Barbara Ashton
Dismissing a bad hire is not only bad for the morale of your entire team, it can and will negatively impact your company for months following their termination. Yet the numbers show that employers continue to suffer a new hire turnover rate of over 50% ie., new employees voluntarily resigning within the first six months of starting a new job.
According to Equifax Workforce Solutions, the rate at which employees left a new job inside of six months was about twice as high for employees paid hourly vs salary. And of those employers studied, 50% of them quickly admitted to the staggering cost of $25,000 or more for one single bad hire.
Not surprisingly these costs often escalate upwards by tens of thousands of dollars depending on the level of seniority and the impact they have on fellow employees, as well as internal and external customers – think productivity, demoralizing morale, and critically weakened brand or public image – all of which take far longer to repair than we even want to think about.
The #1 reason for people not working out? Misalignment of values.
Your strategy then, is to avoid bad hires by identifying right alignment of values right out of the gate.
Here’s how:
Start by ensuring that all hiring managers have a clear understanding of what the top competencies and personal attributes are for top performing employees. These traits are your non-negotiables, which will ensure right cultural fit and are essential to identify in every hire, regardless of seniority or occupation.
Once you have the right screening for cultural fit established, it becomes a whole lot easier to map out your sourcing and interview strategy. You will now be identifying those key traits and characteristics as first steps in your screening process.
For my company and the clients we hire for we call these the 5 C’s of a Great Hire.
1. Character
“Character is like a tree and reputation like a shadow. The shadow is what we think of it; the tree is the real thing." - Abraham Lincoln
Be more concerned with hiring for character over reputation. Reputations come and go and are relative to the people, places and circumstances your candidate comes from. True character in your employees is what will see you through the storms. One good way to assess character is to see how they treat those who cannot do something for them i.e. the sales clerk at the grocery store, a salesperson who stops by without an appointment, etc.
2. Compatibility
Who are they going to be spending the bulk of their working hours with? Some key members of your team may possess such specialized skills that you have to overlook otherwise unpleasant personality flaws. Will they be moving around between divergent teams, or working in a more static routine type role? Look for past performance to demonstrate their suitability.
3. Commitment
Best identified by asking what they are looking for in a new role? Keep exploring until you get to their motive. Once you have motive established you’ll quickly be able to identify whether they possess the commitment to your team to see the job through, or whether they’re just looking for a short-term solution to what may well be a long-term behavioural problem. Are they more concerned for their own welfare or that of the team they are working with? You want to listen for their "story line", at home and at work. To do this structure your questions around their achievements to find out what happened, who was involved, and what was the outcome.
4. Competency
Do they have the basic skills to be able to perform on the job? What training will be involved? How long will this take and at what cost? High performers have curious minds, ask questions, and consistently demonstrate a track record of learning and applying new skills quickly throughout their previous employment. Ask them to tell you about the most challenging job they’ve ever had and then ask how they overcame those challenges.
5. Coach-ability
Is this person receptive to being coached? How have they reacted vs responded to criticism in past roles? Are they willing to be wrong? What examples can they give you of how they changed their behaviour or way of thinking to achieve a positive outcome? Ask them who was involved and how hard it was to relearn those things.
One Last Word. After spending close to thirty years in recruiting, I find most interviewers talk way too much. Interviewing is just like sales. The art of asking questions is to avoid asking questions that require a yes or no answer, ask the question then shut up and listen. When you really listen you will naturally have more ‘why’ and ‘what happened’ and ‘what was it like’ questions to ask your candidate.
As a business owner your legacy will be set by the teams you choose and how they accomplish your objectives. Make every hire count as if it’s your most important one.
Barbara Ashton is President of Ashton & Associates Recruiting, BC's #1 Executive Search Firm serving Southern Interior and Okanagan employers. Phone: 800-432-6893
Website: www.ashtonassociates.com
