A lesson I’ve learnt over the years is that new skills can be taught to someone with the right attitude but it’s almost impossible to change the attitude of someone with the right skills.
This belief is the guiding philosophy behind the "Hire for Attitude, Train For Skill" policy we follow at C2 Workshop. Even when faced with the most challenging recruitment deadlines, we stubbornly refuse to compromise on the "attitude" quotient of the candidates we hire.
The reason is fairly simple. At C2, we have strived hard to build and nurture a culture of honesty and transparency towards all our stakeholders (customers, vendors and employees). For a new employee to feel part of the C2 family, s/he has to first of all connect with the existing team at the "personality" level… her/his technical skills come next. Once the personalities match, the rest of the journey is smooth sailing… for the new employee as well as for the organisation.
In rare instances when we've read a candidate's attitude incorrectly during the interview and hired the person, we've found that s/he doesn't last long enough with the organization. This is because the employee finds the work culture completely alien to her/his basic character and finds it difficult to even survive in the organization, leave alone perform or succeed. Interestingly, the employee's technical competence seems to play no role in helping the individual overcome the “culture mismatch” issues.
On the other hand, hiring candidates whose attitude is in harmony with that of the organisation’s helps us keep our attrition levels much lower than prevalent industry standards. It also helps us keep the team's morale and spirit high at all times which in turn positively affects the team's performance and productivity.
