We all possess skills that we've carefully cultivated and acquired through our experiences. However, some of these skills may gather dust if they aren't adequately valued in our work or if we don't find the right projects to showcase them.
All our skills are valuable, and they can enhance our productivity, making us more competitive within our organization. Sometimes, we just need to identify our hidden talents, or someone else needs to recognize them for us.
Think about characters like Daredevil and She-Hulk, who found their superhero abilities through their legal careers, or Jessica Jones, whose skills as a private investigator seamlessly align with her role as a superhero.
By focusing on employees' strengths, organizations can enhance their work. Gallup recently conducted a large-scale
study study examining the impact of utilizing employees' top skills. The results showed significant improvements in workgroup performance across various factors, including sales, profits, customer engagement, turnover, employee engagement, and safety.
Workgroups that leveraged their strengths outperformed those that didn't value employees' top competencies.
So why not manage our team according to their competencies? Here are some tips that will help us improve our performance and stand out as employees & as a team. Also, improving among everyone it will be the way to make our company the great place we would like to work. Let's get our superhero cape out of our secret closet!
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Connection between departments. In organizations that have highly differentiated departments, they tend to be isolated, each one implementing its strengths without take others into account. But when Managers work so that there is more contact between departments, promoting a unified culture with a common strategy and objectives, the levels of commitment of the company's employees will improve remarkably. According to the Gallup poll, they improve by 26 percentage points in the global database at the organizational level.
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Identify your team's competencies. Responsibilities should be assigned based on the talents of each team member.
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Involvement. The best way to strengthen the skills of employees is to have their Supervisors encourage them. Bosses are responsible for the development of workers. Employees who enjoy the feeling that their superiors support and guide them are truly engaged because it generates reciprocity.
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Build awareness and enthusiasm. When we strengthen the value of competencies, employees use more of those available to them. Also it is essential that Leaders communicate the business strategy carried out by the organization and translate it into terms of competitive competencies for the company. In addition, if we combine this with feedback - conveying to team members that their work based on their strengths is successful - we will encourage our staff to continue using their skills and help them to be happier in a productive environment.
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Performance evaluation. Managers must carry out performance evaluations that guide employees, through a process of continuous feedback, to the development of their best skills so that they make use of their talent. In addition, through this tool, both superiors and colleagues will be able to offer each other recognition and collaborate in developing the strengths of each team member. A transparent strengths-based approach to better performance management is simple, decisive and attractive to everyone. One of the results of competency-based performance appraisals is that employees feel that their boss knows and is willing to promote their talent.
Now that you know how to harness your skills and those of your team, let's be honest: everyone has weaknesses. We all have our own particular kryptonite. However, instead of dwelling on our shortcomings, managers are better off creating strategic partnerships to help us work around our strengths.
People who use their best skills daily are three times more likely to enjoy a better quality of life and six times more likely to be highly engaged at work. Choose your best skills, hone them, and embroider their initials on your office hero's super suit. Let's take flight!
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At Hrider, we've created an agile and accessible tool that allows you to discover the superpowers of all the heroes in your organization through Evaluation & Feedback. Want to get to know it better? Give it a try here!