Devoted to Managers and those that seek to improve their management skills

One of the great temptations that we all go through concerning hiring, is that we are always tempted to hire for skill level rather than for people that will fit into our business culture. In other words: those that have good attitudes.

Southwest Airlines has always had customer-obsessed culture. As a result they looked to hire people not based upon certain types of skills primarily, but for those who a humor, self-confidence, and energy. Any skill can be taught, who that person is cannot be.

So in your business or department are the right people taking care of your customers? No matter who your customer is, they want to know that you care about them and their needs. 

Many store owners and managers hire based on the principle that a prospective employee with an established base of knowledge and experience will already know how to do the job, thereby saving time and money otherwise needed for training.  Right?  Wrong! 

Sometimes having experience, if it is combined with a great attitude, can result in a great hire and fit for the company. Experience only has been proven to be, in many cases, a disaster to the department or firm.

So when it comes right down to it, there are a couple of questions that really only need to be answered: "Can we work with this applicant?" and secondly "Is this applicant teachable?" If both of these question can't be answered with a "yes" then pass on to the next one until you find one who does.

You see, if an applicant is someone you want to work with and has a good attitude, they can be taught anything. Whatever skills are needed will be learned by quality candidates like these.

If you pay attention to these couple of insights, you will go a long way toward eliminating problem employees.