Bob was frustrated, stressed and upset. One of his key employees, Keith, had just left to start his own business and had taken another of his staff members along with him. I wasn't surprised. I had been working with Bob for several months, and had met Keith several times.
My impression wasn't favorable and I had discussed this with Bob. However, Bob thought he needed Keith because he had lots of work and felt he would be short staffed without him.
So did Bob make a mistake somewhere along the line in hiring Keith? What went wrong?
When we are starting out our business and we hire our first staff member, we often hire a friend or family member to "help us keep up."
As we grow, we put ads in the newspaper, online or through a job agency. When there is a shortage of labour, we put "warm bodies" into positions to fill vacancies.
When there is high unemployment, we go back and hire friends and family who desperately need jobs. In both these situations we rarely end up with our ideal staff member.
It's true that sometimes in our businesses we slow down the process and hire someone with the skill set we need. This doesn't always work out.
These people who have the ideal skill sets often struggle in our companies and then leave or get fired.
Like Bob, we end up frustrated, stressed and upset with our employees and our businesses.
The root of the problem was not Bob or Keith.
The root of the problem and the biggest mistake that most business owners make is that we don't have a reliable system for hiring or evaluating our employees. This is a universal challenge of business owners. When we fail to hire the right people in our companies it costs us customers, and ultimately tens of thousands of dollars in lost business.
So what do we need to do?
Fortune 500 companies use psychometric testing to help them pick their employees. Psychometric testing might be Myers-Briggs, DISC behavioral analysis, job aptitude testing, or some other test that measures whatever they deem to be important.
The cost of this testing usually runs $100-750 per job candidate. These large organizations also have a documented system for hiring that includes multiple interviews, checking of references, and possibly a trial for a day or so.
Small businesses with less than 50 employees rarely do any of this. I know many a small company that doesn't even check references.
In order to avoid challenges like Bob faced with his employees, we need to develop systems of hiring and monitoring our employees to ensure that we have the right people in the company.
This starts long before the interview by working on the following four areas:
Core values: Identify the core values of your company. What is it that you stand for and what are the types of people you want as company representatives, customers and suppliers? When you have clarity on this you are well on your way to hiring the right type of people.
Roles and responsibilities: Many small businesses don't have clarity on who does what in the business. Without clear responsibilities, it is difficult to train new employees to fit into the business, especially if they don't understand their role and the roles of others in ensuring the company is successful. Once you have a clear understanding of the type of person you want based on your values, you need to have clarity on the skill set required to fulfill that role.
Hiring: We need to follow a process to hire people in our companies.
We need a system that we follow every time to ensure we advertise and interview properly, check references as well as using our core vales as criteria in making our decision. Without a system, we make decisions randomly and end up with the same mediocre results we had in the past.
Onboarding process: I have talked to many employees who thought they were hired for their dream job but instead became frustrated and leave. This is often the result of poor planning by the leaders in the business.
When we fail to have a system to properly bring people into our company, orientate them and give them feedback on their performance, we set them up for failure.
We think that our employees will learn by osmosis but the truth is that it takes a long time to bring new employees up to speed and when we fail to invest time in this matter, we create barriers to our success as a company.
Bob doesn't plan on making the same hiring mistakes he made in the past.
He has recently hired three more employees based on his core values. He is extremely happy with the results.
More importantly, Bob is excited going to work again, because his employees are enthusiastic about their employment. They are not looking to start their own businesses or to go to another company.
Bob has created clarity around his employees' roles and responsibilities. He is working on developing an onboarding system that engages his new hires and enables him to evaluate them on a regular basis.
Bob's business might not be perfect yet, but he is well on his way to reducing his stress and having a business that works for him.
Dave Fuller, MBA, is an awardwinning, certified professional business coach in Prince George. He is also the author of the book Profit Yourself Healthy. Email comments to dave@profityourselfhealthy.com.
