This young busker might have the right personality and behavioral instincts for the job. So is the money in her box payment for aptitude, or performance? (Photo by Felix Koutchinski on Unsplash).

Hire for Aptitude, Pay for Performance

The Industrial Revolution and what comes after, Part 2

I got a letter from a reader with extensive work experience. She’s been an employee in a massive global technology corporation, owned a small business, and founded startups. She read Performance Appraisal in the Information Age and she had a good insight that I want to share with you.

Hi Tom,

I really liked your article in the Start up. I hope in future articles you will disentangle the hiring criteria and performance evaluation a bit. I love using personality traits as part of hiring criteria and ways to set up strong teams. What I don’t like is that people use them as an excuse for believing they should be compensated for who they are, rather than what they do.

I’ve seen that in some of the people whom I’ve worked with. (This article on NPR talks about people not taking responsibility for changing because of a Myers-Briggs test. It directly correlates with my experience.)

So while how we assess people may revolve around their personality traits, somehow, we still need to compensate people (and motivate them) for what they produce.

You may find this slideshow interesting: https://www.slideshare.net/ForeignStaffing/employee-performance-reviews-in-23-countries.