What Do You Value in an Employee?
I recently conducted a search for a lead paralegal and was thinking about the most important traits I was looking for in an employee. I came up with
- Loyalty
- Communication
- Work Hard
I value intelligence quite a bit and was rather surprised it didn’t make my short list. And of course talent makes a huge difference, but I don’t think any of that matters if you don’t have the first three. What do you guys think?
In the employment context, I see loyalty less as a individual quality than as a form of behavior that must be fostered by the employer. Unlike intelligence (or aptitude), employee loyalty probably depends less on the the employees' inherent character and more on the employer's treatment of his employees.
I'll agree with you that loyalty is something to be engendered and fostered by management.
However, I can also tell you that it's also an individual trait (that can be either inherent or acquired).
Personally, I was always wired that way, but my stint in the military from the ages of 18-25 helped develop my sense of loyalty to people.
My father says that my loyalty is a good trait, but at times I'm *too* loyal. My response is that only way he can say that is to misunderstand the meaning of the word.
