In US businesses today, depending on where you are (geographically) the market may vary somewhere between soft and excruciating. Among the areas this difficulty impacts is Personnel: who to keep, who and whether to hire, what to look for, etc. If you have read other posts here, you know that we are raving fans of objective, measurable tools for any effective recruiting program. But, here’s another truth that seems to become clearer each day, “Companies hire for competency and fire for Character.”
If you are dubious, make a quick mental inventory of those you have hired in the last several years. Is there anything FORMAL in your interviewing and hiring process which is targeted at understanding and uncovering the character of the individual? If there is, how integral to the process is it? Now think of those who have been let go for any reason other than getting out of a certain business, line, or geographic area. What made you choose which to keep, which to redeploy, retrain, etc.?
The next thing to review is even where you find exceptions (terminating/retaining based on competency), there is a fine line between competencies in the open, and those inexorably tied to specific, identifiable traits such as dependability, flexibility, attentiveness, diligence, and the like.
How can a company take this truth and make it useful?
ü Work character into your existing corporate culture. Make sure that managers know what is being sought in employees—specifically. Understand what the traits mean and what they look like on display.
ü Consider drawing it into your job descriptions—formally. Use character words like enthusiasm and boldness in describing the sales profile for success. Use alertness and responsibility in describing the ideal accounting department.
ü Praise and correct based on the underlying character qualities on display. You’ll find it has a greater and longer lasting effect on performance than praising or correcting based on the outward achievement (or lack of) which result.
This penny has dropped for our organization in the last year and we are very much a work in progress, still. There are organizations much farther along in effectively recognizing character but all of them, that I am aware of, began by making a commitment to elevate the importance of character in everything they do.
Does your organization have a character focus, already? Do the newest people understand the importance of character in their job performance? Are those tasked with interviewing and hiring looking for signs of positive character qualities in their candidate matrices?