Finding the right people for your business.

The question I get asked the most when I tell people I am an HR Specialist is, “Do you hire people!?”. I can hear the desperation and relief simultaneously in their voices. There are sharing how difficult a task it is to hire staff and the hope that I can help them.

Finding good staff is one of the most difficult and time-consuming tasks of business owners, regardless of size. To understand how to get it right, it helps to know why they don’t stay.

Top 3 reasons people leave:

  1. Lack of challenging work
  2. Bad bosses
  3. Toxic (bad) workplaces

Did you know that employees know with 2 weeks of starting a company whether they plan to leave? Many of those will do so within 18 months of hire? The cost of replacing an employee can be 150%-250% of the salary due to the cost of salary, search for a replacement, lost productivity, impact on morale and potential overtime hours or loss productivity by other staff.

So here are three tips to consider:

  1. Hire for Fit

Don’t feel desperate and hire anyone. Make sure you hire someone who will fit the work culture, the company’s mission, vision and values and the team. You can always teach skills. It’s more difficult to change behaviour. To hire for fit, you should develop a process that will help you consistently attract the right talent and interview and select them with more certainty of getting it right.

  • Make them feel Welcome from Day One

Even if you have one person, make sure you have an Onboarding program for your new hire. Be prepared for their hire date with computers, work that they will begin to do and people to welcome them. Engage them with your team and get them working on the business quickly. Onboarding is a process that can take up to 6-9 months, sharing information they need through the initial period of starting to work at your business. Determine and identify what your new employee will need to learn about the organization, the business process, they work and where they fit over the 6-9 months.

  • Adopt a REVUP™ approach to building your people relationships.

REVUP™ is an approach that helps people relate to each other. REVUP™ stands for Respect, Equality, Valued (as in I value you), Uniqueness and Potential. Imagine what kind of team, organization, company you could have if staff, managers and executive adopt a REVUP™ to people relationships.

The REVUP™ approach is based on the success of creating a company, iTRANS Consulting, that was recognized as a Best Workplace in Canada. iTRANS’ philosophy, training, opportunities and work culture all fostered an environment to help employee engagement and retention of the talent hired.

That question that I get asked the most; it really is not just about how you hire good staff but how you keep them. To relieve the stress from constant hiring, you need to hire the right staff and keep them.