FREE online courses on CRM - Developing People-The Key To Success - 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?
