Are You Hiring "We" or "Me" Candidates?

Our focus continues to be on the most important element of your practice and that's your staff.

We've discussed being intentional and building a collaborative environment by helping each staff member achieve their potential while also helping your practice achieve its potential.

This week we'll look at key component of building a growth focused practice and that's hiring staff members that value teamwork.

An environment driven by teamwork ensures that individual behaviors and actions support each person in managing their responsibilities. How do you find employees who embrace teamwork?

Hiring your staff must be intentional and requires a commitment to the hiring process. This starts with dedicating time to the screening and interview process.

Once you're ready to interview candidates, focus on getting to know them. Engage them in the interview with questions that drive interactions. Your interview questions should require that the candidate share their experiences. If teamwork is important to them, they will have no trouble sharing specific examples.

We encourage our clients to ask candidates to describe the characteristics of a person that they've worked with who was a strong teammate. After they share characteristics, they request specific examples of teamwork situations. And then of course they ask the candidate to describe a time when they worked with someone who wasn't a good teammate.

If a candidate shares their experiences with limited dialogue or enthusiasm, this indicates that teamwork is not central to their thought process. A person who embraces teamwork will readily share examples of collaboration.

In a teamwork focused environment each person understands and cares about the impact of their actions and inactions on their peers. For example, when a person who values teamwork calls out sick, they have a level of a concern for their peers and understand the affect of their actions on their team. Taking advantage of time off policies is not something a "We" focused employee does.

An individual that focuses on teamwork will positively impact your staff and your practice results. If you’d like to build a teamwork focused practice and would like support, please contact me at smays@impactpracticeconsultants.com.