Hiring: employ for attitude, train for skill
There is an old rule of thumb in recruitment; ‘employ for attitude, train for skill’. I’m a big fan of this, so let’s break it down to understand the logic, the reasoning, and the limitations.
What is attitude?
It is quite nebulous, and if you and I discussed there is a pretty good chance we would different understandings of what we are discussing. A basic dictionary definition is a ‘settled way of thinking about something’, which in the workplace we can take to mean a set mindset about something, not easily changed.
Invariably when we are talking about attitude in the workplace we are talking ‘good attitude’ or ‘bad attitude’. During employment, we can see employees who get caught in a ‘bad attitude’ - a settled, or set mindset to view things negatively in the workplace, or at least an unwillingness to view things positively.
Someone with a negative mindset can be one, or all, of the following:
Doesn’t do more than the minimum required work,
Doesn’t take more that the minimum required care.
Doesn’t give the customer, or the manager, the benefit of the doubt (that they in fact do have good reasons, and are not idiots)
Doesn’t support their colleagues, by tolerating their skill gaps, mistakes, or inconvenient priorities.
Doesn’t learn to do things differently from their pre-conceived ideas of what is ‘right’
Or many other examples or definitions, but generally- has a settled mindset about how things should be, and it’s not what they are looking at in your workplace.
But- I am a little cautious about this, because while you will be able to recognise people like this, and agree that they had a ‘bad attitude’, it’s tempting to conclude they are ‘bad people’, and that’s both simplistic and unfair. To be more charitable, they are ‘stuck’ in this mindset, and struggle to get ‘unstuck’ (if they wanted to).
Can you change it? can you teach it?
Can you improve someone’s attitude? Many try, some succeed, most fail. Can you change a settled mindset? Maybe, but not by force. You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make it drink. You can set up the situation as best you can for someone to adopt a positive mindset to their work and workplace but you can’t shift it, only they can. Essentially, it requires an internal shift; only they can shift their mindset, and most people resist external attempts to shift their mindset.
You can teach skills and knowledge
At the heart of the expression is the idea that you can teach knowledge and skill gaps. Knowledge can be shared, skills can be taught to any mind open and willing to learn. Provided they have the natural capacity to learn, then given enough time and teaching, gaps between current and required competencies can be bridged.
As a recruitment rule
What does this mean for recruitment? If it’s:
Internal recruitment: you’ll have a reasonably solid understanding of someone’s attitude, in which case this maxim would recommend not promoting those with a negative attitude. This can cross over with another question of ‘are we moving a problem’, but sometimes people need a change to shift their mindset. So be prepared to do it, but explore the question- how confident are we that the change will come with an attitude refresh?
External recruitment: it’s hard to be sure what their attitude will be in the workplace, but you might get indications from their references, and potentially the interview. If they appear to be prone to negativity, expect this to continue in your job, and don’t expect this to change.
So- if given the choice between; someone who can do the job already but gives you a less-than-positive vibe, or someone with learning to do, but a ‘keen as’ attitude, the latter may be the better option.
Limitations
It’s a good idea, a plithy rule of thumb. But is it a law? A right-in-all-circumstances edict? Firstly, can you measure attitude reliably during a recruitment process? The limitation here, particularly in interviews (both internal and external) is that anyone can pretend to care for the duration of an interview. Many people talk a good game, talk a good walk but can’t walk a walk. In short, don’t be fooled by a suck-up. The British comedian David Mitchell has a good joke about the inherent honesty of bad customer service- anyone pretending to enjoy menial work is either a liar or a psychopath.
Secondly you can’t teach anything to anyone, everyone has natural limitations, and the only proof that some has the capability to do something is whether they have done it before. If you need someone to play the drums, your safest bet is a drummer. No matter how long you have to train, I’ll never be a good drummer, and the unfortunate truth is that someone will never be able to do somethings if they are beyond their natural capabilities to do.
