Performance Hiring Program
No matter what business
you are in, your success or failure will depend solely on the quality
of your employees. To achieve the ultimate success, hiring must be a priority.
More specifically, the Performance Hiring Program emphasizes that all
four elements—searching, screening, obtaining, and retaining—are
part of an active, organized, and structured process.
To see the need for improvement, let's compare hiring with another company
function which is considered highly successful because of the attention
to detail.
Companies are rightfully proud that nothing is shipped or received without
the proper paperwork. With that attitude is a stringent adherence to a
Shipping & Receiving Handbook. Obviously, formal training for employees
plays an important part. Consequently, an excellent Shipping & Receiving
department will only average 4 percent mistakes per year.
Considering that proper hiring is extremely difficult to execute, you
would expect that the manuals and training to be quite extensive. Unfortunately,
they are usually nonexistent. No wonder people in industry believe that
20 percent of the workforce is performing 80 percent of the work. The
Performance Hiring Program starts with a very specific, step-by-step,
written procedure. This system treats hiring no differently than that
of a Shipping & Receiving function.
Finding good people
Of the various elements in a hiring program, companies are having the most difficulties in the searching activity—finding enough qualified prospects. This can be quickly corrected by just understanding the cause of the problem—95 percent of the qualified people for any job are not actively looking. Most do not have updated resumes but will consider a new opportunity if approached. Until the recent record low unemployment changed the size of the talent pool, most companies could find qualified personnel by just using passive methods—the candidate has to make the initial contact. Going after the same 5 percent that everybody else has targeted does not make any sense in today's economy. Tapping into the 95 percent pool means using active methods—a company's representative makes the initial contact.
Attitude and motivation checks
In the Performance Hiring Program, the essential element for proper screening is incorporating "attitude & motivation" checks. For example, a Career Questionnaire is used to not only have the candidates better define their abilities but also to screen-out tire-kickers. To go one step further, incorporating the Career Portfolio concept not only provides another attitude and motivation check, but greatly simplifies the interviewing process. This is a tremendous tool to identify "eagles."
Lack of speed kills
The obtaining portion means having a repeatable interviewing process by using specific question sets. Speed is emphasized. The hiring experts find it extremely disturbing that even with record low unemployment, companies still take months to make hiring decisions. If companies incorporated a 48-hour rule to ensure action, the long-term affect would be positive.
Turnover starts at the offer stage
Obviously, the retaining
of good employees is an ongoing process. A company's atmosphere plays
an important role. However, most do not realize that turnover starts at
the offer stage! Salary negotiation is not part of the Performance Hiring
Program. Only one salary offer is given. Any effort to save a few thousand
dollars at the offer stage usually backfires. Six months to a year later,
the person quits. Most professional athletes use agents because it is
extremely difficult to define one's worth. In business, people have the
tendency to accept an offer that is not completely satisfactory with the
expectation that the new opportunity will somehow make up for it. The
opposite is true. A new opportunity is never 100 percent of what one expects.
The little nuisances associated with any new company become unbearable
if a person felt cheated at the offer stage. A very simple method called
the "drop dead" offer eliminates this dangerous practice of negotiating
offers.
The Performance Hiring Program applies basic business principles to hiring.
A company's future success is dependent on today's hiring. This program
provides valuable tools that enable a company to find the best and brightest
candidates. Its objective is to provide the necessary services to implement
an active, organized, and structured hiring system.
The selection process starts with a telephone call: 1-(248)-476-5220.
