Know or Guess - Your Choice

The relationship between hard-wired personality traits and job behaviors has long been established. Even before that, it was clear that cognitive abilities were absolutely tied to job performance in any kind of job. The challenge has been applying these facts to the serious employment issues in the world. When reasonably good data was available, it required special training or expert help to apply it. When it was applied, it was almost always limited to hiring decisions. The intrinsic power of the data was never realized. 

Business depends upon the behavior of people. When a company hires employees, they are actually renting their behavior. In a coffee shop, they rent smiles and a friendly manner that welcomes customers. They rent consistency with the process of making cappuccino, so that every time it is ordered, the quality is the same. They rent an attention to details, so that the customers’ orders are charged correctly. If a job candidate cannot deliver any one of these job behaviors, they cannot perform that job successfully. 

The importance of knowing what causes job behaviors reaches far beyond hiring decisions. Without that knowledge:

• A well-meaning manager’s coaching misses the true cause of a problem.
• Teams struggle to collaborate.
• Expensive training is wasted on the wrong issues.
• Poorly designed jobs virtually encourage turnover.
• Knowledgeable and hard working people are promoted into positions where they ultimately fail.

There is no reason for these outcomes with the critical information on any individual’s job behaviors so readily available. BestWork DATA has developed hundreds of reports that are easy to understand without any special training. Collecting the DATA is simple, with a 25 minute online experience that most people actually enjoy. The cost per use is about the same as a Starbucks latte, and unquestionably has a far greater rate of return. Today every business has a choice in managing job performance: They can know or they can guess.