How To Improve The Productivity of Your Employees.

You have taken time to set up your organization and your business is up and running, but the hard task is to get competent employees who can fit into various departments of your organization in order to enhance Productivity. It is not just about recruiting those who are qualified educationally, it’s also about getting to know the temperament and personality traits of your potential employees. A lot of organizations HR, during their screening and interview sessions do ask to know the core strengths of their would-be employees and probably their weaknesses. But if this question could be expanded, such that rather than just trying to know their strengths and weaknesses, human resources managers should be detailed enough to know more about the temperaments and personality traits of their potential employees because the strengths and weaknesses of every human being is tied to the temperament they’re born with, which they obviously inherited from their parents and grandparents. For no one can do anything outside the temperament they’re born with. How you interact and relate with others, how you do your job, respond to pressures and everything one does in life is traceable to the temperament he or she is born with. Temperament does not change, even though sometimes, education, trainings and exposures may try to modify it, but it rarely does not change because it is innate and follows us all through life. Therefore, the way and manner employees do their jobs and play their organizational roles cannot be too far from their temperament, which also invariably affects their productivity level. It is for this reason that human resource managers must be adept and conversant with the temperaments, with their individual strengths and weaknesses in order to put right persons in the right positions.

In hiring employees, the aim ought to be putting a round peg in a round hole, and not a square peg in a round hole. And the major way we can achieve this, apart from getting their academic qualifications, is to know more about the temperaments and individual personality traits, and factor it into the recruitment process. A lot of organizations often complain of low productivity from their staffs, and some as a result of this, sack or downsize there workforce. And sooner, they begin to advertise various opportunities in the company to start another recruitment process, with the overall aim of improving productivity. But instead of things getting better it gets even worse, and they often find themselves in a vicious circle. The basic truth is that, they may not have recruited the right personnels or they may have put the right personels in the wrong positions which has consequently stalled their growth and productivity. A lot of human resource managers focuses so much on academic qualifications without due recourse to the fact that, that alone will not suffice. As an organization that wants to grow and maximize productivity, you must understand that your employees are you greatest asset. Therefore, you must thoroughly screen potential candidates during the recruitment process with not just their academic qualifications, experience and achievements in the past, as we’ve seen people who did very well in one organization, but failed totally in the other. But you must screen them with their basic temperament and inherent strengths and weaknesses associated with it, then place them in the right positions where their core strengths will come to bare on the job, and their weaknesses less noticed.

Now, let’s take a look at the four temperaments that controls everyone’s behavior. There are four classes of temperaments, they are: sanguine, choleric, melancholy and phlegmatic.

Each of these four temperaments have their own innate strengths and weaknesses, and sometimes an individual could have up to two or more of these temperaments combined in them in different ratios. They can be sanchol or cholsan, sanmel or melsan, sanphleg or phlegsan, cholmel or melchol, cholphleg or phlegchol and phlegmel or melphleg. However, even though and individual may have up to two or more of each of these temperaments combined in them, there must always be a dominant one which has an overwhelming influence on him or her. This dominant temperament is the primary temperament, while the other ones in little proportions are the secondary temperaments. In terms of recruiting personnels so as to enhance Productivity, the primary temperament of potential candidates must first be considered. To get the best from a sanguine, you must put him in positions where he or she will always meet different persons where his exuberance and blustery can be accentuated. For a sanguine is a lively and an expressive individual who can use his tongue to make even an uncrippled person buy a wheelchair only to later realize that he does not have need of it. Any job that requires routine, record keeping, too much attention to details, analysis, strategic planning and thinking, and any job that will not expose him to people totally bores him.

Cholerics are workaholics and activity prone individuals. They love to get the job done, whether one hundred percent or not. He’s a competent, capable and self-sufficient individual who thrives on activity more than anything else, and are most times successful. Jobs that requires leadership roles and being at the fore-front attracts him a lot. But if it requires longtime planning, critical thinking and analysis, too much attention to details and organization, a choleric will rather look for something else than take on the job.

Melancholies are very intelligent, perfectionist, and also capable individuals. They also love work but unlike the cholerics, they like to take their time to plan and think it through before embarking on the task, and anything short of one hundred percent is not satisfactory to a melancholy. He is best suited for any job that will take detailed planning, analysis, critical and strategic thinking. Any job that will also require sacrifing their time and energy to get it perfectly done is also best for a melancholy. He is a faithful and conscientious individual that does not like to shirk when you’re counting on him. Melancholies also like behind the scene duties, rather than being in the limelight.

Phlegmatics are more productive when a job requires routine and organization. They are very organized individuals who are very good at keeping daily records and putting everything in it’s proper place and position. You can count on a phlegmatic to efficiently do his job quietly without any noise, but nothing more and nothing less. He sticks to his daily routine and only does what is expected of him. But if the job requires taking on a new challenge and breaking into unknown grounds, it will be very difficult for a phlegmatic.

Conclusively, organizations must endeavour to include the subject of temperament during their hiring process in order to hire the best candidates whose temperament are best suited for various job roles in their company.