One of the biggest challenges that employers face these days is finding the right person for the right job. Right now, with so many people out of work and searching for jobs, it’s really easy to find qualified individuals with the right educational background and perhaps even a great level of work experience. But, just because someone has all of the right education and work experience, even then it doesn’t mean that they’re the right fit for the job. What do I mean?
Well, there’s a big difference between being good at your job and loving your job. Doing tasks that you enjoy, that you gravitate towards and that you want to do. I learned this in my own career, where my boss had some key staff people take something called a Kolbe Test. My boss had himself, his office manager, his marketing director, his senior paralegal, 4 of his associate attorneys and myself, as his Executive Assistant and the head of his other B2B company, take the Kolbe A Index test. From this test and our results, he confirmed what he had already known about the way many of his associate attorneys work as well as himself. He was surprised, however, to find out that I was a far bigger risk-taker and creative mind than he had thought previously. He knew I was good at coming up with ideas and giving input, but what he realized was that he had me in a position that was a lot of tedious, busy-work and that the tasks I gravitated towards were the creative tasks and social interaction with people and that those were the tasks that energized and excited me. So, now he’s shifted some of those tasks to another employee capable of handling those tasks and has given me a much bigger and challenging role of running the creative and sales end of the company–things I absolutely love to do and do well!
It is to the benefit of any employer to find an employee that not only thrives in the job role that they have in the company, but that it’s something that naturally fits in their personality tendencies. That someone that likes to research, investigate and be in a position that has to stick by the rules be in a position that establishes and maintains rules. That creative and risk-taking people be placed in positions where they can flourish in their creative energy and can do things that excite them.
People will always naturally gravitate towards roles or tasks that fit in their personality—tasks they love and want to do. What this means is that tasks that their position may be required to do might get done, but it might not be getting done as quickly, efficiently or the best possible way it can be done. People will procrastinate and try to avoid those tasks they don’t like doing or that don’t excite them. So, consider looking into Kolbe testing for you and your staff and see how you might be able to better fit people into their job roles in your company and watch your company’s efficiency and the overall happiness of your employees soar!
This post is brought to you by the good folks at Dale Carnegie Training of Central & Southern New Jersey, leaders in the area of education and training of the nation’s leaders in the areas of team member engagement, customer service, leadership development, and sales and presentation training. We would love to connect with you on Facebook and Twitter.
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