After only 3 weeks, one of my clients had to let one of his staff members go. This staff member came highly recommended and had all of the qualifications for the job; she even had experience in the industry. That didn’t mean that she was going to fit. She was a stress case and, in his business he needed someone flexible and adaptable. I understood and wasn’t surprised he had to let her go. After having a few conversations with the company’s president and getting to know him a little, I got a sense of the TYPE of people that would be a good fit for his organization.
Now, ordinarily my clients don’t have much trouble finding the right people once they’ve got the right system in place. In this client’s case, he hadn’t installed the System of Hiring the Right People into his company. When I talk with business owners, there are often two primary concerns or frustrations they share with me. Number one is generating more leads and increasing sales. Number two is finding and hiring the right people, not necessarily in that order.
Today I want to talk about finding and keeping the right people for your business. If you have the right people coupled with the best systems, you will be able to deal with concern number one, getting more business more effectively. Having a highly effective people screening and hiring process will greatly enhance your company’s ability to produce results throughout your business. When a business hires the wrong person the result of that decision can affect the business in two ways.
#1 – The person is unable to get the results or perform the tasks of the position.
Example: you might have a bookkeeper who is unable to reconcile your books properly, a receptionist who doesn’t answer the phone the way you want it answered, or a listing coordinator unable to make changes to a listing on MLS correctly. When you have a systems-driven business, these problems or lack of performance are resolved. When you have quality procedures and documentation in place your people will be more effective at producing the results you want. Example: I have a client that needed some bookkeeping support. They decided to hire an assistant to help the manager of the accounting department. The first thing they did was make sure all the bookkeeping systems were well documented and produced the results they wanted. Once they found the right person, with the minimum requisite skills necessary to operate the bookkeeping software, she was able to follow the system and performed her job beautifully.
The point is that having a good procedure will eliminate many of the performance related frustrations that plague business owners and managers.
#2 – This problem deals more with attitudes and adherence to YOUR predetermined culture and way of doing business.
Let’s face it. Virtually every business owner has dealt with team members that were very capable people in terms of producing results and, yet, something about that person just didn’t seem to fit the organization. In other words, they weren’t the “right person for the bus”. What exactly does that mean? It simply means this: the best businesses in the world have their own unique personality. That personality often defines and separates a business from their competition and often from all other businesses. Consider Starbucks, Nordstrom’s, Ritz Carlton, Disneyland and Southwest Airlines just to name a few. Each of these companies has a unique personality that separates it from its competition.
The reason these organizations stand out has to do with the conduct of its people. Their employees fit the personality of the business and conduct themselves in accordance with it. I don’t believe it was a mistake that Southwest Airlines has a reputation for being friendly, fun and being customer centric. They specifically hire people with those characteristics. They find the right people to be on the bus. Most businesses rarely consider and consciously develop the “personality” or culture. As a result, business owners occasionally find themselves frustrated that their people are not ACTING the way they want them to. Example: I have a client that had a manager that just didn’t seem to fit the organization. The manager had a lot of skill and yet his department was suffering. When I asked my client what seemed to be the problem, after some prompting, he discovered the manager was very closed-minded and unwilling to change and grow. He was pretty set in his ways.
My client came to the conclusion that one of the defining characteristic of his business was the fact that the business and the people within it were ALWAYS learning and growing. Both personally and professionally. This manager was not. Because the manager had values in conflict with those of the company he had a negative and adverse effect on the personality of the business.
My client invested time in mentoring and communicating the character of the business he was creating, but the manager simply didn’t respond. He ultimately was let go. Ironically, all the people that worked for him in that department heaved a sigh of relief and collectively said, “It’s about time.” Hiring the wrong people affects your business in two ways. Either you don’t get the tangible performance from your people, or it has a negative impact on the differentiating personality of your business.
Here is the list of biggest mistakes that businesses make in hiring.
#1 – Hiring for skill and experience first. When you have a systems driven business, your primary job is to make sure that the people you hire have the ability or minimum requisite skill necessary to operate your systems. Example: Let’s pretend that you are looking to hire a bookkeeper and your business runs QuickBooks. Assume your documented systems require that the person has a requisite knowledge or experience with that program, then you would only consider people with that skill, training or experience. At the same time, you don’t necessarily need someone who has experience in your type of business. Here is a Real Estate specific example. Often I find realtors make the mistake of limiting their search to people that have previous experience in real estate. They will only hire someone who has specific experience acting as a listing or transaction coordinator. When you have good systems in place, you can open your search to people that have general computer skill and experience.
