Total Person Analysis
Today’s economy is challenging each and every organization to take a deeper look at its employees and what motivates them. But how do you truly measure the total person?
Many companies have one or two ways to measure what a person brings to the job. The fact of the matter is that people are complex, and one or two views of them will not give an organization enough information to hire, develop or motivate a person.
Behavioral assessments are one of the most popular tools used. They’re great for communication and basic management ideas. However, behavioral assessments only look at HOW a person does something. It won’t tell WHY a person would do something or even if they CAN DO what the job requires.
By looking at how a person acts, why they act and what skills they have, an organization can start to place people in the right positions, develop them according to their needs and tap into their own intrinsic motivators. Each and every organization needs to be taking a total person analysis approach in order to minimize limitations, maximize strengths and increase overall productivity.
TTI has more than seven assessments to look at the person and over five ways to look at the job. This allows any organization to get a full view of what a person brings to the workplace as well as what the job requires. When the two are in sync, productivity and job satisfaction will skyrocket.
Behaviors, Skills or Attitude?
What’s more important when hiring or developing employees, behavior, skills or attitude?
This is a trick question and cannot be answered without identifying the job. During the hiring process, all of these aspects need to be considered because people bring their knowledge, skills, behavior and attitudes along with them to the job. If you are biased and only look at one part of the person, chances are they won’t work out.
If the job could talk, it would explain precisely what is necessary to achieve superior performance. We could ask the job to tell us about:
Knowledge required
Personal attributes (skills)
Hard skills vital for the job
Behaviors necessary to perform at peak levels
Intrinsic rewards
Proper attitude
Listening to the job talk is difficult. Only when recruiters or managers have identified and acknowledge their biases can they deliver a true set of job requirements that will lead to superior performance.
Many hiring managers and recruiters are willing to defend their emotional biases. But these biases create a blind spot and, sometimes, make it impossible to actually hire the right person.
The best way to strip away biases is with an impartial facilitator. A skilled facilitator can lead subject matter experts into discovering the real performance issues for any job.
If you cannot hear the job talk or if you are not happy with the performance of the people you are hiring, you need to contact your TTI Value Added Associate to lead you through the process. Your ROI will reflect one of your best investments in 2010.
