Do You Have the Wrong People in the Wrong Seats?

When it comes hiring in your organization, you want the right skills and someone who will fit well with your organization. And your process has mostly worked. Still, you might hire someone who meets all your criteria, and they continue to underperform. They could be an extremely smart and capable person, but something isn’t clicking for them. Or maybe there is a department that seems to produce less than would be expected, but you can’t figure out where the disconnect is. 

If you sense something is off, you’re probably right. Look for frustration on your team. Does the person you have in mind seem to have a strong understanding of your organization’s goals and their individual responsibilities? Have they been coached well on their role? Do they take feedback well and make changes as a result? 

If the answer to these questions in “no,” the issue often comes down to the team member’s skillset, values, strengths, and interests. If any of those qualities are missing, you likely have the wrong person in that role. 

Figuring Out What Seats You Need 

Figuring out who you need requires going back to the basics. These steps can help. 

1. Determine what seats you need. If you could structure your organization or a specific department any way you want, how would you do it? What results do you want? What roles would you create? Consult with your leadership team and interview current team members.  

2. Review your resources. Who is currently in each role? What are their responsibilities? What are their strengths? Be sure to consider what tasks could be automated or outsourced. We offer a free assessment tool called the Skill-Gap Assessment, which allows you to compare each team member’s skills against what is required of their position. You can download the Skill-Gap Assessment here.
 

3. Decide on solutions. Once you know the seats you need and which people can fill them well, you have some choices to make. If anyone is not a fit, could they fit somewhere else in your organization? If they are otherwise a strong employee and cultural fit, it could be worth trying to keep them. If they just aren’t a fit at all, it’s time to let them be successful somewhere else. 

How to Find the Right Person 

Now that you have some positions to fill, you need to update your hiring process to better screen potential fits. We have a few standard parts of our hiring process that help us hire the best possible people. 

• Meet them in person. Even if the role is remote, meeting in-person can help you catch qualities you might otherwise miss. 
• Require interviews with multiple team members. They will all catch different strengths and weaknesses. 
• Use conative, cognitive, and affective assessments. We use the Kolbe, Enneagram, and CliftonStrengths to evaluate potential fit. 
• Ask behavioral interview questions. When candidates have to explain a situation and how they responded, you can learn a lot about how they think and problem solve. 

Right People, Right Seats 

If you can first identify the desired roles for your organization, you can then figure out who has the strengths to fill those roles well. Even though it might sound cold, it’s important to make it about the responsibilities of a role and not the person in it. If that person ends up not being a fit, they were likely unsatisfied in some way and could be much happier somewhere else. 

If you need to evaluate some of your roles, you can download our free Skill-Gap Assessment. If you want to learn more insights about your business, you can take our complimentary Business Intelligence Grader here.