Skills v Traits: making the right hiring decisions

There’s a popular phrase that reads ‘skills can be taught but attitude can’t’. In the aged care industry, both skills and attitude are important, so is it possible to focus on both and recruit the right aged care worker for your organisation?

Recruitment is never easy, especially when the role involves interacting with older – and often vulnerable – people who require care and support. With an estimated 65,000 workers leaving the sector each year, it’s understandable that you often have to recruit to fill short-term vacancies. Those new additions may or may not be the perfect fit, however.

Attitude, traits and behaviours play a huge role in the services staff provide. A generous and cooperative care worker is someone who will support others, while a worker who lacks empathy and disregards resident wellbeing is a cause for concern.

If you can identify the right traits from the start, you may well avoid workforce headaches in the future.

Important skills and traits for your organisation

When you are looking to make the right hiring decisions you need to consider what skills and traits are most important to the specific job, the team and your organisation as a whole. In aged care settings, skills and qualifications hold tremendous value, but some may be more important to you than others.

Qualifications, whether vocational or university, are essential for care staff. Depending on the role, you may also want a certain amount of experience.

Without a certain level of education and ability, quality appropriate aged care cannot be delivered to older Australians. However, it’s always possible to upskill staff by providing opportunities to train and develop.

Traits are different. These are the values and qualities that make a person who they are, such as showing compassion when assisting a resident with a task or bringing positive energy to each shift.

They are qualities that a person develops naturally and are very hard to teach or change. An uncompassionate staff member is unlikely to develop caring tendencies if it’s not built into their core values.  

As a result, you may find that by focusing on talent with positive traits that are suited to your organisation’s values, you are more likely to recruit staff that will provide positive outcomes.

Top traits and values for care workers

There are certain traits and values that are best suited to the provision of care. These are the qualities and values that will put residents’ at ease, create a positive work environment, and ensure the best possible care is provided.

Ryan Ng, a psychologist and founder of workforce assessment tool Talent Identify, has developed a system that provides a holistic and evidence-based approach to analysing worker traits and qualities. The assessment’s results can be used to predict worker performance and recruitment outcomes.

He said it’s difficult to assess the top care worker traits in an objective and accurate manner without digging deeper into a person’s core values. 

“The aged care industry is good at assessing skills and qualifications during the recruitment process, but assessing personality, traits and attributes are harder,” said Mr Ng. 

“It’s intangible and you can’t see these qualities as well in an interview.

“That’s where insights into personality, behaviour and values can help you make smarter decisions in the recruitment process,” explained Mr Ng.

“Values like honesty, cooperation, patience, generosity and non-hostility are the traits that are critical for success as a care worker.

“They are not necessarily reflected in skills and you can’t really impart those qualities in training. 

“You can attend a course and earn the relevant qualifications and skills, but you can’t train things like an innate ability to cooperate or to be ethical.”

He said there are several distinctive values you want to look for in prime candidates, including:

• Agreeableness – can a worker be forgiving or flexible during conflict or if provoked?
• Conscientiousness – do they take their work seriously through organisation, order and self-control?
• Honesty-Humility – do they show the appropriate levels of fairness and modesty?
• Extraversion – will they engage socially and react positively to a variety of personalities?

When you are looking for workers with these leading traits, you won’t always find someone who ticks all the boxes. 

But if you find someone who aligns with a number of success attributes, such as empathy, accountability and positive attitudes towards residents, you are more likely to have a successful recruit in the long term.

Values for long-term success

The COVID-19 pandemic hit the care industry hard and worker fatigue and burnout were heightened by increased strains on the existing workforce. Now, there is a consensus among some providers that there is a limited pool of talent to recruit from.

The Fair Work Commission’s interim decision to raise award rates for direct care workers by 15% may attract a greater number of recruits or the impact may be a slow burn.

If you have the option, Mr Ng said to prioritise recruiting workers with good values that will succeed in the long run.

“There is short-term and long-term planning,” said Mr Ng.

“You may just be filling roles for the short term based on skills but if you’re thinking long term, you don’t want to just fight fires all the time in the workforce.

“Sometimes it’s not just about saying no, but if you know someone has hostile or unethical tendencies, you don’t want to put vulnerable populations at risk. 

“Aged care is about who you’re caring for and you need to balance the risk management of providing the best care.”

It is best not to feel pressured into recruiting people that may have the technical skills, but not the emotional skills that you require within your organisation.

Making the right hiring decisions

The real-world outcomes of recruiting the right people are often the most noticeable in an aged care setting. But if you recruit the wrong people, it can lead to challenges, issues and complaints within your facility or service. 

Utilising behaviour and value assessment tools during the recruitment process will provide you with a greater understanding of potential employees, or even existing ones. 

If their values line up with your organisation’s culture style, your staff retention numbers will remain strong. There are many benefits to staff retention, including better care outcomes, closer bonds with residents and higher satisfaction when working as part of a steady team.

Therefore, ask yourself what you believe the perfect aged care worker should be. Would they be a suitable worker if they have the skills, but not the values? Are they someone who is likely to stick around for the long term if there are no shared goals?

Although there may not be anyone who ticks all your boxes, when they possess many of the positive carer traits and values, you can help them develop in other areas. 

You always have the opportunity to support staff education and development but may not be able to influence their behaviours and values.

How have you assessed traits and values in staff before recruitment? Tell us in the comments below.