4 Football Plays to Score Your Next Workplace Quarterback

Flexicrew Technical Services uses these four plays to recruit and hire a workplace quarterback.

In football, teams often win or lose based on the play of quarterbacks, who work directly with individual contributors to coordinate, motivate, and drive results.

In the workplace, your team quarterbacks are your managers.  They deserve just as much careful selection as any first-round draft pick. So, a good manager can motivate the team to achieve its full ability, while a poor manager can discourage, deflate, and ultimately drive away high performers. Studies report bad managers represent the number one reason people leave their jobs.

Ouch!

So for recruiters the bottom line is knowing how to scout workplace quarterbacks with the talent to execute the company strategic gameplan.

Here are the four plays that will land you a franchise workplace quarterback:

Play #1:  Flexicrew Technical Service Scouts for a Workplace Quarterback That Will Work Well with his Team in the Huddle

Hiring a manager who conforms to a team’s values is really important.  Since a manager’s role is thoroughly focused on people-to-people interaction—giving direction, feedback, and constructive criticism—a workplace quarterback really needs to understand:

  • How the people on his team operate
  • What they value
  • Why they chose to accept this job
  • Why they remain.

The manager’s cultural fit with the team frankly influences an entire team’s attitude and performance.

Also, remember that a manager will hire others into the company.  In fact, most managers hire people who are a reflection of themselves. If they’re a strong fit culturally they will have a further positive effect on the team.

FTS puts cultural fit near the top of our recruitment and screening approach.  That improves our success and decreases the chance of a poor hire.

First, we require our clients write a job description that highlights job culture.  Second, we ensure questions relevant to cultural fit when interviewing for your workplace quarterback.

Employee Referral Program

We suggest you incorporate employee referrals as part of your search process.

Why?

Because current employees have an understanding of the culture and will likely recommend candidates who fit that culture. That improves odds for a win in drafting your workplace quarterback.

Play #2: Go Out Long for a Pass

Football coaches search for franchise quarterbacks like Tom Brady or Aaron Rodgers.  They want one who ideally will be in the huddle for many years, not just one championship season. Your business likely relies on the same from its workplace quarterbacks. That’s why we take the long view right from the start of the recruiting process. You know the qualities you need in a manager today.  But how will your firm develop? How would a manager’s style and responsibilities change over the course as your firm moves forward?

Our professional recruiters and your hiring managers align initially to ensure the job description, interview techniques, and candidate review approach take a strategic view of the managerial operational role.

Play #3: Scan for Hidden Talent in a Workplace Quarterback

Finding your next star quarterback doesn’t only require scouting external sources. Your company may already have employees with the right managerial skills. For instance, current managers could be looking to switch departments.  Or individual contributors may be waiting to be promoted to their own workplace quarterback position.  Hiring from within has many advantages.  In fact it means onboarding is expedited, familiarity exists with company practices, and internal hires have established relationships with other employees.

However, internal recruiting requires caution.  You can often be misled assuming that a persuasive individual contributor can become an effective manager. These requires roles require entirely different skill sets, even though continuing to promote top performers may seem like a natural progression.  Yet, we’ve all heard of the Peter Principle.  FTS helps clients evaluate their internal talent to find the hidden gems ready for more responsibility.

Play #4: FTS Reads the Whole Field when Recruiting a Workplace Quarterback

Fundamentally, a manager’s responsibility is more about working with others and less about production. Managers need to be “people persons” and help their team solve unforeseen problems. So, that’s why we like to include situational interview questions like“what would you do if…”.  They can be a useful for our recruiters to decide if a job-seeker is a good fit.

Also, we ask candidates how they would react to events they could experience on the job.  We probe for situations your department has tackled previously. Situational questions should help form your appreciation for the candidate’s, decision-making skills, communication style and common sense.

In addition to questions specific to your company, we ask candidates for examples of how they’ve handled situations in other organizations. A resilient candidate should have sufficient examples in their background.

So, click to schedule your free consultation with Flexicrew Technical Services TODAY!  We’ll create a custom playbook for your next workplace quarterback.

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