Has most of your hiring process, or finding a job process, involved this:
Someone is needed to do Job A (or you want to do Job A).
A generic ad is put in the paper for Help Needed.
The response is often overwhelming – so many people looking for a job. You read over the resumes. Applicants X, Y and Z look the most promising, so you invite them in for an interview.
There is an obvious best candidate, so you offer them the position. Two weeks into their new employment, they are miserable, you are miserable, and completely puzzled at how you could have hired someone so “not right” for the job.
The answer is in their DISC Style and in the Combination of Styles that are needed for that particular job.
As a quick refresher, in a nutshell, the 4 DISC Styles are:
- D-Style: Gets things done, is decisive and authoritative, prefers to be in charge
- I-Style: Is enthusiastic, outgoing, positive and persuasive, a “party looking for a place to happen”
- S-Style: Is steady, dependable, cooperative and patient, a great team player
- C-Style: Likes procedures, is systematic, precise and conscientious, focuses on the details
This week, let’s look at the Receptionist. In our orthodontic office, this was a key staff member. They were the first person most of our patients (or their parents) talked with, as well as the first face they saw in the office.
Most patients coming in for an appointment are nervous about how much it will hurt. Their parents are nervous about how much it will cost.
The Receptionist needs to be pleasant, cheerful, warm and welcoming, and extremely patient. It is critical that they be a “people person,” more interested in the folks in front of them than in what task is waiting for them. So they needed lots of High I-Style as well as a pretty good amount of High S-Style.
At the same time, in our office, they were in charge of setting up the patient’s next appointment. Our schedule was crazy most of the time, and we had blocks of specific appointments that could only be filled by that type of appointment. So as fun-loving and people-loving as the Receptionist needed to be, it was also critical that they have at least some High C-Style detail strength in them.
I was our first receptionist after we opened our office, and my DISC Style strengths fit the need perfectly. And I loved the job! We continued to find excellent people to fill our Receptionist position, one of them working for us for 26 years!
This process of fitting the person’s DISC Styles to the strengths needed for a particular job resulted in our office being full of satisfied employees. It was a joy to watch how much they each loved their role in the office.
Over the next few weeks, we will take a closer look at some of the other office roles and what DISC Combination works the best for each of them.
***In the meantime, if you would like to find out what your DISC Style Combination is, just click here for more information on getting a DISC Assessment – an easy online process that will gain you lots of insight.
QUESTION: Have you ever considered how your DISC Style Combination would best fit a specific job? I’d love to hear your thoughts and observations. Please share in the comment section below.
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