Curiosity takes an employee places in an organisation

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What makes an employee great? There are the usual qualities: hard-working, organised, good listening skills. Workplace experts, however, suggest one quality may carry more weight than others: curiosity.

Whether it’s a senior vice-president

or line worker, the person who shows a willingness to learn and take interest in what’s going on around them is often the one that shines.

“Someone with curiosity demonstrates not only that they think outside the box but they think of the current system in an expanded sort of way,” said Nancy Ackley-Ruth, senior consultant for Cultural Awareness International in Dallas, which provides cross-cultural training for business clients.

It’s so important that curiosity is one of the top five characteristics Ackley-Ruth focuses on when interviewing job applicants. It ranks right up there with basic job knowledge and a sense of ethics and integrity, she said.

When Kathy Rapp worked in human resources for two upscale hotel chains in Houston, she always looked to find the waiter who took the time to note the favourite wine of a frequent guest and made sure the wine was on the table.

Or the housekeeper curious enough to notice workout clothes hanging up in a guest’s room and who would go into the reservation system to find out how long the guest is staying and then take the initiative to send the clothes out for cleaning. At the end of the day the guest comes back to a note and fresh workout clothes—free of charge. “It’s a little above and beyond,” she said, a distinction important in that luxury market.

Rapp, who is now vice-president and managing director of the HR Search Firm, a recruiting company that focuses on human resource director level jobs and above, said she looks for signs of creativity, an interest in learning and innovation during job interviews. “I would ask what they did in the past,” she said, and listened for the enthusiasm and passion when a candidate told a good story.

Rapp credited curiosity and a willingness to try something new in fixing a problem at a ‘very status quo’ financial services company whose call centre was plagued by high turnover. The vice-president of operations was open to rethinking the problem—that people were quitting because they didn’t have a realistic view of the tough job during a traditional interview.