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Why GOOD job descriptions will save you money
I haven’t yet met the business owner who gets excited about writing an in-depth job description. Go figure! The most frequent excuse is that they don’t see the value in spending much time on it.
The job description is your starting point when hiring and, later, in managing the employee. How do you know specifically which skills, experience, and education the job requires? Many people start interviewing with only a mental snapshot of who they need instead of really thinking about it. A generalization isn’t going to result in a good hire.
Did you know that replacing a bad hire costs you somewhere between 1 to 3 times the annual salary of that person. No, I didn’t just make that up. Think about it. Even if you’re able to replace someone as inexpensively as possible, you still have a lot of expense in money or in the time of everyone involved.
Where you’re really throwing your money away is on the less obvious costs: your time (and others’) when interviewing, loss of productivity throughout the company, cost of training (whether in time or money), and it just goes on and on. Since so many [click to read more ...]
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Have you ever done the math in regards to your hiring practices? How many times have you thought you made the right hiring decision … only to find out that your new employee doesn’t know half as much as you thought?
The whole process of expanding your business can be daunting if you don’t have a plan. Since we know that hiring employees can be a valid option to help grow a company, why do so many business owners procrastinate? Could it be that it’s simply because you see hours, even days of effort ahead of you before any relief comes your way?
Of course, there’s also the fear involved in making a bad hire. And, yes, you can count of many more hours of effort managing that bad hire. Even worse, though, are those of you who spend an inordinate amount of time trying to salvage that bad hire because you just don’t want to go through the recruiting process again.
It’s best to do things right … right from the beginning. You’ll save time and money once you discover how to plan and [click to read more ...]
How many employees have you lost to a competitor? Did you ever ask for a detailed explanation of why an employee was leaving? What if you could have prevented good employees from jumping ship?
Retention can be difficult in a small company because you have fewer options and resources than large companies. There will always be some very good reasons why employees leave, such as going back to school, a promotion you were unable to offer, their spouse is being relocated, etc. However, there are many times when the reason an employee is leaving was something you could have prevented.
A bad manager or supervisor is one of the top reasons people leave their jobs. This can be avoided by making sure you are properly training people who manage employees. Many people are promoted into supervisory positions based on technical skills and no training is provided in people skills. If you aren’t making sure you have on-going supervisory training then you are just one more non-responsive person in the mangement line that makes an employee shrug and look for work elsewhere.
While your company may be too small to have much to offer in promotions or moves to other departments, you [click to read more ...]
What happens when an employee is worried about a sick child, has problems with finances, is constantly fighting with a spouse or has health issues? The employee’s productivity goes down.
When productivity goes down, your costs go up. So, the real question ends up being “Where do you want to invest money to make more money?” One choice would be to replace that troubled employee. Not much of a choice though because everyone comes with his or her own set of personal issues. You can’t tell (and certainly can’t ask) what the problems are for each employee or job candidate, so you won’t know if the replacement has fewer issues than your employee.
Another choice would be to put pressure on your employee to bring up productivity. This isn’t a totally bad idea but you need to recognize the difference between a temporary personal issue and a lack of effort. If your employee has been on the job for a long time, you have a good idea of his or her normal output. That’s a great place to begin the discussions. Of course, now the employee’s drop in productivity has affected your productivity because you need to deal with the [click to read more ...]
When the labor market fluctuates, as it always does, you need to be prepared. You can be recruiting and hiring the best job candidates with a few internal changes that will give you the hiring edge, no matter how competitive the market.
Most small companies worry about the fact that they have fewer growth opportunities for employees or that their total compensation package is much less than the competition. If this has been your experience or the only way you’ve tried to compete for candidates, you need to think outside the box.
Small companies actually have a few major advantages over large companies. This article will focus on the ability to make changes quickly.
What kinds of changes are needed to win at recruiting? Simply, speed up every step in your recruiting process. However, fast does not mean sloppy. Fast means beating your competition to the offer letter.
This process won’t stand a chance unless you first obtain top management’s agreement that changes are needed to improve your recruiting record and approval for the new process. Everyone in your company needs to know the goal is to hire well, but as quickly as possible.
Centralize your recruiting process. This means [click to read more ...]
