Ready – Sign – Hire – Recruitment and Retention of Personnel

For many business owners and leaders, that headline should read: Ready, Aim, FIRE!

It’s the age-old business dilemma: ‘How do I hire and retain good people to work for me?’

For two decades I have heard small business owners and leaders yell the following phrases over and over again.

1. Where can I find good staff?

2. Can’t seem to motivate my people?

3. Why do all the good people always leave?

4. How do I keep their interest? – What do I have to do to make them go the extra mile?

In general, business leaders look to individual staff members to ‘up their game’ or ‘do it right’ or ‘show some initiative’.

As a business leader, what would you think is the common denominator when it comes to people issues…it’s YOU!

The answer is that there are a LOT of good people out there. They just want to work for good companies, under good leadership. And both are things you CAN control.

Who hires who?

You would think that because you have the business, you have the job, and you have the career path that you have the gold when hiring staff, right? Mistaken.

Today’s potential staff are now inspecting companies and their leaders to see if they are compatible. And it’s not just a professional match, but a cultural and philosophical match that they seek to find. They are looking for a purpose, an incentive, and a reason to get out of bed every day, not just a paycheck.

So how do you see yourself as a company and a business leader to these people?

Here is a checklist for you to prepare your end of deal for a future employee:

1. Be clear about the purpose and philosophy of the company. And not just some rhetorical ‘vision’ or ‘mission’ statement you’ve had hanging on your wall for the past three years. Develop something with MEANING and PURPOSE. Something that shows you have a human side to the business. This will allow your potential to understand what you stand for and allow them to find out if that matches your values.

2. Be clear about your personal vision for yourself, the business, and the people in it. I’m not talking about sales numbers or growth numbers, or how many offices or staff you’ll have by the end of the year. I’m talking about ‘what you want to be when you grow up’. How do you and your business see yourself in five years? And how do the people you have working on it fit into the picture? This allows your candidate to see how THEY might fit into the bigger picture.

3. Be specific about your business incentive program. At this point I’m sure some of you are saying, ‘what incentive program’? I will come back to this one.

Your interview style should be who you are and act every day in the business. Too often, employers are gutsy to show candidates how smart they are. Be honest, real and open. This will make them relax as well and allow you to see them in their real environment.

Good, you got me!

Once hired, the hard work begins, and not for your new hire. For you.

One of the biggest challenges you have as a business owner or leader when inducting and training new staff is discipline. With your routine comes a routine for your staff. If a new staff member comes into the company and it’s thrown into chaos, he’ll assume that’s the way the company works best.

Put some order in your day. Set up staff meetings, updates, reviews, and be clear about what, where, and when you will share information with staff so they can see routine, transparency, and business ownership.

Guide me, feed me, love me, sustain me

There is a clear rule when it comes to personnel retention, and that is that personnel do not leave companies, they leave leaders. And good leaders are not born, they evolve.

Over the years and over the ten businesses I’ve owned, I’ve learned that there are four key leadership traits in a true leader.

1. Master

2. Mentor

3. Manager

4. Partner

Let me expand for you.

Master – The Master is the visionary. They trust and live from their own intuition. The Master has values. And these values ​​are promoted from his personal vision.

Mentor – The Mentor is the teacher, the person who feeds the team information to help them grow. But to be a teacher, you must first learn what you must teach. The teacher must be open to being taught, and not only by his own mentors and peers, but by his subordinates and those he directs. Only then will the Mentor be able to match the wealth of knowledge of the elders with the next great potential of the youth.

Manager – The Manager initiates action in the business and monitors progress through discipline. In the first instance the discipline of him, and then that of his subordinates.

Partner: The Partner trait shows empathy, compassion, and understanding and unity with your team. This is particularly important with generation ‘Y’. The companion trait is friendly, but firm and shows the human side of the leader.

Get these things in shape and you’ll be in good shape to keep your team.

What’s in there for me?

Many business people believe that if they pay their people then they have done their duty to them and in turn should be doing a ‘good day’s work’.

Well, maybe that worked 10 years ago, but not today.

Look to develop a structured incentive program in your business, something with clear milestones and markers, each with a reward for effort.

It is not enough for them to simply get paid. They need to feel the love. They need to feel that they are contributing to the team effort and that they are rewarded for it.

As an example, we have a system in our business where we set financial goals for the year and the team is rewarded for achieving something beyond those goals. Also if we reach our quarterly markers throughout the year we have mini rewards or incentives.

Hiring and keeping good staff is not that difficult. If we as business leaders take responsibility for our actions and the fact that only we can make a difference, then we are the common denominator in the equation.

So what can YOU do to be ready when you want to hire?