Employment Screening | How to Help Your Employees Be More Professional Pt. 2
Employment Screening | Post-hire: Help your employees become more self-aware. If you already have an employee who has the top three soft skills that you want, great. Help him or her develop the other soft skills needed to succeed at your company, whether it be through a workshop or conference or with the help of a mentor from your organization. If the employee does not have the soft skills required, you need to ask yourself, based on his or her personality and performance, if those skills can be developed. If needed, get some feedback from your human resources department or others on your leadership team. Ask for help and input. One first step to rectifying the situation can be to require all employees to take a personality or career assessment. This will help them learn more about themselves and their strengths as well as what they need to work on, and it will help you identify other team members who may be able to help them. Go over the results with the employee, and from there, help him or her set two to three goals for the next two months. Develop a plan together for how to tackle the issues, and provide the employee with the support or tools needed to do so. Set a date to review the results. –
Create an ongoing process to help employees improve. A one-time test generally isn’t enough to help employees become more polished. Remember that an employee is a long-term investment that needs long-term care. This could mean starting with an assessment you will commit to use with your team, like the StrengthsFinder assessment, followed by aseries of check-ins with employees that focus on soft skills. Every time you have a performance review, build that into the agenda. If needed, you can have him or her shadow more experienced employees at certain times or become a part of a mentoring program. Decide what would work best with your culture and for this employee’s role, but it is important to have a program in place and set the intention for a positive impact. Make sure your employees know that your program is designed to help them become better employees and more successful in their careers, and that it won’t be used as a measuring stick to grade them. If it’s not working or the employee is unwilling to grow and improve, it may be time to consider whether he or she is a fit in the long run. But in the meantime, if you are implementing an improvement program, give employees the tools and best chances to improve. -US News