Many managers have come across professionals who need to be led by the hand through every single task, who keep asking questions about their work all the time, and who have no willpower whatsoever to find their own way out. You can’t keep dealing with this type of professional. You need to make it a company goal: hire people who don’t need a babysitter. There’s no better feeling than hiring someone, guiding them through their first tasks, and then letting them loose to do their own work. Hire people who can manage their work on their own, who aren’t like babies needing constant guidance and care. Besides building a more proactive team, one that finds its own problems and goes straight after solving them, this makes room for things like flexible hours, working from home, and other benefits that are good for the whole company when there is responsibility and discipline, without the need for supervision. If you believe in someone, you need to show it through actions. But before you believe in someone, it is essential to determine whether this professional is someone trustworthy and not be fooled by the big babies.
How to spot a baby If your employee is always asking where documents or other business resources are before even looking for them, can’t put together the day’s schedule of tasks without your help, interrupts other employees’ work to ask for help constantly, and is never available to take on more complicated tasks, among other things, you are probably dealing with a baby. Attitudes such as lack of interest, laziness about looking for alternatives, and procrastination with daily work are signs of people who are not motivated to work effectively, and this will hurt your business. Key assessments at hiring time To avoid this kind of situation, it’s best to prepare right from the hiring stage. When hiring professionals, try to create an open dialogue that lets the person show what they can offer and, above all, lets you understand the profile of the person you are talking to. A good way to find these traits is to create unusual situations related to your field and ask the person to present a solution. Also include questions about how the person handles teamwork and bringing different profiles together to develop an idea. Proactive professionals may often want to stand out from the team and create problems within the business. Hiring people who take the reins of their work doesn’t mean you won’t be available to help: it is still extremely important that, as a manager, you are there for whatever is needed and willing to teach. However, this can’t become something repetitive, going back to the same situations and turning to you before even looking for a solution. As part of this teaching, also recognize when your judgments are based on facts or on preconceived certainties, without analyzing specific experiences. Questioning your first impressions and assertions, thinking twice before taking action, is one of the fundamental precautions in management.
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