Employers Wake Up!
Employers wake up! Your company depends on star talent. Ask yourself this question. What are you doing to get the star talent, not the low hanging fruit? Even in challenging economic times, losing your star talent can be devastating to your organization and it’s bottom line.
What are you doing to take care of your star employees so they don”t leave? If you are faced with a key employee leaving what are you doing to replace that employee with equal or better? Not much as I can tell. As an owner of an executive search firm, everyday I speak to candidates who are disillusioned with their company. These are desirable employees who’s needs are not being met. Why are their needs not being met? Because their talents are not being recognized and rewarded until they come in to resign. Then it is to late. The damage is now done and you are faced with one big headache.
What should I do you may ask? Well the answer is not simple. In most big organizations there are so many layers it is like pealing an onion to get to the heart of the problem. Unfortunately, where to begin must come from the top. Yes the head of the organization must set the tone for the rest of the organization. Most line managers are afraid to make any decision for fear of making a decision that might be wrong and they would lose their jobs. This mentality can be the cancer that starts eating away at the company.
Decision and indecision are prevalent in most companies that I am dealing with. The line manager defers to the HR department for the hiring process. The HR is over worked and drags their feet because they are trying to make many hiring managers happy and, therefore, making no one happy. Now, of course, some organizations are better than others at the hiring process. Those are the companies that let their line managers get involved directly in the hiring process. By doing this, the line manager gets to choose who the person under them will be. Right away you have a formula for success.
In my opinion, before you look outside of your company you should identify who in your organization should fill that key lost spot or newly created position. This will enable you to promote somebody from within and keep that internal candidate from leaving.
In future Best Headhunters blogs, we will go over issues of how you can retain key employees and promote from within if possible and if this is not possible how you can conduct an effective job search process that will help you identify the stars and be able to hire them enabling your organizations to grow. I welcome all your comments so I can address them in our next blog.
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I once worked for an employer that treated everyone like “Cattle”. We were all overworked and under paid. Although, I and a few others hung in there for a while, most people came and went. Eventually, we all left. The word got out about this employer and I believe the company has since gone out of business.
Your blog hits home and I must say that after that job, I really searched for a position with a company that fit my personality. My present employer has many people that have been here for 5 plus years and we all get treated with respect.
Some employers really do need to WAKE UP!
Years ago, I worked at a large national retailer as a Floor Manager. At the time I had a BS in Business and worked at the company for 4 years. An Assistant Manager position opened after the previous Assistant Manager was promoted to Store Manger of another location. I knew that with my education and time in the company, I would likely be the one promoted to the Assistant Manager position. After days passed, I started to worry that I was not being considered.
Within another week, my fears were realized and they interviewed someone fresh out of college with the same degree I had, but no work experience. I was so angry that they did this that I decided if this person was hired, I would leave. Of course he was hired and I did put in my two weeks notice the day he started. The Store Manager practically begged me to stay and I asked him why I didn’t get the position. He just told me that the order came from top management. I suspected that if what he said was the case, he didn’t even fight for me to get the position. I did my two weeks and left.
Fortunately, I partnered with my parents who had just retired and we started a business based on fairness and family values. Most of our employees have been with us for years and some have been promoted multiple times. We have never had a disgruntled employee in the 20 years that we have been in business. I’d like to thank that Store Manager and the company which went out of business about 10 years ago.
I am the Owner of a small technology business with 8 full-time and 4 part-time employees. We generally hire people in or just out of college as there are a number of colleges and tech schools in our area. We’ve been in business for just over 6 years now and 4 of our full-timers have been with us from day one. We recently added the other 4 and the part-timers change almost every year due to college courses and full-time work.
We instilled a pretty thorough interview and background check system to try to avoid problems from the beginning. Once we hire someone, we give them the best training possible so that there is no doubt they understand how to do their job properly. Of course, they have my support if needed and are always pushed to call me or the Managers if they have any question about what they are working on.
I am a firm believer in communication and rewards based on performance and I always give my employees credit for the good things they do and my humble support when I see they need some help or are “slacking” a little. I’ve never threatened them or criticized them and I think this is key to keeping good people. I’m sure this is more difficult to do in a large company, but this is why there are chains of command.
I give my two Managers the ability to hire candidates when they need them and they fully understand the kind of quality people we need. We did use a headhunter to find a candidate for a position that we had difficulty filling and we performed our normal hiring process to make sure we were getting what we wanted. We did hire the headhunter’s candidate and he has been with us for over a year now and has performed beyond expectations. Retaining good workers is very important in any business and good management is just as important. When it comes to hiring, you should be able to trust your Managers to get the right people. If you don’t trust them, then why are they working for you?
We don’t have an HR department, but I can’t imagine having an HR department recruit a qualified candidate without the hiring Manager being 100% involved. There is no way that an HR professional would know what my Managers know relative to the work a candidate would be doing, just as the Managers would be clueless as to what an HR professional does. I believe putting this kind of stress on an HR department will only cause issues that bind up the hiring process as stated in your blog. The hiring Manager must make the decision when it comes to a hire. By the same token, I don’t expect my Managers to have the knowledge to perform a candidate search as a headhunter would, so occasionally, we may need to use one for future hires.
I look forward to your next blog.
Vince