FREE online courses on Building a Winning Team - YOUR PEOPLE - Match People
and Jobs
Staff development requires
knowledge of each person in relation to the job they do. A consistently poor performance
from a subordinate unwilling to respond to efforts at developing him may stem
from the fact that he is a square peg in a round hole. Could it be that job satisfaction levels are low?
Recent research suggests that job preferences account, in large part, for
this phenomenon. It may have its origins in the compulsions, which prompted him
to take the job to begin with: family expectations/ compulsions, sheer chance or
misjudgment. Such ‘decision
preferences' fall into two categories:
Qualitative: the
right-side- of-the-brain type, i.e. the worker who likes intuitive, creative
activity
Quantitative: left side of the brain stuff; jobs
involving precision and certainty
The manager can (provided he can analyze the case properly) put the
right
person in the right job. At lower levels of
the hierarchy, scope for adjustments to accommodate design preferences is
limited. Do whatever you can to push job content towards the desired ‘decision
preference'. Higher up the pecking order is self-adjustment, and possibility of
delegating work to subordinates.
Let us examine
some standard staff developers/ motivators:
Automatic performance-linked
promotion may invoke the dreaded Peter Principle; instead of over-promoting
people, give tangible rewards representing recognition, which will out-weigh the
dubious benefits of promotion sans job-satisfaction.
- Explore the possibility
of lateral transfer
-
Too heavy a reliance on qualifications may
result in mismatch between preferences and actual job content
- Choice of training
program based on compatible decision-preference factors
- Such heightened
awareness will enable effective coaching/ counseling.
QUESTIONS
1. Why is it necessary to match people to
jobs? How would you motivate them?
2. In the present organic
organizational structures, how would you motivate staff in absence
of promotional avenues?
