Hiring Decisions Influence Teamwork and Performance
Teamwork is going to continue to be an integral part of organizational life. It is critical for members of the team to be able to work well together. The old adage "One bad apple can spoil the whole bunch," is very applicable here. Hiring someone who either doesn't carry her own weight, doesn't get along with others, or just has a bad attitude can turn other employees who may be great employees into "bad apples" as well.
Teams are often self-managed. When a bad employee is introduced into the team, it can spell disaster. Having someone who doesn't "fit" can cause problems throughout the stages of group development as well as prevent the team from developing the characteristics necessary to become an effective team. This case will explain how one company tries to ensure its new hires are not "bad apples".
Hiring new employees can provide a company with great benefits when it brings in new and fresh talent. But what happens when the new hire isn't the star he appeared to be on paper in his resume or during the interview? Many times, new employees bring bad habits and attitudes into their new company that the company never saw coming. And a growing body of research suggests that having just a few nasty, lazy, or incompetent characters around can ruin the performance of a team or an entire organization—no matter how stellar the other employees are.
Pulse, a company in Palo Alto, California, that makes a news-reading app for mobile devices has a somewhat unique method for screening out these "bad apples" during its hiring process. Not only does it conduct multiple rounds of interviews and consider evaluations from peers and supervisors, but it also screens prospective employees through an extremely "realistic" job preview. Pulse has its potential new hires come in and work on short job projects for a day or two before making the final hiring decision.
Pulse's form of a "realistic job preview" allows it to not only learn about the candidate's technical skills first hand, but also about his personality, how he deals with setbacks, if he knows when to ask for help and to give others help, and if the candidate is the type of person it wants to work with.
This is a much more comprehensive process than a quick glance over the resume and 30-minute discussion during an interview. But it is important to develop a culture within the organization that lets potential candidates and new hires know that "bad apples" won't be tolerated. The CEO of one company, Robert W. Baird & Co., goes so far as to tell candidates that "if I discover that you are a jerk, I am going to fire you" during the interview process!
Which of the following characteristics of high-performing teams would most likely be negatively influenced by hiring a "bad apple"?
Awareness of groupthink
Team size
Trust
Cooperation
Cohesiveness