26 May Importance of Workplace Compatibility for New Hires
Hiring team members that are compatible with one another is easier said than done. For one, pinpointing what makes individuals within a team click with one another is difficult to define. Ask a highly capable team what makes them work together so well, and you’ll likely get a myriad of different answers. On top of that, what works for them might not work for other teams.
So what do you do? Clearly, workplace compatibility is extremely important for making sure your business operations run as intended and to lower turnover rates. In fact, one in ten workers who leave their jobs do so because of conflicts arising from incompatibility with their team. When team members leave, work morale lowers, leading to reduced levels of productivity.
To ensure that your new hires are compatible with your existing team, here are three questions you need to ask yourself before bringing them on.
Are Their Personalities Compatible?
When you’re looking to hire compatible personalities, it’s not about hiring a team that all think, feel, and act the same way. In a team like this, their weaknesses are amplified. This makes a team less flexible and severely limits the types of problems they can tackle on their own. Hiring different personalities that have different approaches when it comes to problem-solving instantly expands the number of issues they can handle, but how do you make sure everyone gets along?
As a manager, you can begin by fostering open communication between your current team and your new hire. Allow them to understand each other’s communication styles and work preferences without the fear of negative consequences. Through open communication, employees with different personalities are able to build trust in one another, and eventually develop an understanding of each other’s needs. When team members can proactively address one another’s needs, you can avoid conflict and achieve workplace harmony.
Are Their Values Compatible?
When businesses are understaffed, it can be easy to rush through the interview process and bring on a new hire whose values don’t line up with the rest of the team. Unfortunately, this will eventually lead to conflict. Values like work ethic, respect for fellow team members, and empathy directly inform how an employee will carry out their work, and in many instances, should be prized over technical skills. After all, technical skills can be taught, but values are vastly harder to teach.
Do Their Motivations Match?
What brings your employees to work every day? Is it the work they do? The people they meet? Do they believe in your company’s cause? Motivations can vary from employee to employee, but when they’re incompatible, conflicts can occur. For example, a new hire that is merely motivated to collect a paycheck may not work well with an employee who is motivated to perfect a product they’re working on, leading to disagreements and strife between the two employees.
To prevent this from happening, it’s important to both evaluate your candidate’s motivations during the interview process and to understand what motivates your current team. When motivations match, employee engagement rises, allowing them to produce high-quality work.
A team that synergizes well with one another is more likely to be satisfied with their workplace too, and satisfied employees are more likely to act as good ambassadors for your company. When you hire new team members with compatibility in mind, you’ll be able to create a happy and productive work environment.
