20 Top Qualities that Determine a Great Employee - EmployeeConnect
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20 Top Qualities that Determine a Great Employee

While you are looking for high-potential, high-performing, good work ethic employees who are a good fit for your existing team members, you need to take a holistic approach to knowledge skills & attitude. Knowledge and Skills are certainly an asset, but they can be taught or bought.

However, the same cannot be said in terms of an individual’s character & attitude. There is, of course, no need to over emphasize on personality traits, but you must give some importance to it certainly while making your pick from the lot. This article discusses a some qualities of a good employee.

1. Confidence

As a manager, it is obvious for you to be happier to entrust a project to someone who is confident than someone who isn’t. One of the plus points of having a confident employee around is that he is more than willing to take up risks or challenges compared to an under confident counterpart.

A confident employee proves to be an asset when you can entrust him or her to directly interact with your clients knowing that the latter is bound to be impressed by their self-assuredness. This will automatically urge them to continue being in business with your organisation.

2. Ambition

Employees with an ambitious streak are always willing to go above & beyond to achieve the organisational goals as well as while climbing the corporate ladder. These individuals do not shy from responsibilities as they set high standards for themselves. Since their yearning for personal success is also high, their ambition facilitates creative& unorthodox solutions, openness, and a go-getter attitude.

One small word of you caution is that your ambitious employee needs to have a certain amount of emotional intelligence, problem solving skills and communication skills within. This is important to ensure they do not end up alienating their colleagues in their quest for ambition.

3. Reliability

If an individual can follow instructions well, it indicates that the employee takes his responsibilities seriously and you can entrust them with additional responsibility. Reliability includes showing up for work on time and sticking to timelines.Unreliable employees end up not following instructions, making mistakes, and ultimately undermining productivity.

4. Humble

A preferred employee is always one who refrains from boasting or bragging about his or her accomplishments. They rather believe in proving their worth with their hard work instead of merely exaggerated words. A workplace is always much more productive when it does not have arrogant employees.

5. Passionate

Stuff who has good employee qualities are always in favour of employees, exceed their expectations and happily accept any project or task no matter how challenging it may be. Passionate employees always give their best because they love their job. While money is certainly a motivating factor, it is equally important for your employee to take pleasure in doing what they dos to earn that salary.

To figure out how passionate an individual is in terms of work you can ask them following two questions during the interview.

  1. What aspect of your work were you most satisfied with in your previous company?

The answer to this question will help you gauge whether the individual is indeed keen on putting his passion towards work into practice or if he is merely on the lookout for a specific work culture with comforts and perks.

  1. How do you remain up-to-date with the industry trends?

If the candidate is unable to provide you with any professional or personal development that he has added to his kitty, you will be able to gauge his passion for work. Passionate individuals always invest some extra time in order to polish their existing skills or learn new ones.

6. Cultural Alignment 

Before looking out for a candidate who fits wells into your organisational culture, you need to ensure that you have a list of qualities that you want from the employees to fit in your company culture. You can take a hind from the values that you or your existing taskforce have at work. Workplace culture entails decision making, daily workplace practices followed, and the language used at the workplace.

You can ask the following questions during an interview to help you gauge if your candidate meet the attributes for a good employee. List three key work related values that you demonstrated in your previous organization.

  • Have you ever committed a mistake at work and if you did, how did you fix the issue?

When you manage to find a candidate who is a good cultural fit for the organisation, you need to be able to lure them with a great compensation package and the great opportunity that lies ahead.

7. Self-motivated

When you have self-motivated individuals in your team, you do not need to push them to get your work done. They have the zeal to perform outstandingly and work in a consistent fashion. Such individuals also set a pace and model that their peers may follow.

Self motivated individuals rise above problems, challenges, loss, or even momentary failure. Their belief in themselves keeps them going. They constantly try to upgrade their knowledge.

8. Positive Mindset

Having an employee with a positive mindset in indeed contagious. No matter how grim the situation is or how tedious the task at hand is, an employee with a positive frame of mind is always optimistic and works with a smile on the face. Positive employees always help their employers to identify underlying issues and even assist in providing or suggesting solutions.

A positive employee does not shirk away from accepting responsibility for what he does. One of the best ways to figure out the attitude of an employee during an interview is to ask them to state one or two examples that they are really optimistic about in life.

9. Enthusiastic

Enthusiastic people are always keen and eager to learn new things and they constantly strive for success. They build a strong working environment which inspires new ideas and keep their coworkers engaged and happy.

10. Self-Managed

It is an absolute delight to have an individual who is self managed. Such an individual is well aware of their roles and responsibilities and always strives to improve himself or herself and play up to their strengths. A self managed employee does not believe in wasting the employer’s time and money and is a self disciplined individual.

11. Proactive

Proactive employees are always preferred over reactive ones. Reactive employees always wait for instructions while the proactive ones always take the initiative and figures out innovative means of being productive so that the company benefits in the process. Proactive individuals are always willing to take chances and act on time. Ideal employees who are action oriented are the ones who can help you in making money for the organisation in long term.

12. Hard-working

Hard work is one of the key qualities of a good employee. Individuals are different from the typical 9-5 working ones. They are the ones who are ready to burn the midnight oil if need be to complete an urgent project. Organisations are always on the lookout for result-driven and hard-working individuals.

13. Team Spirit

It is equally important to be able to perform as part of a team. To be a good team player it needs patience, good social skills, and a certain level of tolerance. When there is good team spirit at work, it helps to get the job done faster and you can even expect larger volume of work done. Team efforts nurtures good relations within the members of the team and people tend to learn from one another.

14. Marketable

Employees who are marketable are presentable ones who can represent your business in such a manner that it creates a good impression in front of your clients. Apart from being well groomed, a marketable employee needs to have a pleasing personality and thoroughly professional in his or her attitude.

15. Creative

Every business needs individuals who aren’t afraid to think outside the box and can dish out innovative ideas to grow and flourish. Creative employees are always willing to try new things and think outside the box. This helps to cut down the redundancy of the daily routine at work. Creative employees also help in boosting employee productivity.

16. Detail-oriented

Finding employees who are detail oriented tend to take delight in their work is essential for the workplace environment. They take that extra bit of care to look for minor details which others may take for granted.

17. Autonomous

An autonomous employee is able to manage his time effectively and manages to get mammoth tasks done quickly in a productive manner. Employee autonomy entails having the discretion and the freedom to schedule and plan their work so that they are able to deliver well.

18. Communicator

Employers always wish to hire employees who have the capability to communicate in a fluent manner be it written or verbal communication. Inappropriate communication may lead to various issues and misunderstandings both within and outside the company and with clients too.

19. Leadership Potential

Leadership begins with self confidence and it is strengthened with positive reinforcement and repeated success. If you have an individual in your team with leadership qualities, you may want to consider giving them a key leadership role in your organisation.

20. Honest

A stuff is incomplete despite having other employee good qualities if he or she lacks integrity and authenticity. An honest employee will always be transparent as well. Transparency helps in improving the work culture and working environment. When honest employees achieve higher ranks within the company, they are greatly appreciated by people.

 

hr and payroll

Byron Conway
byron@employeeconnect.com

Content Coordinator at EmployeeConnect