When hiring, employers look for experience to make their company flourish but does the amount of experience equal the innovation and contribution to a company’s success? What should we really look for in employees and how can we identify it early on?
The recent pandemic has impacted many organizations, forcing them to rework the way departments function and their way of working. Some companies have even come up with innovative business ideas to increase their profit margin considering the changing needs and wants of people as a result of the pandemic. The need for employees that move quickly and easily and drive these innovative solutions to maximize the company’s growth has never been so crucial!
A company’s success is a reflection of its employees’ performance. One example that best describes it is the collaboration between the United Postal Service (UPS) and drone company Matternet, becoming the first approved drone prescription delivery service in the United States, on 27 April 2020.
While UPS announced a new partnership with Wingcopter for their lineup for drone delivery of packages, Alphabet’s Wing recently doubled deployment rates during the pandemic, enabling greater access to customers and providing a lifeline to local businesses. Wing’s partners have claimed a 50% increase in sales of certain goods thanks to the drone deliveries during the crisis!
Whilst employees have a relevant number of years in experience under their belt, what’s most important is the ability to move quickly and easily at times of change and uncertainty. As time progresses, we evolve and resisting change impacts the speed of growth, innovation and value. The number in years of experience become irrelevant the moment we stop progressing forward!
Companies with progressive goals need progressive employees, agility is a competency that can be identified at the early stage of hiring. Being able to understand the candidates mindset and way of working through examples and scenarios will clearly provide an idea of the expectation of their level of adaptivity and innovation and how they would be able to benefit the organization. While hiring employees that are agile is great, ensuring management empower their employees’ creative process in the search and implementation of solutions is also key!
“Success today requires the agility and drive to constantly rethink, reinvigorate, react and reinvent” – Bill Gates
