If I was going to make a choice whether to hire Avery or Jaime, I would have to choose Avery. If Avery performs at a much higher level when she is at her best, then we need to find a way to get her at her best more consistently. We know that she has the capability, so the title of “slacker” seems unfair to me, it sounds like her efforts aren’t being utilized efficiently, and that her role or how she performs her tasks must be heavily revised.
Putting Avery in a creative role where failure, or lackluster effort, could be more acceptable is perfect for her working style. I’d like to choose some sort of marketing or advertising role for her, something where it’s okay to have millions of bad ideas but also allows her to freely use her brain capacity as much as she’d like to eventually come up with the best product. In a role like this, consistency could be seen as boring, or a theme or trend would be overplayed and strung out. You’d like to find what’s new, what’s “in” at the moment, and someone like Jaime may struggle in this role trying to look for past successes to fuel ideas for the company at this current moment. Consistency is great, but when you’re in a creative role, you need highs and lows.
Jaime needs a consistent role for his consistent performance. I immediately see him inputting data, or spending a lot of time in a cubicle. If he can repeatedly do his tasks without using much creativity, I have confidence that he will do solid work. Something that makes him more valuable for this role is his ability to maintain a solid work level throughout his work week. If you were to have someone with below-average performance in this role most of the time, you could find that the data entry either takes far too long, or numbers are input correctly which leads to an even longer list of issues.
Leave a Reply