Did you know that teams led by managers who focus on their weaknesses are 26% less likely to be engaged?

After all, nothing can be as demotivating as working on projects that do nothing but highlight an employee's weak points whilst leaving their strengths unused. 

Being able to identify employees' strengths and weaknesses are the secret to unlocking huge amounts of the potential of every team and department in your business. 

This applies even more so in times of crisis and turbulence such as COVID-19 and the challenges it brings to all businesses' doorsteps. 

As business leaders, it's essential for you to uncover your employees' strengths in order to assign them the right tasks and responsibilities. This will enable you to drive productivity and engagement. 

Keep on reading to learn all about how to identify employee strengths and the actions you need to take to reach this quintessential information.  

How to Identify Employee Strengths 101: Be Direct and Genuine

The majority of employees have been asked about their strengths and weaknesses during performance reviews at least a couple of times. 

Yet, that doesn't mean that the answers they keep providing are exactly accurate. There are industry clichés like being "a self-starter" and "punctual."

If you want to get truthful answers, then as an employer, you'll need to nurture a culture of honesty and directness in the workplace. Start by showing your human side by admitting that you also have areas that you're working on improving. 

This way, your employees are much more likely to be honest with you regarding their strengths and weaknesses.

Once you're past that hurdle, you can start making use of their strengths and prevent misplacing them in a project. 

For instance, if you have an employee that states that they're pragmatic, then placing them on short-term practical responses to crises like COVID-19 would be a great way of utilising their strong points.

Create Friendly Competition

This technique can be of great use on your goal of identifying your employees' strengths.

In general, competition is a powerful motivator in the workforce. By creating friendly competition opportunities, you'll be able to see your employees' strengths and weaknesses thrown into sharp relief. 

You can implement this technique by holding contest within teams as well as across your organization. It can be a fun and effective way to recognize natural leaders as well as specific areas that employees can excel in. An example would be identifying good strategists versus good tacticians in games of strategy. 

In addition, you can start seeing your employees' risk-averseness in games of risk and probability.

Check out Intranet Activity

As a functioning business, you'll have your regular intranet activity. These are the platforms where your employees communicate internally, as well as managers assign tasks and state deadlines. 

These platforms hold an enormous amount of information on how your employees operate, as well as highlight their strengths and weaknesses. By looking at this host of data, you'll be able to learn a lot about your employees' interests and dislikes. 

For instance, you can check out the type of content they post, whether they ask for help on a frequent basis (or not), and who's a great writer and who's shy in large groups. 

As they stand, social intranets can give you great insight into your employees' relationships, in addition to their attitudes towards work. 

UTILISING Employees' Strengths in a Time of Crisis

There is no doubt that the importance of understanding how your employees work and which areas their talents shine through is an essential part of leadership and management as a whole. 

Yet, in cases of crises, it takes on a whole different level of priority. After all, you don't want to give the task of setting up a business health response to the employee that's well-known for their shyness. 

Thankfully, now you know how to identify employee strengths, which will put you ahead of the curve for effective crisis responses. 

However, there is still so much more to learn about navigating business challenges in a time of a global pandemic. Therefore, make sure to check out our blog for all the advice and tips you'll need to know.