Hire For Attitude Train For Skills!

Hiring for attitude is about building a distinctive workplace culture and company brand that, unlike skill sets, can’t easily be copied in the market. It’s what gives companies like those mentioned above their unique character - and competitive advantage.

For better or worse, attitude affects performance. It has a profound impact on the way you lead people. It affects the way you sell and the way you serve customers. It impacts how you communicate and collaborate with others, how you contribute to the culture of your work environment, and how you perform your daily tasks and responsibilities. In other words, your attitude has a great impact on your success and your overall happiness.

Why you should hire on attitude instead of skill? Here are the reasons…

1. You’ll have a wider pool of candidates

As mentioned, it’s rare to ever find a person that ticks every box on your criteria list. When you look too closely at skill set you give yourself blinkers that could prevent you from seeing the ideal candidate – one that’s eager to learn, carries a strong work ethic, and possesses a winning personality. This person may even carry a skill set you didn’t even realize was of value to you.

2. Necessary skills change fast

Today’s technical requirements for businesses are constantly evolving, meaning the tools you are using right now might not be the ones you are using in three or four years. What’s the point of hiring someone based on the knowledge that they are familiar with Quick books if you’re only going to start using a different invoicing tool else down the track? Your focus should be on whether or not the person you are interviewing is willing to keep up with new advances, not whether or not they are skilled at this present time.

3. Your staff will spend more time on productive activities

Time sucking practices like gossip and rumor mills are often born from negative attitudes – people who are looking for the worst in people and situations. This kind of behavior distorts the noise of the office and leads to unproductive and inefficient cultures. People possessing great attitudes, however, fly above the negative chatter and keep focus on the activities that matter.

4. It’s more fun

“Fun” might not be at the top of your priority list when hunting for a new employee, but fun is definitely conducive to a positive workplace environment. It’s often said that we spend more time with our coworkers than we do with our family and friends, so why not align yourself and your company with people you enjoy being with? If everyone in the office was a bit more “fun”, you’d be amazed by how quickly your company could surpass its goals.

5. They’ll have more ‘wins’

A positive person knows how to celebrate the small wins, which usually turn out to be great motivators for big wins. A positive person knows that a daily win (while seemingly trivial at the time) is where successes start and they use this knowledge to fuel them to further success. Big goals are not accomplished overnight and it takes a positive person to see this.

6. It makes for great team leading

A positive attitude allows a person to embrace the “we” instead of the “me”. Positive thinking is the base for good leadership skills and helps a person to see the bigger picture. Rather than focusing only on what an individual can do, a positive person will look at what’s possible when people work together.

7. Current attitude is a window to the future

The single best predictor of future behavior is past behavior. Your personality essentially stays the same throughout your life. Introverts stay introverts. Extroverts stay extroverts. Of course there are factors that can change the way a person thinks, but if you want to know how a person will perform for your company, you can generally take a look at their attitude.

8. A positive attitude creates opportunities

A negative attitude is the result of negative thinking. It focuses on the problem and stops looking for solutions or opportunities. A positive attitude, on the other hand, is the result of a disciplined and deliberate way of seeing, thinking and responding to life. It sees and acknowledges problems and then focuses on finding solutions and opportunities. A positive attitude lets you look at a problem and use it to create opportunity.

Remember, you can teach someone additional skills and experience will be gained over time. Attitude and personality are traits someone either has or doesn’t have. While you may be able to adjust someone’s attitude or see an improvement in personality, it is a lot easier to start with these traits in place.

@Kishor Puthiyathu