how to get good staff and keep them

How to get good staff and keep them

Managing the recruitment process for long-term success

By James Price, BBM, FAIM

2 jpabusiness.com.au +61 2 6360 0360

Table of Contents

Introduction ........................................................................................................... 3

Chapter 1: What to do before you interview .......................................................... 5 Understand the role you are recruiting for and document the outcomes you want ............. 5 Create a checklist of skills, capabilities and experience needed ..................................................... 7 Identify the non-‐negotiable critical strengths required ..................................................................... 8 Interview time – are we there yet? .............................................................................................................. 8

Chapter 2: Seven golden rules for a successful hire ................................................ 9 Conduct a robust sourcing process .............................................................................................................. 9 Share the job of interviewing and selecting candidates .................................................................. 10 Be transparent with information about your business ................................................................... 11 Recruitment is not a one-‐way transaction ............................................................................................ 12 Don’t employ impulsively .............................................................................................................................. 13 Due diligence a two-‐way street .................................................................................................................. 14 Have a well-‐defined on-‐boarding process ............................................................................................. 15

Chapter 3: There are good people out there ......................................................... 17

Disclaimer: The information contained in this eBook is general in nature

and should not be taken as personal, professional advice.

jpabusiness.com.au +61 2 6360 0360 3

Introduction In the vast majority of businesses, people are the ‘mortar’ that cements the value. They can underwrite the value the business creates, or they can erode it.

When considering staff appointments and recruitment, don’t settle for second best.

Always aim for ‘first best’.

‘You just can’t get good help these days’

People issues are often a raw nerve with business owners.

We often hear celebrated (not really!!) examples of business owners who have recruited and trained new team members, or promoted existing employees into new roles, only to find they leave within a short period of time, or don’t measure up to the business owners’ expectations.

There follow anguished cries from business owners and senior managers: I might as well just do it myself!

Staff turnover and poor employee retention and engagement doesn’t just have an emotional and productivity impact on a business; it also has a value and financial impact.


Good staff – a long-term investment

Think of it like winning a new customer. Often the highest cost and lowest margin received by a business when selling a product or service to a new client is within the first 12 months.

That’s because there is usually the cost of business development and bedding down the relationship, ensuring a smooth transition and a happy customer.

That’s why as business owners we all try and focus on long-term, mutually beneficial relationships with our clients and customers.

Repeat custom – it’s the Holy Grail!

It is just as important, if not more so, to apply the same thinking to the people in your business.

Business owners should develop long-term, deep professional relationships with their team, and not just their internal team.

As we’ve discussed in previous eBooks, some specialist roles may be outsourced and, again, it’s critical to have good rapport and a long-term relationship with those suppliers.


Chapter 1: What to do before you interview Before you begin the interview process there are 3 key steps business owners should undertake to greatly increase your chances of a successful hire. They are:

1) Understand the role you are recruiting for and document the outcomes you want;

2) Create a checklist of skills, capabilities and experience needed to achieve those outcomes, and

3) Identify the non-negotiable critical attributes or strengths needed in potential candidates.

Understand the role you are recruiting for and document the outcomes you want

The first critical step with any appointment is to understand what impact you want that person’s activity to have on the business.

This is not so much about what tasks they will do; it’s more about what you want them to achieve – what they will tangibly add to the business.

You need to crystallise that in your own mind and document it.


Usually this has several components which may include an activity or financial component, a service or delivery component, as well as a behavioural or cultural component.

Let’s look at an example.

You’ve grown a business to a certain stage and want to enter a new market, but can’t achieve that goal with your existing resources.

You’ve decided to employ a business development manager to help you grow and establish that market.

The things you need to consider in designing the role are:

• What products and services do you plan to sell in that market and how do you want them sold? That may be largely dependent on your existing offering and the systems and processes you have in place, but if you’re employing someone to represent you and develop business, they will also have an impact on how those products and services are sold. • What is your desired financial outcome? You may want to drive $10 million of new business over 12 months. When do you envisage the candidate achieving that level of sales performance? • Is the person only focused on business development or do they deliver part of the value proposition that your business offers? For instance, if you’re selling air conditioning units, does the person simply secure new sales, or do you want them to be both a seller and servicer or installer? If there is a service or installation component, then service and a candidate’s ability to deliver and move between both elements will be important when you assess them for the role. • If the role is purely business development, what type of rapport and approach do you want to see provided to potential customers? How do you want to be perceived as a business through this new role? Do you want to be seen as an efficient, professional sales outfit, or a more relaxed, consultative organisation, or perhaps an aggressive, highly motivated selling machine?


• What is the current culture of your business and are you happy with it? Do you want your new team member to fit in with your current workplace culture and team structure, or would you prefer to employ someone used to a vastly different culture and behaviour, who can help refine and change your culture?

Create a checklist of skills, capabilities and experience needed

Having sorted out what outcomes you want, the next step is to think about the skills and capabilities a person would need to achieve those outcomes.

If we look at our example of a business development manager, here are some areas to consider:

• What does the person need to have done in the past?

• Do they need to have worked in this market before?

• How much live experience do you require them to have?

