The Importance of Hiring and Selection
What a beautiful morning. An early morning bike ride in the glorious southern Alberta foothills is one of the most amazing experiences I have ever had. This morning was truly inspiring, and it may have had something to do with the company on the ride.
Accompanying me on this ride was one of my favourite training mentors, Brian Tracy. Brian has spent years starting and operating successful companies throughout North America and has compiled a tremendous library of knowledge. He has accomplished a great deal and then become world-renowned in his ability to teach the knowledge, skills and attitudes that helped him reach the top.
This morning I was listening to him talk about the importance of hiring and selecting the right people for your business. In Brian’s words, this is the single most important task that you will face as a the owner or manager of a business. Jim Collins in his landmark book “Good to Great” said that one of the hallmarks of great companies was their ability to hire the right people and put them in the right positions. He said, “get the right people on the bus, put them in the right seats on the bus and the bus will take you wherever you want to go.”
How much time, effort and resources do you currently devote to your hiring process? Would you be surprised to learn that, without fail, research shows that organizations which invest more in the hiring process have a clear track record of hiring more successful, productive and loyal employees. Studies clearly show that reactionary, intuition based hiring decisions cost North American businesses billions of dollars each year yet this is still by far the main way people are hired.
When I say reactionary, intuition based hiring, I mean hires that are made too quickly and are most often based on a gut decision. Did you know that these types of hiring decisions have a less than 15% chance of working out over a six to twelve month basis? Think of the consequences, every bad hire has a cost associated with it. In strictly monetary terms it is estimated that bad hires end up costing your company three times the position’s yearly salary. Even if you’re hiring entry-level people at $30,000 a year, that’s still a $90,000 hit for every bad hire.
Hiring and selection is a process that can’t be rushed. An old saying states that we should “hire slow and fire fast”, but isn’t that often reversed? We are so quick to fill a position that we don’t take the necessary steps to make certain that this person is fitted for success in the role. And if they aren’t fit to have success we are setting them, and ourselves up for failure down the road. The question is – how much of our time, their time, and our companies resources will we waste before we admit it.
The good news is that there are steps that we can take to develop best in class hiring and selections systems that will greatly increase our success in this area. For starters we can develop a hiring and selection system. Be honest, how many of us have a standardized system in place for our hiring managers to follow. If we do, how often do the hiring managers get training and feedback on how they are doing at using the system? Do we provide tools that can help make better decisions; like assessments, reference and background checks, training on behavioural interview skills.
Improving the accuracy of our selection processes have very tangible benefits. We can already see that there is a very real monetary return on investment that can be realized. Consider also the improvements in productivity, engagement and employee morale that careful hiring and selection leads to as well.
I personally believe that one of the main reasons we resort to the fast, gut hire is that we are making hires on a reactionary basis instead of proactively. Most often we don’t think about the process until someone leaves or we have a pressing need for that position. This need weighs on us doesn’t it? It causes us to rush through the process and put someone into the position too quickly. Think about that for a minute. Wouldn’t it be better to have an unfilled position than the wrong person in the position?
I have met many people who truly dread the hiring and selection process, it is a very painful process that they would prefer to avoid or accomplish quickly to be done with it. Don’t take this the wrong way, but I love meeting people who feel this way. I love it because we have developed programs and systems that can help. We can help them numb the pain and turn weaknesses into strengths. Strengths that will help them achieve the prosperity and happiness their business was supposed to provide. If you’ve been experiencing pain from your hiring and selection process, why not get a hold of me for a conversation? It won’t cost anything more than a few minutes of your time, and we may be able to help. I hope we can.
