Why It’s Vital To Understand Your Team And How To Do It

Can a computer programme really help you understand your team? When it’s based on proven behavioural psychology concepts, utilises complex algorithms, and is successfully used by tens of thousands of organisations worldwide – yes, it can!

The key to building a successful team is understanding your people.

There are several ways you can do this, but Stay Interviews and Extended DISC© assessment tools help you do just that.

These assessments help leaders intentionally and intelligently understand employees while empowering workers to communicate with one another effectively.

Let’s take a closer look at what stay interviews and Extended DISC© are and and how they can help you understand your team.

Why It’s Vital To Understand Your Team And How To Do It

What Is A Stay Interview?

You’ve heard of an Exit Interview, right? Well, a Stay Interview can be even more valuable than the exit variety! At a Stay Interview, you sit down with each team member to gather information about what they value about their job and what can be improved.

By understanding what your team values, you can work to improve things in your workplace. This is going to raise employee retention rates in the long term. You may also discover some helpful tips from your team members that you can easily implement to improve culture, processes and more.

Not only that, but you are creating open lines of communication with your team, building their trust and engagement. Conducting a Stay Interview can be more effective than an employee survey as you are creating a two-way conversation situation where you can both bounce ideas and create opportunities for clarification or to answer follow up questions.

Stay Interviews are the in-person way to help you understand your team better. But, what about technology solutions?

What Is Extended DISC©?

Extended DISC© is a psychology-based assessment tool that helps organisations understand – and therefore better manage – their staff.

Based on the theory developed by psychologist Carl Jung, the Extended DISC© system is one of the most popular behavioural assessment tools in the corporate world. Extended DISC© provides insight into how individuals think, communicate, and interact using a series of questions and algorithms.

According to the science behind the Extended DISC© system, people can be divided into four central behavioural styles, indicated by the following letters:

  • D-style (Dominance)
  • I-Style (Influence)
  • S-Style (Steadiness)
  • C-style (Correctness)

The results of these assessments help shape an understanding of each individual’s strengths, challenges, and communication styles.

How Extended DISC© Assessments Can Help Your Team

Great teamwork doesn’t happen by accident. It takes patience, intention, insight, strong leadership, and the right mix of personalities to build a cohesive team.

In people management, everything boils down to personality and behaviour. Communication issues, conflict, poor performance and low productivity can often be traced back to personality clashes, misunderstandings, or incorrect role fit.

Extended DISC© offers a way for individuals not only to understand themselves better but also understand others more deeply. With these insights, leaders are better able to place employees in the right roles within their teams and manage them in the ways that mesh best with their Extended DISC© profiles.

Extended DISC© assessments help you to empower your team members to better understand their own conscious and sub-conscious behavioural styles. Discovering Extended DISC© as a team is even more valuable. Each staff member can identify and empathise with other behavioural styles, which improves communication and minimises the chance of conflicts.

Overall, job satisfaction increases, and increased performance and productivity comes with a more positive workplace culture.

Get The Best Out Of Your Team

One of the most valuable leadership qualities is the ability to get the best out of your team.

Everyone responds differently to different situations: some of your employees might do their best work under pressure, while others may perform poorly. One person may appreciate a heated debate with a colleague, while another individual could find the exchange stressful and negative. Some people are natural leaders who crave the opportunity to grow, yet others are happy to take a back seat and perform the job they’re comfortable with.

There is a place in your team for all these personality types, but you must be able to recognise each one to create a team environment that meets everyone’s needs.

Extended DISC© is a fantastic team-building tool as it can help you understand the dynamics of your team, identify where the key strengths lie and determine what gaps need to be filled.

A Valuable Workplace Asset

Alongside the in-depth Personal Analysis for each staff member, the Extended DISC© Team Analysis is invaluable.

Here’s how Extended DISC© describe it:

“The Team Analysis gives you an easy to use framework to understand complex issues quickly, solve problems and improve performance. It helps you align your business or team strategy with the behavioural characteristics of your team members.

The Team Analysis combines the results of the Personal Analysis results of your team into one report. It shows the team dynamics, the strengths and development areas of the team, and how the team members are adjusting their behaviours in the existing work environment.

