When you’re hiring for a position, you need to look at your candidates and assess several key components. While you’re looking to hire someone with the technical skills to do the job, you also want someone who has the right attitude. Whenever you’re working in a group, you need people who will buoy each other to achieve your company’s goals. Even one bad attitude, if left to fester, can have a ripple effect on your entire team. Extremely positive or negative attitudes can also have an impact on your entire business. Here’s how.
Productivity
All business leaders want to maintain a high level of productivity, and the candidate that you’re choosing can have a negative or positive effect on your ability to produce. A candidate with a negative attitude might complain about tasks or not put in his or her full effort. If he or she isn’t fulfilling his or her role, then he or she could be slowing other team members who are waiting for the other person’s portion of a job. Attitude can also affect innovation and change adaptation</a> in an employee, which in turn affects productivity.
Successful Teamwork
If you’re looking to build a strong team, then you need everyone working toward the same goal with vigor. If you want a successful team, you will need to determine if a candidate is a team player. One poor attitude can have a negative impact on the performance of the whole team because it can bring other people down or even get other people to exhibit bad attitudes. When one team member whines, this can be frustrating to others. Humans are social beings, and we feed off of the attitudes of others. So, if you have a team member with a negative attitude, it’s only a matter of time before someone else joins in. Conversely, if you add a positive influence to a group, that team will only be strengthened by that new team member.
Employee Retention
When you have a business, you want to retain your talent. If you hire someone with a negative attitude, you might second-guess yourself. It’s also more likely that you’ll lose that person for reasons that are out of your control. Moreover, if the person stays, he or she may make the work environment less pleasant for everyone there. When the experience is soured and spreads, don’t be surprised if some of your best talent decides to find a better environment. And if you find that one or two of your employees are exhibiting a negative attitude, then you need to take measures to ensure that it doesn’t spread.
When you’re finding candidates for a position, there are numerous qualities that you’re looking for. But don’t underestimate the power of attitude in the people that you’re looking at. It could be the difference between a happy, productive work environment and a revolving door for employees.
