Having the right staff can be the difference between your business failing or succeeding. Many entrepreneurs make the mistake of hiring people based on skills that can be quantified (Technical skills).
Completely ignoring the social and people skills of an employee. Having professional skills is great but your employee needs to be a person that everyone else can get along with as well.
Here are 7 additional skills that your potential employee must bring to the table.
1. Maintain Positivity
Your employees do not need to be walking rays of sunshine, but they do need to generally be positive.
Working at a business is stressful at the best of times, and having an employee stay on point with a good attitude can help keep morale steady and the company chugging along. A negative person can quickly turn a bad situation worse, so you don’t want them on your team at all.
You want people who are easy going but not too much. Like they should take work seriously while maintaining a fun environment.
2. Healthy Confidence
Onboarding can only do so much to prepare an employee, and while a little hand-holding is understandable at the start, you cannot – and should not – hover over an employee’s shoulder. Any employee you hire must be confident enough to handle themselves in a new environment. They should be friendly and able to handle a budget if necessary. That confidence will not only help ensure their productivity, it will help them work with your existing team a lot better.
3. Emotionally Mature
Emotional maturity is critical in any employee you hire. No matter how well each employee fits into your company culture, personality differences will still exist and need to be managed. Emotionally mature employees can manage themselves and stay productive, even if they do not personally enjoy a co-worker’s personality or company. That said, if you picked the right group of people, there shouldn’t be any conflicts between your employees in the first place. So make sure you pick employees who are not just good at what they do, but are good people as well.
4. Be Independent
You will have a lot on your plate as an entrepreneur. Most of your time should be spent on big picture goals, which will leave your employees alone to fend for themselves.
Each member of your team should not only be independent enough to take action, but should also know when they should refer to you or another superior if they do not know what to do. Either way, a strong independent is sometimes downright necessary to help you make the touch decisions.
So always look for employees who are great team leaders. As these are the people who are mostly independent as well.
5. Have Great People Skills
Everyone you hire should function well in a team. While there are tasks that can be handled by the person themselves, there are many times when working with everyone else is mandatory. At the bare minimum, each employee will need to coordinate with others to implement their duties, goals, and progress. Anyone who cannot work well with others and lacks people skills will be detrimental to your small business’s overall productivity. Even if they are great at what they do, lack of people skills can really hurt the employee and in turn, your company.
6. Flexible and Adaptable
People who work in a business will not only have to wear different hats, but will deal with a variety of situations on a daily basis. Your startup, for example, may need to pivot to match the market, and your employees will need to roll with it. If an applicant is not flexible or adaptable enough for your small business, you should not hire them. It’s really as simple as that. You want people who are flexible as it’s a great sign of a future entrepreneur.
7. Accountable and Takes Responsibility
Mistakes will be made, and that is OK. Your employees are human. What is ultimately critical is how they handle themselves afterwards. If they shift blame or refuse to take responsibility for what they have done, they do not belong in your team. They will ruin morale and worse, will not improve after their mistakes.
For the most part, you will need to discover whether or not applicants have those traits through interviews with them, and by checking their references and history. It might be difficult, but that’s part of your lot as an entrepreneur.
So as you can see, picking an employee is no easy task. Picking and employee that actually is an idea, definitely requires some deep research and unfortunately, trial and error. It’s just part of the game.
However, once you get past the hurdle of creating your ‘core’ team of superstars, your business will start to grow at record pace.
