Sometimes, employees can make or break a business. What kind of employees do you need?

Many small businesses benefit from hiring employees. At some point, you may decide that you need more hands on deck at your company. When that time comes, you might not know where to start. You want individuals who will make a difference in business operations. What kind of small business employees do you need to grow your company?

Knowing what to look for in a candidate is not as easy as it might seem. After 30 years in entrepreneurship, I’ll be the first to admit that looking for employees to hire can be tough. When hiring an employee, you need to know what characteristics to look for.

There are many different types of employees in a business. Companies have leaders, followers, go-getters, and employees who do the bare minimum.

You will have employees who struggle from time-to-time or lose motivation. Highs and lows are inevitable in life. But with the right attributes, your employees will use their skills to grow your company.

Whether you’re hiring your first employee or ready to give a pep talk to your current workforce, consider the following characteristics.

Dedicated employees are an absolute must. Your employees need to help pull the wagon that is your business. At my recruitment software and payroll and accounting companies, I look for employees who have a no-nonsense, get-it-done attitude.

Employees who are dedicated don’t leave before their shift is over. They don’t watch the clock. Dedicated employees tie up loose ends and make sure their work goes above and beyond what is expected.

If you’re interviewing candidates during the hiring process, ask them about their work ethic. Talk with their previous employers to find out if they have that dedication and drive that makes a business successful. Or, if you already have employees, ask them if there is any extra effort they can give to their team.

Being successful in life comes down to mindset. Likewise, positive employees will be more successful and valuable at your business. Look for employees who don’t lose sight of their positivity when times get tough.

When hiring, I value candidates with a good attitude. If an employee had a bad experience with previous employers, managers, or companies, I want to hear what they learned from it. I want candidates to be positive in how those experiences led them to where they are now.

Positivity is important for developing relationships among co-workers, too. The team doesn’t want to be bogged down by someone going on and on about how nothing is going right for them.

Of course, the employees you hire need to be qualified for the job. You can’t hire someone to be a computer software engineer if they have a good attitude but no idea what they’re doing.

You can look for skills beyond what’s listed in the job description, like good communication or leadership. This can help you get an idea of whether the employee could fill a management position in the future.

Do a thorough check to see if a candidate’s skills, experience, and education match what you’re looking for in the open position. Give candidates tests and ask behavioral interview questions to find out if they’re really right for the job. With behavioral interview questions, you can find out more about situations. That lets you learn more about the candidate and their skills.

Good employees don’t stop learning once they have the job. You need employees who have a desire to learn, even when they get swamped and drained from their workload.

Not everything an employee does will be perfect. It’s normal for an employee to be weaker in some areas than others. What separates a successful employee from an unsuccessful one is ambition. Ambitious employees won’t let weaknesses stop them from improving.

You can’t force employees to be ambitious—it just won’t happen. At various times in my business career, I tried hard to help an employee improve a weak area.

One time, I had an employee who, over time, demonstrated that he barely had the necessary skills to provide technical support to customers. He was falling behind his co-workers in terms of understanding technology. I tried to encourage him to use the downtime between calls (as the other support representatives did) to read up on the technology we used. He didn’t. Without ambition to learn and better his skills, he ended up dragging down business operations. Eventually, I had to let him go.

Do you want an employee who consistently proves they’re unreliable, or do you want someone you can depend on to get the job done? Reliability in an employee can cover a lot of bases, like being on time or meeting a deadline for a project.

With reliable employees, you can take some weight off your shoulders. You don’t need to do everything yourself or worry about whether the employee did what they were supposed to. Business operations can move along normally with reliable employees.

Most business owners decide to hire employees because they don’t have enough time, hands, or energy to handle operations themselves. Finding self-motivated employees gives you the chance to grow your business.

Self-motivated employees don’t need constant direction. They know what they need to get done without you telling them. You hire employees to free up your time so you can work on growing your business, not to give them a play-by-play of what needs to be done.

Teamwork among employees leads to increased workplace productivity. When employees work together, they can bounce ideas around and streamline business operations. You don’t want an employee who would rather do their own thing.

Employees who refuse to work with others are bad for business. Encourage employees to work together on projects, ask each other questions, and communicate. Find employees who demonstrate experience in teamwork and are enthusiastic about working with your team.

Having other people working in your business makes it possible to develop more ideas. Employees might come up with innovative approaches that you didn’t think of.

Your employees should exemplify leadership qualities. Growing as a leader means taking action, trying new things, and listening. Leaders aren’t afraid to challenge the status quo.

A strong leader recognizes that confidence can lead to incredible benefits. And, leadership also helps employees to stay on task, help one another, and grow their abilities.

People get distracted all the time. Though distractions are inevitable, your employees should be focused.

It’s important that an employee doesn’t bounce between projects too much, or you might end up with incomplete tasks. Focused employees stay on track and pay attention to the small details.

Source: http://bit.ly/2h5iTDm