Once the holiday season is over you’ll likely see an increase in work as everyone who put major projects aside until after the holiday rush attempts to get back into the full swing of things again. As a result, you may or may not need to evaluate whether it’s necessary to add additional employees to your team.

We’ve covered some of the job skills and personal values you should be looking for in new employees before, but today I’d like to add a few more essential traits to the list.

Adaptability

Are your employees and prospects capable of adapting to the changing workplace? They need to be flexible and have the skills necessary to multi-task when there are multiple priorities. Can they look at a list of tasks and determine which ones are more important?

Interpersonal Skills

It’s wonderful to have a team of employees that can effectively communicate with their clients, but even better to have a team of employees that can communicate with each other. Make sure your prospective team members spend some time with your current team members so that you can gauge how well they’d interact.

Teamwork

Most employees must work not only with members of their own team, but with members of other teams as well. For example, your customer service team may have to deal with the IT department or accounting group. They must have strong relationships or work that would otherwise be done quickly may suffer as a result of tension or conflict.

Loyalty

Loyalty is a tricky subject, but in short you want to know that your employees are dedicated to their work even when times are tough. In some instances the company will have to take a stand that sides more with a client than an employee. A loyal employee can look past a professional business decision and remain dedicated to his work despite a disagreement.

Do you and your current team portray these traits? If not, is there anything you can do to change the situation?

Thanks again,
Sean

Sean McPheat
Managing Director
MTD Management Training

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