Breathe and Your Hired! - A Modern Day Recruitment Strategy
Breathe and your hired! Yes, it’s the new way that many businesses drive recruitment. It’s minimal upfront cost, minimal use of your time and brings small returns to your company. Often this strategy is used when a company is under pressure to replace employees that are leaving the business at a rapid rate. The plan is that you fill up the funnel in the top with multiple employees and then respect that out the bottom end there is an 80% turnover falling out and leaving. Ultimately the business balances on the wire of having just enough employees to fulfil their business commitments.
Does it sound like you? There is a better way. Consider these factors when searching for long term employees for your business and when you are truly exhausted from the ‘breathe and your hire’ technique.
Connecting an Employee to their Life’s Work
The best hires and those that stay the longest in a company, are those that you can achieve an alignment between the employee and business. This means connecting an employee to do meaningful work for your business that aligns to their ‘life’s work’ and personal ambitions.
Recently, I read the book, ‘Scaling Up’ by Verne Harnish and he gave an example of a rubbish bin company that engaged a kick boxing champion who had ambitions to become a world champion fighter. The employee needed time to ‘work out’ to achieve his ambition. Therefore, the running after garbage bins daily aligned the business and employee. The employee got his ‘work out’ in and the company got a motivated employee that energetically did his job. The net result was a long term, happy and engaged employee. Yes, he became a world champion fighter.
As business owners we need to first understand a bit more about the actual person that we are interviewing for a job and try and see if we can create these types of long-term alignments. It is interesting that the Not for Profit sector (charity organisations, value driven businesses) are all the rage to work for, as often the business has a direct alignment to the employee’s personal passion.
Press for the Top 10% in the Market
There is a top 10% in any market for any job. If you have read books like ‘Top Grading’ by Bradford D. Smart, you’ll understand the value in pressing through to find individuals that are A grade employees.
Your hiring outcomes have a direct correlation with the effort that you put into the process. For instance, did you prepare some interview questions? Have you created a job description? Did you read the resume? Yep, you better believe it, 80% of Managers that I speak with, did not read the resume of the person that they are about to pay some $50,000 p.a. to, yet on a personal level, they are determine to get three quotes of a television before purchasing the television that they want.
I am completely sold that in every sector of business and industry there are those employees that are simply a cut above the rest and that if you make the effort, you can find them. We all know there is a massive difference between a good receptionist and hopeless one, a great fabricator and a lazy one, a good dairy farmer and a not so good one. Businesses should make the effort to find the best regardless of industry, seniority, sector or job duties. Press for the best.
Get Rid of Loser Employees
Yes, this is a hiring strategy. If you think a top employee is going to want to work with you and stay with you and do their best work, they won’t if they are surrounded by poor performing employees that get away with non-performance. Manage, manage, manage! There is nothing more demotivating than to get paid the same as a poor performing employee yet attempt to do your best work.
The workplace culture and environment are a mirror of your ability to manage. The workplace culture and environment are one of the key reasons an employee either wants to join or leave your business. If you are using the ‘breathe and your hired’ technique, then it doesn’t matter what the environment is like as in about three months the person you have just hired will be moving on anyway.
It is a challenge having employees in the workplace and it is a challenge to bring out the very best in their performance and have them engaged in the same way that you are about your business. It can happen, it just takes time and the more time you invest in your employees, the better your business will be. Employees are your best business asset!
Call us now on 0411 254 865 or email for an appointment at ahendy@hendyhr.com.au