#2 – Poor Planning or having to rush to a decision. Often business owners don’t plan far enough ahead to anticipate when they will need new people to support their growth. That leaves them with very little time to be selective about the candidates they bring in. There is a direct relationship between your sales, capacity to serve and the number of people you have in your business, so let’s take a look at a typical scenario in real estate. You should have a pretty good idea of how many transactions a Listing Coordinator can effectively manage per month before their quality of service and performance drops dramatically. If you don’t know, than I highly recommend you find out. Now let’s say that you plan to grow your business by 25% this year. This will add 25% more transactions. At this point you might realize that your Listing Coordinator is going to be at capacity in about 2 months at the rate of growth you are experiencing. So start the recruiting and hiring process NOW. That way you will have plenty of time to find the right person for the business. Don’t wait until your Listing Coordinator is pulling their hair out or you see drops in quality and service.
# 3 – Not listening to real life examples of how the candidate really behaves at work. Past behavior is usually a good indicator of future performance. Let’s say part of the culture or personality you are striving to create in your business is a strong team oriented, where people stop to serve and support each other even in the midst of their own busyness. In your pursuit of finding the right person, you carefully craft a question that is meant to determine if the candidate is a team player. You might ask the question, “Give me an example of how you’ve responded to a situation where you were under pressure to get a task completed and at the same time a staff member asked for your help because they were really behind on a project.” Now if the candidate says, “Well if something like that happened I would…” This particular response is based on theory. In other words, they haven’t had that situation so you really don’t know how they would handle it. Now if a candidate says, “Well I had something like that happen at another company and this is what I did…” Now you have a response based on past behavior. They may not give the answer that suggests that they are a team player but at least you know how they would handle future situations.
#4 – Not being objective in your evaluation and assessment of candidates. The hiring process is one that tends to be very intuitive in the first place, but we can’t leave the decision entirely up to our gut. There are people out there that are great at interviewing. If you don’t specifically score the responses and qualities you look for objectively, you might be wowed into hiring someone that really doesn’t fit your organization. I call it “Happy Ears” and it could cost you a lot of money in a poor hiring decision. Keep it objective, and if possible, involve people that are not emotionally involved in the hiring and interviewing process.
Here are some guidelines for hiring the right people for your company.
#1 – Hire for personality and fit first. Look for people who will fit into the organization. In the Level Seven System we help our clients identify the personality or culture they want to create. Then we help them describe what we refer to as the Characteristics of the Ideal Team Member. We encourage them to look for people that match the personality of the business first.
#2 – Know that your “documented systems and procedures” will make up for any deficiencies in previous experience and skill. In some cases, hiring someone from outside your industry can actually be more beneficial to your business.
#3 – Always be recruiting. I didn’t say always be hiring, but you should always be on the lookout for quality people that will fit your business. I have a client that refers to the recruiting and hiring process as “weed and seed.” It was a little cold hearted but he realized that his standards for performance and expectations for his people where always going up. The reality for him was that a person that served as a great employee today may not be able to keep up with the growth of the business and the people within it. They may eventually need to be replaced. He was always on the lookout for better people and was willing to replace those that weren’t adding great value to the business. I know that might sound harsh, but it is a fact of life for businesses that are continually growing.
#4 – Be slow to hire, fast to fire. Companies like Proctor and Gamble, Microsoft, Google and others have tremendous resources and information available to them to aid in the hiring decision process, but they still make mistakes. However they are able to identify the people that slipped through the cracks very quickly and get rid of them. They know the potential costs associated with having the wrong people around. Companies like Proctor and Gamble and GE have cult like cultures and “internal personalities” and when someone doesn’t fit they often stand out like a sore thumb.
#5 – Have a documented system or procedure that walks you and your people through the hiring process. Don’t wing it. Know what you are looking for. Ask great questions and take your time screening a candidate. As I mentioned previously, conduct multiple interviews and get other more objective team members involved.
I recommend to many of our clients to conduct a three, four or five step interview and candidate screening process. That might sound like a lot but it will save you headaches and money in the long run. Even though having a systems-driven environment is key to a well run business, having the right people to operate those systems separates the average companies from the truly awesome.
Posted by Eden Sunshine "the systems guy"