• Do they need experience in sales and business development, or are you happy if they’ve been in service and want a change?

• Do they need to have any specific technical skills, educational qualifications or licences?

We’re not looking for a long list of capabilities and experience, or even the ‘nice to have’ skills, just the particular core requirements you think are important for the role.


Identify the non-negotiable critical strengths required

The final step in this pre-interview process is to decide which attributes are non-negotiable critical strengths which a successful candidate must have, versus the desirable but not essential qualities that can be covered by other team members and/or developed with the candidate in time.

In our business development manager example, one non-negotiable strength would be highly developed communication skills, while a desirable but not essential attribute might be technical understanding of your particular brand or product.

You might accept this initial weakness as a trade-off for good communication skills, particularly if other staff members could support the candidate to develop their technical understanding and they appeared motivated and able to learn quickly in the role.

Interview time – are we there yet?

I know this sounds like a lot of planning and you haven’t even conducted a single interview, but my strong advice is these issues need to be dealt with by a business owner or senior manager before the recruitment interview process ensues.

It’s much harder to retrofit this important information into a recruitment process after the fact.


Chapter 2: Seven golden rules for a successful hire You’ve done your planning, you know exactly what role you are recruiting for and what skills a successful candidate will need.

Now it’s time to start the interview process.

There are 7 ‘golden rules’ you can follow to greatly increase the likelihood of a successful recruitment:

1) Conduct a robust sourcing process

2) Share the job of interviewing and selecting

3) Be transparent with information about your business

4) Recruitment is not a one-way transaction

5) Don’t employ impulsively

6) Due diligence a two-way street

7) Have a well-defined on-boarding process

Conduct a robust sourcing process

If I can give one piece of advice, whether it’s for an internal appointment or recruiting externally for a new role, it’s to conduct a robust sourcing process.

We’ve used the term ‘due diligence’ in other eBooks when talking about assessing a potential business purchase. It is just as critical to conduct a due diligence process on the people you’re inviting into your business.

As a business owner or manager recruiting for a role you should be asking for referees prior to appointment and you should feel comfortable in making contact with those referees and probing the performance and experience of the candidate being considered.


Sometimes there is an opportunity for a test or trial, but often that is as a result of the list of candidates not measuring up to the criteria that was originally set.

Better to wait than get it wrong

This can be a frustrating process because it may reveal you have no perfect candidates, or you’re just not sure enough to recruit someone and you need further testing and assessment.

If that means your target date for having someone on board slips by a couple of months then, all other things being equal, it’s much better to wait than make a wrong decision.

If the wrong decision is made, chances are your business value will be eroded, either by the person leaving and impacting relationships with customers, suppliers or team members, or there will be an impact on business productivity, performance and culture while you as a manager take steps to improve the performance of the individual you’ve recruited. (People Performance will be dealt with in depth in a future eBook.)

Share the job of interviewing and selecting candidates

The recruitment process should be managed by yourself as business owner or senior manager, with help from one other.

If the planning process has been done well you’ve already developed a checklist to assess individual candidates, but we find it’s very useful to have another person involved, as a check from a different angle as to the suitability of potential candidates.


Allow this other person to question candidates along the way and give feedback on how they feel the candidate stacks up to the checklist of requirements. Perhaps you could do the first interview and then they could do the second, or vice versa.

Aim for objectivity

We all have our own prejudices and ways of interacting with potential candidates, but what we’re trying to achieve is an objective, robust assessment against the criteria and checklist you have developed.

It helps if you like the candidate you ultimately recruit, however liking them as a person is not as important as respecting their capability and knowing they have a strong probability of achieving the outcomes you’ve set for the role.

Ask for help

If you don’t have the expertise in-house to manage all or part of the recruitment process, then seek external assistance and advice, particularly when recruiting for critical roles.

Remember, focus on aiming for first best.

Be transparent with information about your business

It’s important to be as transparent as possible and share as much information with candidates as you can on both the business and your expectations for the role you’re recruiting for.

This information includes some of your pre-planning work regarding the outcomes you wish to achieve, the skills, capabilities and experience needed to achieve them, and the critical components that are not negotiable in the successful candidate.

Be prepared to discuss these openly with candidates.


Don’t leave candidates in the dark

Often we’ve seen general managers, business development managers, service supervisors, administration positions and other roles recruited without a clear appreciation up front as to what the exact financial, operational and business outcomes are for the role, or the expectations around behaviour and culture.

How can individual candidates know these things if they’re not told?

An important indicator of a good candidate is also the questions they ask in an interview.

If you haven’t shared some of this information, a good candidate will ask for it. They may not have all the experience you’re after, but they’ll be asking the right questions!

Recruitment is not a one-way transaction

A recruitment process is not just a simple, one-way transaction. It’s about ensuring the expectations on both sides are clear up front.

Make sure you devote sufficient time in the interview process to giving the candidate an opportunity to talk about their expectations and motivations for being interested in this particular role.

You need to understand their career objectives and expectations moving forward, because as individuals we all have personal and career motivations.


Let’s look at an example.

You’re recruiting for a business analyst role.

You would like the analyst to be in the role for at least three years to support other members of your team.

