The joys (and not so joys!) of employing Gen Y’s and Gen I’s (The millenialists or ipad, iphone, imac generation)
Having worked with Kim for some time now. She does the fabulous and fantastic job of finding these wonderful people, and since 1988 (yes that long ago!) I have had a passion for understanding and studying personality types. (Kim and her clients often use my services for this very important task)
The 3 questions of recruiting of course can be summed up as follows:-
1) Can they do the job?
2) Will they do the job?
3) Will they fit in?
Kim has the mighty task of finding out the answers to questions 1 and 2, and 3 is where I help. Jim Collins in his often quoted book ‘Good to Great’ stated ‘before you even decide where you are going get the wrong people off the bus, get the right people in the right seats on the bus’.
My job in assisting Kim is understanding the different personalities so that the new employee fits in. Tempering their enthusiasm can be one thing, but if at a foundational level they will never fit in, it is a waste of everyone’s time and effort.
Unfortunately while personality profiling is a relatively simple concept to get some kind of idea about, few master it.
I am a master of personality profiling and if you want a clue as to who may not be, ask them to describe a particular personality. If they answer with a colour – ‘a red’ or ‘a blue’ or animals another favourite – ‘peacock’ etc..or letters ‘ENFJ’ or a ‘D’ or an ‘S’ you can be pretty much assured they probably came along to a short course of mine from a few years back, and did not listen very well!
There are five or six of them floating around Brisbane ‘experts’ and putting people in neat boxes. Understanding the mix we need and the balance of the differing aspects of our personalities is so important. We don’t fit in one box. (Well I suppose we all do sooner or later but we don’t like talking too much about that box! A coffin! Aargh!!)
Okay, so moving right along, before we move on to the where to from here, let’s look at why personality profiling and Gen Y’s and I’s is so important. We sometimes get the impression from them that they arrive with a huge sense of entitlement. An entitlement that oozes the feeling that they expect to be in the CEO’s chair by 5pm on their first day; in fact lunchtime would be better!!
Of course, some of them may become CEO material, however when we sit down with them, and explain what their profile really means, combined with engaging language often their realisation starts to focus, that being happy at work in the right role is much more important!
Where to from here? If you are going to get recruiting done right, you need to do all the steps, and that starts with Kim, and finishes with me, BEFORE you employ the new person.
For up to date personality profiling contact myself, John Flett. 0408 002 550 or john@flettconsulting.com.au or check out the website www.flettconsulting.com.au
