My clients often tell me they do not have any time to waste in the hiring process. The "right" hires are integral to growing their businesses, and to retaining key employees, who depend on capable colleagues who possess not only the right skills and experience, but also are the right fit from a cultural perspective. Unfortunately, not planning carefully and unwittingly hiring the wrong person can be more detrimental than not having a person in the position at all -- it makes you "worse than one person short." A little planning can go a long way and help avoid this situation. What may seem like an arduous process on the front-end will likely save you time and money later. As an example, I once worked with a technology client who hired an individual with mostly enterprise-level experience; no experience working in a startup. Our client did not screen this candidate to assess the candidate's ability to handle the unique nature of the startup environment. A few months after being hired, the employee was already being counseled regarding poor work performance. Since the employee's prior experience was in a large, structured work environment with well-defined roles and narrow responsibilities, it was a struggle to adjust to the "multiple-hat," nimble nature of a startup in its early years. When the manager spoke with the employee about the employee's resistance and poor quality of work, the employee claimed unfair treatment due to race and age. This serious allegation led to an investigation, which was ultimately determined to be unsubstantiated. At the conclusion of the investigation, the employee cited subsequent treatment of retaliation. This resulted in a second investigation, of which the claim was again found to be unsubstantiated.
This entire process spanned several weeks, and required significant management time working through the investigation and creating proper documentation and follow-up. Meanwhile, the employee continued to not meet expectations. His poor performance lowered the morale of the other employees who were left picking up the slack, and made them wonder what had happened to their company's standards. Finally, in an act of good fortune to all involved, the employee resigned.
Hindsight is 20/20, right? If our client had applied proper candidate screening based on the unique needs of the company's lifecycle, this employee would likely have never been hired. Perhaps you have been lucky enough to avoid a similar tale, but even having one employee who is slightly under-performing and taking up your time for counseling, while other employees have to do more work, costs your company money. How can you avoid this from happening? If you have a trusted advisor, it's always best to loop him or her in prior to starting the hiring process. If you're navigating the hiring landscape on your own, here are some tips:
- Clearly define the position. What opportunities are you looking for the role to fulfill in your organization?
Beware of falling into the trap that you are "home free" once an employee starts working. Running a company and managing employees requires communicating performance expectations regularly to employees. All-too-often I hear executives say phrases like, "Oh, she's a VP of Marketing. She knows what she needs to do." And when I hear that, alarm bells start ringing -- and ringing loudly -- as even the most high-performing employees are not mind-readers. It is critical to tell employees what you want from them and let them know quickly if they are not meeting those expectations. If you regularly meet with your employees and create an open environment, there should be no surprises. Employees will know what is expected of them, they will be able to ask for help if they need it. At the same time, all employees will know everyone is being held accountable and poor performance will not be tolerated. This type of environment tends to keep morale high even in stressful times. Nothing is more disheartening to a good employee than seeing a less productive employee get away with under-performing, especially when the extra work gets handed to them.
The economy is changing and if you want to retain your top employees and hire talented new ones, it is most beneficial to your company's success to spend some time upfront and get it right the first time.