Some popular applications of this tool include team development, strategic decision making, leadership development, organisational development, turnover reduction, conflict resolution and succession planning.”

 

What Does Team Building Look Like In 2022?

In the past, managers have made educated guesses while hiring and building teams and hoped that their people gelled well. But in 2022, team building doesn’t have to be a guessing game. Tools like Extended DISC© provide concrete, usable data to support leaders in building and managing highly effective teams.

DISC© provides a reliable framework to help make decisions and adjustments around people management while empowering staff to take responsibility for their interactions with each other.

Team building aims to create stronger bonds between team members and help them respect their differences while working towards common goals. There is no singular “right” way to achieve this – every team is different, and what works for one may cause havoc for another.

Post pandemic, managers face additional challenges when creating a strong team, such as hybrid work arrangements and remote workers. Team building may not happen as organically as it does in an office environment.

Today’s leaders need to be more intentional about providing opportunities for workers to interact – through structured exercises as well as more informal activities.

Want to know how to best manage the different personality types within your team?

Spice HR are Extended DISC© Accredited Practitioners and can help you with personal growth, team building, leadership, and recruitment. We are also masters at helping you maintain an excellent team culture with tools like the Stay Interview.

Contact us today to find out more.

How to Handle Recruitment the Right Way

What would a doughnut be without the cinnamon? How would your favourite Indian dish taste minus the coriander or cumin? And what would the Spice Girls have been without Ginger Spice? It doesn’t really bear thinking about, does it? The same goes for your employees and your recruitment strategy.

They are the spice that makes your organisation unique, attractive, and successful. Without top talent, your business will struggle to beat mediocrity. So, it’s essential to attract the right people for your culture, and encourage them to stick around!

These days, recruitment is a science all of its own. Posting a Job Description on a local job board and hoping for the best just won’t cut it if you want the very best.

So, how do you tackle recruitment in the right way?

Today, we share our best advice for becoming the employer of choice for your potential candidates.

Do Some Self-Reflection

Before you can cast a net out to lure in your ideal candidates, you need to be very clear on what your organisation is looking for. Spend some time looking at your existing top employees, and ask yourself what it is that makes them a great fit.

Remember to include a mix of soft and hard skills, as well as addressing some of the more creative characteristics, such as emotional intelligence and cultural fit.

 

Understand Your Ideal Candidate

Once you know the kind of employee you want to attract, you can begin to understand them better. Think about what they need and want from a job or an employer, and what motivates them.

Do they thrive from being part of a team, or would they rather work independently? Are they happy with a predictable role, or are they looking for a bit of variety?

Drawing up a profile of your dream team member will help shape your business to be the type of employer that naturally attracts top talent.

For invaluable insight, refer to your existing staff members! Ask them what they love about working for you, what drives them, and survey them to see if there is more you could be doing to be a sought after employer.

 

Position Your Company

Savvy candidates won’t just be perusing the job description when deciding whether to take a role. They want to know what it’s really like to work for your business, and what you are all about. They might look at your social media to see what customers are saying about you, check out your current and former employees on LinkedIn, or try and get a feel for your culture via your website.

Ensure that all aspects of your business reflect the culture and values you are trying to encourage.

 

Be Authentic

The most sought after companies in the world have certain things in common – authentic core values, genuine respect and appreciation for their employees, and a commitment to providing a fantastic work environment. Make sure your business’s core values are defined. Be good to your team and word will organically spread among potential candidates.

 

Focus on Quality

Remember, you are looking for quality, not quantity. Rather than offering benefits and values that will appeal to a wide range of applicants, focus on figuring out the persona that melds best with your business and work to meet their needs. You don’t need to attract one hundred candidates, you just need to attract one who is the right fit for your business.

 

Call in the Professionals

Recruitment can be an all consuming task in business, so it may be worth considering the possibility of outsourcing it. Or at least getting some help putting together a plan for the role you are recruiting for and what your expectations are for the candidates.

The team here at Spice HR can help set you up with a plan to get the right people on your team. Or, we can recommend some great recruitment companies or specialists who will help take the stress out of making the right hiring decision.

Give us a call today to chat about your plans for recruiting.