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Person Specifications for a New Team Member

With a person specification for a new team member it is usually relatively easy to specify the competencies, the qualities of knowledge, experience and skills you are looking for in a candidate but the more important issue is how the person will fit in to the existing team. This article describes the use of the repertory grid interview to develop person specifications by analysing the team dynamics, with organisational culture and differences within the team used constructively as components.

 

In addition to drawing up the person-specification that takes into account team dynamics organizational culture and differences within the team this application of the repertory grid interview process provides the team's manager information on important questions that will arise in the induction of the new team member into the job and introduction to the rest of the team.

The Method

Because the object is not to learn how team members judge other team members, use of nicknames or other disguises must be allowed. To protect the interviewees, at the end of the session the names of the people used must be deleted completely from the record. (Enquire WithinŽ has this facility built in.)

The elements would be some of the team and others that the person would have to work closely with and the new team member’s manager. The manager and some of the people chosen as elements would be interviewed taking all of the safety precautions mentioned elsewhere (see side box and Organisation Culture Measurement). To focus the interview on areas of most concern the two against one questions would be qualified with `in terms of questions’ such as … in terms of their relationships, … in terms of their contribution and … in terms of their skills. (Ref. Designing a Repertory Grid Session - A Note on Qualifiers)

This is an example that gains significantly from the introduction of a new element part way through the interview. When you have produced sufficient constructs for your purpose and after rating, cluster analysis and differentiating, the new element - `the new team member’ (or job) would be introduced and rated against the existing constructs.

By using this process we have set in motion from the start the incorporation of team dynamics, organisational culture and constructive use of differences within the team as components of the new team member’s person specification rather than as an inconvenient afterthought. The manager of the future new team member will, as part of the interview process after introduction of `the new team member’ element and grid analysis, have the opportunity of considering the similarities and differences and whether they matter and consider strategies for managing any differences. There may be trade offs to make and several possible person specifications may result.

The important point is that these issues are discussed in advance rather than at the point of needing to make a choice between competing job candidates following the selection interviews. Having made the decision you also have a good grasp of issues related to introducing the chosen candidate to the job and the basis of a strategy for introducing the new team member in a way that will facilitate the new team working well together.

Use of Computer Technology

Developing person specifications is an example of where computer software can be extremely useful. Being able to move seamlessly between construct generation, cluster analysis `on the fly’ and the introduction of the new element will enable interviewees to produce constructs quickly and easily with minimum disruption to their normal work.

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