Hiring challenges: How to quantify attitude

“People hire for skills, fire for attitude.” So said Jackie Gernaey, president of SevenStar HR, a human resource firm in Port Jefferson, N.Y. Many fab shop owners probably can relate a story or two (or more) to support her statement, which is why so many of them often hire not only for skill, but also for attitude. In many cases, a person’s attitude far outweighs his or her experience—a pragmatic approach, considering few job seekers have fabrication experience anyway. But how does one define “attitude,” and how does one’s attitude make someone a “good fit” for an organization?

To answer that question, Gernaey first described how she groups employees into four categories. Picture a square divided into quadrants. On the top right you have the stars, top performers who share the company’s values. On the top left you have what Gernaey calls the puppies. “Their values meet your values and their attitudes meet your attitude, but they need to be taught.”

On the lower left you have the ghosts, those who don’t share the company’s values and exhibit low productivity—getting rid of these people usually is a no-brainer. But then on the lower-right quadrant you have employees who can cause serious problems; they’re highly productive and yet have the wrong attitude and don’t share the company’s values. Gernaey gives these people a dramatic name—terrorists—and for good reason. “It’s very hard to get rid of these people, but they cause all sorts of problems within the culture of your organization, because they act above it.”

All this said, hiring for attitude makes sense, but how does one do this, exactly? According to Gernaey, most hiring managers probably can’t give a detailed answer. Essentially, they trust employee recommendations and hire with their gut. Giving weight to employee recommendations isn’t a bad thing, but going by a gut feeling is unlike virtually every other process in manufacturing, where managers measure parts per hour, cutting inches or strokes per minute, welding arc-on time, rework percentages, win-to-bid rates, and more.

If you can’t measure it, you can’t improve it, right? Well, few would argue that finding good people is the industry’s greatest problem, so hiring is obviously extraordinarily critical. But if managers hire with their gut, how do they measure that?

One way, Gernaey said, is to define what motivates people. Match a person with certain motivators to the right job, and you get an engaged employee who is happy to come to work. The more they engage and learn, the more productive they become. They start as a puppy and grow into a star, and the more stars a company has, the less a company needs those highly productive but culturally destructive terrorists.

Gernaey’s firm has a test that identifies a series of motivators, and everyone has some of these motivators to varying degrees. The key is to find which combination of motivators dominates.

One universal motivator of course is money. Few would come to work without a paycheck. But money isn’t the only reason, nor is it always the dominant motivator. Learning is another motivator, as is helping, forming harmony and order, and power and leadership. Still others are process-driven.

Gernaey emphasized that everyone has a mix and, indeed, should have a mix. If a person is driven solely by money or an absolutely perfect process (which doesn’t exist), problems arise. But it isn’t bad to have money as a dominant driver, either. Such a motivator can help a salesperson reach his or her sales goals and, ultimately, help a business diversify and grow.

The key is to identify jobs not just by the skills they require, but also by what combination of dominant motivators suits those jobs best. What these are depends on the company. For instance, a sales position might benefit from a combination of motivators; money may be one of them, but another may be “helping” (wanting to help customers solve problems is a good thing). “Process” may not be a bad motivator, either, especially if sales is working with customers who need to solve a process-based problem. As Gernaey emphasized, which combination of motivators fits which position really depends on a company’s market, customer base, and culture.

Technical skill is relatively easy to measure, but how does an interviewer uncover what really motivates an employee? Tests and programs are available, including some from SevenStar HR, which combines motivators with specifically identified behaviors.

That said, Gernaey gave examples of some questions that can help reveal a person’s motivation. For a sales position, an interviewer might ask, “Imagine that your territory has one $1 million client along with 10 $100,000 clients. How would you approach this territory?”

There’s no right or wrong answer, but how people answer can help pinpoint their motivation. Someone who focuses on the big client may be interested in the greatest immediate return on investment and is likely to be bottom line-driven for the near term. This may not be a bad thing, either, depending on a company’s sales and operational goals, as well as existing strengths of the sales team.

Like any other process, hiring isn’t perfect, no matter what tools a manager uses. Regardless, it seems that more businesses, fabricators included, are hiring for attitude, and it’s nice to know they can use more than their gut to gauge it.

SevenStar HR, www.sevenstarhr.com