EMPLOYEE ENGAGEMENT

Many employers create a total selection program aimed at selecting candidates whose totality of
attributes best fits the employer’s total requirements. The program Toyota Motor uses to select
employees for auto assembly team jobs illustrates this. Toyota looks for several things. It wants
employees with good interpersonal skills, due to the job’s emphasis on teamwork. Toyota’s
emphasis on kaizen—on having the workers improve job processes through worker commitment to
top quality—helps explain its emphasis on reasoning and problem-solving skills and on hiring
intelligent, educated, and engaged workers.94 Quality is a Toyota core value, so Toyota wants a
history of quality commitment in those it hires. Toyota holds group interviews. By asking candidates
about what they are proudest of, Toyota gets a better insight into the person’s values regarding
quality and doing things right. Toyota also wants employees with an eagerness to learn, and who are
willing to try things Toyota’s way or the team’s way. Toyota’s production system relies on consensus
decision making, job rotation, and flexible career paths, which in turn require open-minded, flexible
team players, not dogmatists