One candidate has all the qualifications, skills and capabilities suitable and presents very well, but on questioning they indicate they’re really interested in moving into a management role within 12 months.

They see the business analyst role as a stepping stone.

This may or may not be advantageous in meeting your requirements, but knowing it prior to any potential appointment allows you to determine how it might impact the long-term success of the hire.

Don’t employ impulsively

Many less-experienced business owners and managers find themselves acting quite impulsively when recruiting and hiring staff.

Sometimes they’re referred by their network to a person looking for a job and this person has a range of qualities and experience that could be useful for the business.

The business owner doesn’t necessarily have a role that they’ve planned out and documented, but they find themselves thinking about creating a role. Or the opportunity presents itself for a direct hire without an open sourcing process.

This is not necessarily a negative opportunity, but it can be fraught with danger.

Recruiting someone without a clear understanding of the role, the expectations, how it fits with the rest of the team structure and operations, is tantamount to putting a bull in a china shop.


(Employ) in haste, repent at leisure

Another common issue since the mining boom is employers in the non-mining sector being faced with a shortage of well qualified and experienced trades and engineering staff.

The inclination of some business owners less experienced in recruitment is to grab skills because they have gaps that need to be filled and they can’t find anyone quite suitable.

This is a difficult situation because I realise that sometimes, as business owners, we need to make decisions and act quickly to meet commercial demands or a customer requirement.

However I have seen many cases where these hires unravel, usually within three to six months of the appointment, and they can do enormous damage to the business in the meantime.

Due diligence a two-way street

We spoke earlier about doing due diligence on potential employees, but we find it’s also good practice to allow the preferred candidate, before being appointed, to do appropriate due diligence on the business and the people they’re likely to be working with.

This needs to be over-sighted in a careful, sensitive way, but ultimately due diligence needs to be a two-way street.

The preferred candidate needs as much information as possible about:

• the environment they’re going into; • the culture of your team; • the way they will experience you as a manager or owner; • your explicit expectations regarding the outcomes you want from this

role, and • where the role fits within your expectations for the business overall.


What form will this due diligence take?

Interview process – One of the reasons we say it’s good to have a second person involved in interviewing is that it can give the candidate two different angles from which to view the business, as well as help them get a better idea of how they might experience you as the business owner or manager.

Referees – Sometimes it’s appropriate to provide the preferred candidate with other referees to talk to about the business. This can be a sensitive matter and would only be appropriate where the role you’re recruiting to is quite a senior one.

Preparedness to answer – If a prospective employee is asking questions such as ‘how do customers perceive you in the market’, ‘what’s your relationship with your suppliers’, ‘does this business have financial strength’, or ‘where is this business headed in the future’, you need to answer them robustly. These all very positive questions for a candidate, particular one relating to a senior role, and it’s in your interest that they are answered.

Have a well-defined on-boarding process

The recruitment process doesn’t stop once the employee signs the employee agreement and has their first day.

A professional recruitment process, whether it be in a business with three or four staff, or 300 staff, should always have a defined on-boarding process.

It may last a couple of weeks, or several months, depending on the criticality of the role, but in my experience it is a key element of recruitment success.


Aim for a smooth transition

We all know that a new working environment – no matter how good your skills, capability and experience – will be different.

There will be a different culture, different expectations, even different house-keeping rules!

• What are the access, close down, safety and security requirements for day to day work?

• Are there standard policies and business procedures I’m expected to follow?

• How are business expenses dealt with? • Is my office ‘tool-kit’ up and running? e.g. systems access, operational

understanding, etc. • How will I be introduced to key business partners, customers and

suppliers?

These are all critical issues if you want to give your new employee every chance of success, regardless of whether the role has little or large responsibility.

A defined and clearly planned on-boarding process may or may not be documented (although a simple checklist is useful), but it does need to be deliberately conducted.

On-boarding process an investment in productivity

If there are any mismatches regarding expectations, how individuals are grappling with a new team culture, or perhaps a change of location, then the on-boarding process is designed to discover those issues and deal with them.

Removing those distractions and mismatches will allow the individual to more quickly get up to speed in delivering on the outcomes that you have designed for the role.


Chapter 3: There are good people out there We often hear business owners and managers say ‘it’s so hard to find good people – we’ll just do it ourselves’.

But as we’ve discussed in previous eBooks, critical to building business value is having the people resource that allows the business to deliver sustainable returns and earnings.

If you find yourself throwing your hands in the air and saying ‘I’ll do it myself’ because you can’t find someone suitable for a role, or you’ve hired three people in 18 months and they’ve failed to stay or deliver the outcomes you were after, you need to reconsider your recruitment process and what you’re trying to achieve.


It’s not you, it’s me

It’s probably not what you want to hear, but chances are the problem is not with the employee. It may be with the way you’ve approached the process as an employer.

There are good people in the market, they can be identified, they can be recruited and they can ‘live happily ever after’ in your business.

In other words, they can meet your expectations as a business owner or manager provided you are transparent in what your expectations are, you conduct a robust due diligence assessment on their potential ‘fit’ for the the role and you help them meet their own expectations.