Fingerprinting | How to Help Your Employees Be More Professional

More and more, employers are having a hard time finding polished, professional employees who understand how to handle themselves well in the workplace. They may complete their tasks on time, have extraordinary talent or skill for their work, but they don’t behave professionally. They may be too direct with a supervisor and not as respectful as they should be. They ask for too much, they are too laid-back, they don’t know how to interact professionally with clients or they don’t seem to have a filter to know what is inappropriate at work. If this sounds familiar in your workplace, please know you are not alone. Here are three tips to help ensure your employees are professional.

Pre-hire fingerprinting: Ask the right questions when you are hiring. Professional polish is a combination of soft skills that make an employee more valuable. The required soft skills vary depending on the industry, the corporate culture and the employee’s role in the organization, but there are some basics as well, including being punctual, knowing how to work effectively on a team, having time-management skills, being able to communicate effectively with your co-workers and clients, and knowing how to behave at a professional meal. Sometimes employers focus so much on finding someone qualified for a position that they don’t ask the right questions to make sure the employee has the right soft skills. It is important to identify the top three soft skills in addition to the hard skills and experience that an ideal employee for the job should have. If an employee will be dealing with clients, will he or she know how to be professional yet friendly over the phone, or would his or her personality scare away potential clients? At the interview stage, try questions like: “When do you feel the most productive?” or “What has been the most difficult project you’ve worked on?” or “What inspires you to go to work every day?” The answers will help you get a feel for the candidate’s personality and what soft skills he or she can bring to the table. During the interview, notice nonverbal as well as verbal communication to get a sense of how the candidate conducts himself or herself. If it’s not a fit, move on to the next candidate. -US News