by Warren R. Birge, lll

Industry-wide, energy and utility companies are losing decades of experience and knowledge as valuable employees reach retirement. “We’re losing the older guard that has the technical expertise and understanding of the system,” said one vice president from a large, integrated utility system in the southern U.S. “You get into complex questions of ‘how do you bridge a generation gap?’ As a result, we have the challenge of recreating our core competencies with things in flux.”

It’s important to hire the right people for the right jobs, and train and manage them correctly as well. To accomplish this, use a proven personality assessment tool to really get to know your job candidates and yourself. Then you can avoid these five common hiring mistakes.

1. You hire the person you experience at the interview only to discover that a very different person shows up for work.

Job interviews are more like a first date than a snapshot of what the relationship will look like six months into the marriage, but that doesn’t mean they don’t have value. They show you how candidates will react in formal situations, like meetings with government officials or when on their “best behavior.” Identify a candidate’s ranges of personality, to help put interviews into a broader context of who candidates really are and how they will fit within the organization.

2. You hire the right person but use the wrong management and training/learning approaches, which can “turn off” the new employee.

Everyone learns differently. The fact that the energy and utility industry is highly regulated isn’t news to any of us, but the effect of regulation on how we manage and train our employees might surprise you. Much of the vital job knowledge that is passed on during training is procedural and straightforward, without much room for creativity or interpretation. However, training methods and management techniques don’t have to reflect the same methodical nature. Determine how your team members learn best, and then adapt methods to suit their individual differences, which accelerates their abilities to contribute to organizational goals.

3. You hire a new employee whose job role does not permit him or her to function at personal peak performance. The result is job stress for everyone around them-and worse.

Here’s an example: You want to hire a candidate for a position that requires networking, teamwork and collaboration across several departments. The candidate, however, is a lone wolf, strongly individualistic and self-reliant, not a pack animal, and neither of you have recognized that trait. If you hire this individual, he or she will be walking out the door in a few months, frustrated and angry. That’s why it’s important to really get to know your candidates early on in the hiring process. This can help determine if they will function well in a given job situation and help avoid heartache and financial loss. In fact, current studies show that every failed employee can cost an organization as much as $1 million in lost productivity.

4. You assume it is your job to motivate the employees. Consequently, you frequently use inappropriate strategies, which result in de-motivation.

You hear it all the time in the world of sports: an undisciplined, losing team gets a hard-nosed, “my way or the highway” coach. Then, in a year or two, that coach is replaced by another, but this time it’s a “player’s coach,” one who relaxes the rules and lets the players be players in the hopes of generating some wins. And, the cycle continues. You’ll never hear winning clubs’ coaches described as “disciplinarians” or “player’s coaches,” because great coaches know that every player is motivated by different things. Ultimately, great coaches create an environment in which players motivate themselves. It’s no different in the energy industry. Find out what motivates each employee on your team, eliminate obstacles to his or her success and let them run.

5. You’re not always aware of your own biases when evaluating candidates, nor are you aware of how your emotions influence your hiring decisions.

When it comes to hiring, opposites don’t attract. We’re all more likely to hire someone like ourselves-after all we’re successful, aren’t we? Unfortunately, when we hire in our own image, we get people with our strengths and weaknesses. To return to the sports analogy, filling your team with pitchers leaves no one to catch or play left field. When you have the opportunity to staff up, avoid cloning. You want both depth and breadth of experience and thought processes.

By using multi-dimensional personality assessment, organizations can avoid making these common mistakes in the hiring process and provide a competitive edge. As the “brain trust” leaves for a hard-earned retirement, energy and utility companies must hire and on-board a new generation of workers that’s both technically competent and flexible enough to face the challenges of an uncertain energy scene. Otherwise, it may be “lights out.”

Author

Warren Birge is a senior vice president and executive consultant for Personalysis Corporation, a management-consulting firm located in Houston, Texas. For more information, visit www.personalysis.com.