We’ve all seen the headlines…
• “Why Are Good Managers So Hard To Find?”
• “U.S. Unemployment Hits Lowest Level Since 2001”
• “Why Are Millennials So Hard To Manage?”
The challenge is now bigger than ever. Finding, hiring, and developing top talent is more difficult than it has ever been. Doing so in an industry that’s a bit under the radar for most job seekers is even more challenging. Yet, running a self storage facility requires a broader skill set than most retail-type positions. So how can we do a better job of meeting this talent acquisition challenge?
That’s the subject of the “Leadership Profile” session at this year’s SSA Spring Conference in Orlando. The session will be held on Thursday, March 15th from 3:30-4:30. Participants will learn concepts and will be given tools to increase success with their talent selection process and improve the ability to grow talent from within their own teams. Content of the session will include:
• Introduction of the 13 elements of the leadership profile, the foundation for building a clear vision of the ideal candidate
• Discussion of the most dangerous traps of the interviewing process and how to avoid them
• Presentation of a candidate assessment tool to add objectivity to the selection process
• Explanation of how to use the leadership profile to grow internal talent
One example of an interviewing process trap that will be discussed during the session is called “confirmation bias”. This is the tendency for people to interpret information and situations in a way which confirms their previously-held beliefs. In the context of interviewing, it causes us to “hear” what we expect to hear based on our prior knowledge about a candidate. For instance, if we are interviewing a candidate whose background is from retail clothing businesses, we may hear every hint which indicates the person won’t be willing to roll up their sleeves for the dirty work involved with working in a storage facility, and we may fail to hear every suggestion from their background which indicates they will gladly shovel snow, fix leaks, mop floors, etc. Because of confirmation bias, we may exclude consideration of high quality candidates who don’t fit our typical employee model. Or, oppositely, we may miss serious flaws in candidates who do fit our typical model. In these ways, confirmation bias can be a harmful trap in the interviewing process, and this is just one of the traps that will be discussed in the session.
All session participants will leave with a free copy of the book The Retail Leadership Profile; A Guide to Hiring, Developing, and Becoming Top Retail Talent. If you struggle with finding and keeping the top talent you need to maximize performance of your self-storage business, you will not want to miss this session and the practical tools that you will get from it.