Lift morale and slash turnover by understanding individual work styles
22 January 2009 8:22am
HR managers can build happy, productive teams and save big bucks on recruitment in the process simply by determining the work preferences of individual employees, according to management consultant, Dick McCann.
Often the individual members of a departmental team have a wide range of invaluable skills, but the team itself is unsuccessful, McCann, of Team Management Systems (TMS), told HR Daily.
This can result in an unhappy and disengaged workforce and a crippling turnover rate, he says.
"It's crucial that HR managers putting together teams recognise how each person prefers to work," McCann says, "because if this is not acknowledged the team will most likely implode."
From more than 150,000 responses to TMS work-preference questionnaires, McCann has identified eight different work styles, or functions. These, he says, are:
advising - gathering and reporting information;
innovating - creating and experimenting with ideas;
promoting - exploring and presenting opportunities;
developing - assessing and developing new approaches;
organising - establishing ways of making things work;
producing - delivering outputs;
inspecting - controlling and auditing systems; and
maintaining - upholding standards and processes.
No one style is more valuable than the next, McCann says, and most employees in the majority of industries must call on all eight functions in their day-to-day work.
However, the key to creating a happy and productive team is identifying individual preferences and matching these preferences with the critical requirements of specific jobs, he says.
"Typically, someone working in HR has a higher work preference for promoting and advising rather than inspecting and organising," he says. "Someone in a CEO or MD role is typically high in promoting and organising, with a lesser emphasis on inspecting and producing."
Employees are more likely to be satisfied, productive and loyal to the organisation if they are allowed the opportunity to undertake at least two-thirds of their workload within their preference areas, and are offered managerial or team support in the areas in which they're less strong, McCann says.
A successful and balanced team, he says, is one in which an individual's strengths are identified and developed, and his or her weaknesses augmented by the strengths of others.
Employers, as a result, should expect to see a boost in productivity, a reduction in running costs, a lift in company morale and a drop in turnover, he says.
"As anyone running a business knows, the cost of replacing an excellent employee far outweighs the cost of increasing their workplace satisfaction."
