Employee Hiring Strategies - Essential Business Insurance for Small Businesses

In a small business, little things count.  An error that might look insignificant to big business, can bring down a small business. Nowhere is this more evident than in the hiring process. Just as people are the lifeblood of business success, they can also bring a business to it's knees or death, if they become infected by the introduction of a foreign contagion.

It is not a case of hiring a bad person, there are very few bad people in this world, it is a case of hiring the wrong person. There is a world of a difference there. Take the company that hires a top honours financial graduate that subsequently goes out of business. The cause of failure may be put down to cashflow management.

If you look behind that simple statement from the "coroner" and like Gil Grissom in CSI, you read between the lines of the autopsy to find the real truth. The new Finance Director, lacked a sense of urgency on the cash flow issue and spent too much time analysing it. By the time it became a major issue it also became apparent that the FD lacked the assertiveness to manage the credit control process and the team he/she was responsible for. You have seen something like this before?

Square Pegs and Round Holes.

We have all met people who just were not cut out for the work they are trying to do. Every job or role has a set of core requirements, the success or failure of the new hire will depend on the degree of fit between the person and the job.

At The McQuaig Institute of Executive Development, over 50 years of research and experience has shown a number of critical mistakes that companies make during the hiring process that can have a negative impact. In a small business that negative impact may be fatal.

So what are the critical components of a People Insurance Strategy?

The first is to have a clear understanding of what predicts success. What can we look for in the interview that will tell us how good that person will be?

Consider their appearance, their mannerisms, accent or ability to communicate during the interview. Interestingly, these factors rarely have any impact on a person's ability to do the job. Very few jobs require a person to look anything other than "normal" to be successful. Indeed, we have many remarkable examples of people with significant disabilities in these areas who have been very successful.

Yet, the majority of interviewers will allow themselves to be swayed by appearances. Research shows us that the decision to hire will on average be made between 1 and 4 minutes into the first encounter. Look at it this way, how much money will you pay this person over the next 5 years and how much will your business success depend on their ability to deliver. Does a snap decision make sense?

So if the hiring decision is already made, what happens during the next 35 to 40 minutes of this interview? Well, the interviewer needs to validate their emotional or gut feel decision with facts. So they will trawl through the Resume to find supporting evidence. Not very sensible, but if you have already made up your mind, why bother looking for negative points.


What Predicts Success?

Look at people you know who consistently deliver above average performance in their role. What is it that stands out about them? Is it their competitiveness, ability to get on with people, a sense of urgency and a decisiveness and persistence to get their own way, or perhaps it is their ability to work as part of a team, to pay attention to detail and analysis, be patient and dependable and staying within guidelines. These are behavioural traits or temperament factors.

These factors do not appear on their resume or Curriculum Vitae. Education and training & experience contribute only about 20% to a person's success. Most organisations can make up for a candidate's weakness in these areas within a few months of hiring them. However, it can take years to make up for deficiencies in the area of temperament.


So if the evidence is there, why don't we interview for Temperament?

These behavioural factors are extremely dfficult to assess and call for highly experienced and trained interviewers to get an effective fix on them. Most interviewers can only make a rough estimate of how the person stacks up on them.

Yet, the interviewer’s assessment in these areas does have an impact on their decision. I call it “Gut Feel”. Unfortunately if you don’t have the skill to assess it, it is fairly close to useless as a decision making technique. Fortunately there is an insurance policy you can get to help you out.

Psychometric Assessment or Personality Profiling tools have become increasingly popular in recent years. With this increasing popularity we have also seen a rise in their complexity and a rise in poorly designed and validated tools. It can be a snake pit out there.

Pick a simple tool with easy to understand online assessments and reports. It should also be backed up by paper based assessments for those situations where online access is not an option, perhaps in a group assessment situation. The tools should also be well validated and your provider should be readily available to help you select the right approach to using them and answer any questions you may have when you get the reports back.

Some assessments have all that you need for hiring, including guideline interview questions that will enable you to complete a comprehensive assessment of the candidate. Some will also provides reports to assist in the day to day management and development of your new hire.

Picking good people is a manager's most important task. Pick the right people and your job is easy, pick the wrong people and your job may be impossible. You will never get it 100%, but the statistics tell us that the typical approach to selection is only 52% effective, so every point you can add to your selection success rates is another point ahead of the competition. All hiring decisions have to be gut feel if the organisation is to function, but it is important to educate your gut feel. It is a bit like the old golfing maxim, "the more I practice the luckier I get".

Personality traits predict success and can insure your business survival and success. Once you find the right assessment partner, you can begin to learn much more about people, how to lead them, how to develop them and also learn more about yourself. There are other factors to explore later that can upgrade your insurance policy, but you should learn to walk before you run. A good provider can help you to develop your selection processes on a step by step basis.