5 Traits of a Valuable Startup Employee

Attracting, hiring and keeping highly skilled and talented people as part of your startup is not such an easy job. It is difficult to find the right people, but it is even more difficult to keep them in your team as long as you can. Talented people need to be constantly motivated in order to stay engaged and to share the passion for your startup the same way as you do. As a startup owner you are probably working on a tight budget and your ability to financially encourage your employees is not that strong. But again, as an entrepreneur, you need to put your leadership skills in action in order to avoid micromanagement, to effectively delegate and to keep your team members engaged.

It is more likely to hire unexperienced people for your startup and there is nothing wrong about it. Actually, being able to develop the talent of your employees, will help you to create stronger relationships with your team members and will increase their commitment to the company. After they have worked hard to grow your startup, they will most likely appreciate every success of the company as much as you do.

Here you can find five things you should look for in your startup employees to make sure that they will stay true to your business and will be devoted to the work process.

Enthusiasm

The decision to join a startup carries big risks for many people. One of the most important questions that you need to ask your future employees is: Why do you want to be part of a startup? They may have different reasons: to gain experience, to learn more and to improve their skill set, to discover their personal entrepreneurial spirit and so on. Whatever their reasons are, the thing that really matters is how enthusiastic and motivated they feel about it.

Flexibility

Being part of a startup team is very challenging and time-consuming. Your team members must know that they will most likely have to sacrifice a lot of their personal time in order to fulfil the needs of one growing company. If your employees are not available and not willing to spare extra time, they probably will not make a good fit for your startup team.

Critical thinking

Your employees must be able to solve problems, look for solutions in unexpected places and have the ability to take critical decisions by themselves. You need to be able to inspire their inside entrepreneur (the so-called intrapreneur) in order to avoid micromanagement. If they don’t posses the skills of critical thinking and responsible decision making, they will not be able to face the challenges of being part of a growing startup, where everything is changing very fast.

Honesty, integrity and trustworthy

Honesty is very important for a successful team building and the ability to delegate responsibility to your employees must be inspired by your levels of trust that you have in them. They will be taking care of many important things in the company when you are busy with investor meetings, networking events and work-related trips, so you need to be able to fully trust your employees.

Devotion

As a startup owner, you will be facing many challenges, especially if you have tough competition. As your team is one of your biggest assets, you will have to be careful how loyal actually your team members are.