Ask any employer what their greatest problem is and 99 out 100 will say either
- attracting and keeping good staff or
- building an effective team with the staff I do have
With high economic growth and the retirement of baby boomers it’s getting extremely difficult for many employers to find and keep people.
What can you the employer do about it?
Firstly you have to understand that there are two major groups of potential employees in the market place - the X & Y Generations.
Unlike the "good old days" these two groups are not’t just looking for a pay packet – they’re looking for meaning in what they do.
If they don’t find it in your organisation they’re happy to move on.
Mind you, if they do, watch out because they are dynamite.
The difficultly for employers is trying to establish this elusive “meaning” they're looking for.
And this brings us to the second thing you need to understand. Sadly, many of the potential employees don’t even know what it is. What they do know is when that "certain something" is missing from the workplace.
To make matters worse Generation Y are more concerned than any generation with having their "values" met. Unfortunately they can’t describe exactly what those values are.
This is where profiling can help!
Aside from other things the Prosperity DNA profile clearly identifies the three elements of
- self confidence,
- self respect and
- self esteem for each of the different profiles.
It also identifies the seven core values for each of the profiles.
Armed with this information you can
- Make sure a job is structured in such a way that it suits a certain profile
- Advertise the job in a certain way to attract that profile
- Interview to ensure you’ve got the right profile
- Provide the right non financial reward to people
If you are interested in learning and using this knowledge to attract and keep the best staff I suggest you look at the Q&D (Quick and Dirty) half day workshop for busy executives and entrepreneurs.
We take eagles and teach them to fly in formation.
Elsewhere I've mentioned the need to SCORE your team and how profiling can help improve the score.
The more cohesive the team the higher the score and th more productive the team is.
So how do you build a team?
There are several critical steps:
Defining your place in the organisation Each member of the team needs to understand what makes them tick, how they approach work and how these inbuilt talents and skills can be used effectively within the team/project. Specifically they need to consider how they
- contribute to developing the strategy,
- clearly define and meet their roles and responsibilities,
- communicate effectively
- respond to changes
- interact with the team leader
Shared understanding of the different profiles and what and how each contributes to effectiveness of the team. Understanding yourself is an excellent starting point but understanding and truly appreciating others is critical to contributing effectively.
As Stephen Covey pointed out in 7 habits of Highly Effective People seek to understand before being understood.
For example which of the following eight reasons for being on the team most closely resembles you:
- Possibility to provide independent analytical viewpoint
- Possibility to provide structured logical plan
- Work with a team in a supportive atmosphere with no conflict
- Work in an area that aligns with my personal beliefs
- I can use my knowledge of the past to good effect
- I can use my ability to pick up on things happening right now to make an impact on the project
- I can look for future patterns and their implication son what we do now
- I can create a picture of what the future could be
Of the remaining 7 is there any that you would not want on the team? Now some may be engaged full time, others part time and still others on a contract/consultancy basis. But I think you would agree that each of these different profiles have a tremendous amount to contribute. And that brings us to the next point,
Putting that understanding to use in the team Having people with the necessary skills and talents does not automatically mean that they will be efficient and effective.
You need to recognise that just as each profile has something unique to offer the team they also have non strengths.
Traditionally called weaknesses the typical response to waste money on training.
Ultimately, reorganising tasks to suit profiles is far more cost effective and rewarding for staff.
Building an effective team really is that simple. Now there are a number of different ways profiling can be introduced to help you but you may want to look at some of the specific benefits for business, government and not for profit groups
Otherwise you can jump straight to the sections for
| 