Remember the nervous excitement of starting a new job? You woke up early because you didn’t want to be late … even though you were a little tired because thoughts of the new job, new company, and new boss wouldn’t let you fall right to sleep. If you did a good job of recruiting your new employees, this is just what they are feeling. But what happens? They come to work ready for the challenges of the day … and leave completely brain-dead from information overload. And this is repeated day after day.
Give your new employees a break. You’ll both be better off for it.
Instead of starting new employees on Monday, have them start on Wednesday. Why? Because people can really only take in so much new information before their brain (and comprehension) just shuts down. I have found starting new employees with a 3-day week is really beneficial. After three days of new information and faces, having two days off gives them a chance to put all those pieces together.
They come back the following Monday refreshed and, once again, ready to take in more information. This break also gives them a good idea of what items need to [click to read more ...]
Is it possible for your employees to be too good for your company? Definitely. Especially when you have a small company.
That may sound strange, but I’ve seen it happen several times.
You strive to hire people who are energetic, bright, and skilled. Everything works out great for a year or two and you’re patting yourself on the back about your brilliant recruiting abilities. In fact, you’ve already promoted this person once and she’s ready for even more challenges.
Many companies will choose to create a new position for this stellar employee so they won’t lose her. But it’s a mistake you’ll pay for down the road. I can tell you that it’s very hard to clean up a company full of employees with strange, made-up titles and inflated salaries.
Don’t promote promising employees into titles that can’t be sustained outside of your company. You aren’t doing anyone a favor by making them a senior manager with only the responsibilities of a supervisor. The title and level of responsibility should match up, both in your company and others.
Your first responsibility is to your company. Ask yourself what positions are absolutely needed for maximum efficiency [click to read more ...]
Large or small, companies can have a difficult time keeping employees engaged. “Engaged” is a term used to describe employees who are still motivated about their work and excited about the possibilities of your company and your products or services.
When an employee’s work for you becomes routine for them, he will often start thinking of his position as just another job for just another company. Suddenly, “the grass is always greener” comes into play and your employee starts seeing better possibilities outside of your company.
We all remember the excitement of finding a great new job: the potential of what the future may bring, the challenge of learning new tasks or roles, and the opportunity to meet new and interesting people. Even knowing that this excitement rarely lasts long before it, too, becomes routine doesn’t stop people from changing jobs.
Retention of your employees requires your attention and time. If you’ve done much hiring, you already know that recruiting takes much more time and money than retention. Turnover can be disastrous to your employees’ morale, your company’s knowledge base, your budget, and your production schedule. But how do you re-engage your employees in an effort to [click to read more ...]
You’ve found the perfect candidate for that job opening. This person is great: a personality that will fit in with your other employees, the technical skills you need, and they’ve even worked at a couple of your competitors. Or not.
I’m a huge proponent of background checks. However, I’m going to focus on just one aspect of a background check for this article: employment history. Why is this so important? Because, in my experience, you tend to believe the written word. In this case, that’s often the employment application. Just because your candidate signed the application swearing what they wrote is the truth, it doesn’t necessarily make it so. I know that may sound cynical but it doesn’t make it any less true.
I used to rely on hiring managers to call a candidate’s previous employers to confirm employment history. However, one particularly busy manager didn’t bother and it ended up costing the company over $30,000 in legal fees a few years later. Live and learn. This particular case, which got much more complicated by the time it was over, was the primary reason I started conducting background investigations years before most companies were doing them. It’s also the reason [click to read more ...]
When you think about your competitors, what goes on in your mind? Do you think about besting their advertising or prices? Do you think about that competitive analysis you did when trying to determine whether your business would be viable? Or do you think about your employees?
But your employees aren’t your competition, you say? True. But the companies that used to employ them are … they are your competition for skilled employees. Just because another company is not in your industry or niche doesn’t mean they aren’t your competitor for whatever talent is in your local job market.
As an employer and supervisor, you need to keep your mind open to the possibilities of cross-industry job skills. There is a lack of this type of thinking in most companies and it lessens your ability to recruit a well-rounded team. The best way to broaden your recruiting options is to give serious thought as to exactly which skills are needed for the job. Then ask yourself if those skills are only used in your particular industry or niche. The answer, if you’re honest, is usually no.
If you’re hiring a brain surgeon, then the market will be limited to a [click to read more ...]
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