Are You Making Your Employees Stupid?

Joan Graci is Owner and President of a human capital firm, APA Solutions. She is an industry colleague and also an author of the book, “No More Bad Advice.” Joan makes some very interesting points about this week’s topic, Are You Making Your Employees Stupid? Enjoy this week’s Power Idea.

Let’s face it: We’re all guilty of making assumptions on what keeps our employees engaged. Talent managers often complain about top performers losing enthusiasm for the job or tenured employees who seem to be clocking out earlier each day.

But do we really know what motivates each individual within our ranks to keep the ship from sinking? As leaders, our biased observations can only take us so far when it comes to making good hiring decisions before the whole operation capsizes.

Even if you are lucky enough to find an organization that considers job-specific behaviors when hiring a new team member, they often fail to assess what motivators candidates should ideally possess to qualify as a top performer. As our friend, Bill Bonnstetter, chairman and founder of TTI Success Insights always says, behaviors + motivators = career happiness. And that, my friends, is how you retain a talented, long-term employee – by keeping them happy because they are connected to their work and reside in an employer of choice environment.

Unfortunately, these advanced organizations aren’t the norm. Businesses are benefiting from advances in industries like healthcare and digital technology, but leaders are hesitant to embrace innovations in behavioral sciences as well. The truth is that highly validated assessments reveal a great deal about the human being you are considering to add to your team. If you place a talented person in a low-performing culture that is misaligned with their unique style, they will either naturally adjust to become a low performer, or leave altogether.

Highly validated tools such as TTI Success Insights suite of assessments are super-charged with neuro-scientific studies on how the brain reacts to change, stressful situations and opposing viewpoints. TTI has proven that understanding a person’s behaviors, motivators and competencies allows organizations an inside view of how to leverage their unique talents in the right role. By matching talented professionals with jobs that allow them to exercise their natural behaviors, organizations can create engaged workers who stick around for the long-term.

In the end, the process of building an empowered and engaged workforce begins with understanding the whole person through validated assessments that take a wide view of a person’s behaviors, motivators and competencies. It is even now possible to understand emotional intelligence on the same level, and effectively determine these factors in the job, and then match talent that will be energized and producing much closer to their maximum potential.

Have a Great Week!
Jerry