You have a great product or offer an amazing service, and that is a terrific start; however, many businesses have both of those things and still struggle to take their business to the next level. Why is that? The answer could very well be that they are hiring the wrong people to carry out the work. Having the right people on board can take your company to new heights, whereas having the wrong people on board can cause you to crash and burn.
While it would be nice to believe you, as the leader, control your customer’s experience, it is ultimately your employees that are being entrusted with that responsibility – your biggest opportunity to control the outcome is by hiring the right people. This is why having a clear hiring strategy for each and every position in your company is crucial.
Know What It Takes To Be Successful in Every Role
Take a look at each of the roles in your organization. Who are your ‘rockstars”? You know, the ones out can count on day in and day out to perform their job with excellence. Once you have determined who those people are, it is time to take a look at not only their pedigree, but more importantly those intangible characteristics that help them take their job to the next level. All too often, organizations paint themselves into a corner with blanket policies requiring specific education levels or years of experience when hiring, when it is often those less tangible characteristics that are a greater predictor of long-term success.
Know the Micro-Cultures In Your Company
While it is absolutely reasonable to have culture standards that are met across the organization, you should keep in mind that each department withing your company likely has it’s own micro-culture. Your accounting department is going to be operated and staffed much differently than your production floor. In order to hire the right person for each job, it is important that you understand both the big and small differences between each department, or even between different managers or shifts.
Advertise To The Right People
Once you really understand what it takes to be successful in the job and the departmental micro-cultures, you need to know where to find the people that will thrive in that specific role. Where would they likely be looking for jobs? What is it about the company that would grab their attention? Make sure when crafting your job advertisement you have their interests in mind. The more you speak their language, the more likely you are to attract (and then hire) the right people.
Make Sure the Candidate Experience Is Tailored
The screening and interview process for a production worker versus a marketing professional should look very different. For each role, you must consider what you want bother the pre-screening process and the interview process to look like. This includes how you “screen-out” versus “screen-in” your candidates. Must they have a resume? Do you require a lengthy phone screening? How might that impact the candidate experience and whether you are attracting the right people to your jobs?
Train Your Team
Unless you are the one that screens, hires, and manages all staff members, then you must once again trust that you have hired and trained your staff on how to carry out your plan for best results. If your organization conducts peer interviews, make sure you are thoroughly training the individuals you want to participate. While getting unfiltered feedback is important, it is crucial that your team is trained to ask the right questions and to look for the characteristics you value.
What to Watch Out For
You have now designed a hiring model for each department based on perceived best practices, but be sure when you are hiring you are focused on the right characteristics. As you are building your team what you need to be focused on is balance. Diversity is good, it is health, and it helps us challenge our thinking and our processes. If everyone on your team thinks the same, chances are your results will become stagnant. And stagnation is not a state in which businesses thrive.
We get it, hiring is serious business! If you need so support building your team, Manpower wants to be the staffing partner you trust to deliver. Simply contact us by clicking the link below.
