Whether you're hiring new employees or evaluating current ones, as a business owner, you should be looking for certain characteristics that are common to great employees. Employees with these traits will improve your company's performance and reputation, and they will make life easier for you.

Look for employees who can...

Take initiative. You want people who don't wait for someone to give them direction. You want people who look for ways to be productive, contribute, and take on more responsibility.

Take responsibility. A good employee wants to grow and develop, even if there's no promotion involved in the additional responsibility. Also, do they take responsibility for their actions? Do they own up to their mistakes? Good employees are confident, and they're big enough to admit when they've screwed up.

Understand the financial aspect of the business. If they understand how you make money, they can understand the link between their performance and the bottom line.

Keep their promises. People who are faithful in the small, (seemingly) insignificant things are generally faithful in the big, important things, too. You want people who hold to their commitments.

Do their job with a smile, even when they're having a bad day. One employee having one bad day in a bad way can cause dozens or hundreds of customers to have a bad day. Sometimes "the show must go on," even when it hurts.

Consistently act in the best interest of the customer and the organization. These are usually the people who will return a lost wallet without even peeking to see how much money's inside. Look for honest, good-hearted people. They're out there.

Do things to make other people look good. This is the essence of a team. Find those wide receivers who leap to catch an errant pass. Find those nurses who can hand the right instrument to a distracted doctor who asked for the wrong thing. Find those servers who fill the glasses and pick up empty plates from others' tables, even when they know they won't get the tip.

Perform consistently. "Are they good?" is the wrong question. A better question is, "Are they good every time?" Great artists do the same songs night after night. The ones playing to packed houses do it well every time.

Stay on track. Not everything in life is knock-your-socks-off exciting. We live in an age when peoples' attention wanes when they have to read more than a paragraph or two. Can your employees focus even when the task isn't fun? Do they have the ability to put the blinders on and plug ahead to meet a critical deadline?

Thrive on internal motivation. External motivation is short-lived. You want people who want to be there. You want people who derive joy from the work they do.