Hiring staff is an important part of a companies growth. Often, the first staff member can be the one who makes or breaks a company but every employee after that is extremely valuable. The cost of hiring a bad staff member is very large to a business in terms of decreased productivity, and the opportunity costs of missing out on good staff members.
It has been shown that the bottom 25% of employees can be many times less productive than the top performing employees. What’s more, bad hiring choices can negatively impact all the other staff in a company by sending a message to other employees that standards have dropped. Good staff members will often leave the team as well because they will resent being associated with bad performers on their team.
Carefully Consider the Skills of the Candidate
Rather than relying on how you feel a candidate presents at an interview, be sure to carefully consider the persons competence for a job. Certain candidates possess greater interviewing skills than others but that does not necessarily reflect the quality of the employee. It is good to summarise their skills and attributes into a profiling form, for easy comparison to other candidates.
If there is no good candidate, do not hire any of them
Some employers feel that when they are hiring, they must fill the vacancy. The cost of making the wrong hiring decision is greater than no decision at all. It is far better to wait for a good employee to come along, even if this takes many rounds of interviews.
Have some tests for the candidate to undertake
Be sure to test the skills of your candidates. This can either take the form of a written question and answer test, or a practical demonstration of skills. For technical professions, it is a lot easier to structure this test. For less technical and customer service positions, it is good to set up a role-play example where you can observe the candidate “at work”. Be sure in soft skills demonstrations, to have clear metrics for rating candidates comparatively.
Identify the new for recruitment early
If you can identify that a position needs to be filled before the need for an employee becomes urgent, this is much more desirable. Given 3 months to hire an employee you will probably be able to find a much better quality staff member than if you are given 1 month.
Use the probation period correctly
Do not allow an employee who you believe is substandard to sail through a probation period. Almost all standard employment contracts allow for a 3 month probation period where an employee can be terminated for any reason. By allowing a bad employee to get through this period it is much harder to fire them when their full negative cost is realized. What’s worse is that employees like this are less likely to be hired by other firms, and will possibly become the next generation of management in a few years time.
Remember, the cost of the wrong employee in your firm is massive, so protect your firm from the wrong hiring choices at all costs. Follow the basic steps outlined here and enjoy the benefits of a strong hiring policy at your business.
This article on how to hire better staff is brought to you by the team at – www.hirepulse.com.au, an Australian service that links freelancers, contractors and consultants with the people who need them. If you would like to read another article by us, be sure to have a read of – When Did Employment Start and Who Had the First Job? for a more light-hearted analysis of employment.
