- As a first step, says Brook, your human resources strategy has to create a common language around strengths. Make your commitment to a strengths-based approach to building competence in your organisation visible. What are the strengths of your organisation? How do you value the talents of your employees? How do you communicate this to them? Integrate this in your strategic documents and tell the world out there that you have a positive approach to developing your employees.
- Employees need to ‘own’ their strengths. Understanding one’s strengths and appropriately applying these in a balanced way will greatly contribute to success at work. You can help your employees to identify the underlying strengths that energise them. One way of doing this is to identify and reflect on ‘defining moments’ in their careers. Create opportunities where they can identify times when they felt energised and performed at their best. Individual development and performance appraisal meetings provide a good platform for identifying these underlying strengths. Brook suggests questions such as: “What did you learn about yourself and your strengths from these situations? What type of work really energises you?”
- Friends and colleagues who have observed different aspects of your employees' characters and performance can also provide valuable feedback on their strengths. How do they see these successes and strengths? Are there any differences between how the employee and other relevant people they see these strengths? Is the individual showing too much of this underlying strength? Is it possible that others may perceive what is supposed to be positive, as a weakness or area of conflict?
- Support the individual in building new skills that play to his or her strengths and that will help him or her in achieving the next task, job or career goals. Ask the employees to integrate their strengths with their development plans. Help identify learning and development opportunities that further build their talents. What self-study opportunities are available? Can HR create opportunities for on-the-job development of skills?
- Too much of a good thing is not necessarily good. Help individuals to identify overdone strengths that may play out as a limiting weakness or pose a threat to work performance. How can partnerships with other employees with complementary skills be formed? Encourage employees to form new habits to avoid the negative impact of overdone strengths.
- Provide an environment where employees can stretch their strengths. Stretching strengths mean challenging someone in a supportive way to move outside the zone of comfort. Challenge people to go beyond what they know and what they regard as their talents. Provide opportunities where strengths can be practiced in new situations.
- On a more formal level, consider the use of strengths-assessment tools to identify the specific underlying strengths. Various assessment specialists are accredited in the use of such tools. After having completed such an assessment, the employee will have a conversation with the assessment specialist, during which the assessed strengths are verified with the specialist. Thereafter the individual can meet with HR to discuss the findings and agree to an action plan.
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Author: Dr Karina de Bruin is a registered Counselling Psychologist and Head of the Training Academy at Jopie van Rooyen & Partners, a psychological test provider in Africa. |
