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The speed at which today's economy changes has totally altered how you must go about recruiting, hiring and training new and existing staff to your way of doing business.

Phase One - The Recruitment and Hiring of Personnel

Start off right! A well-planned recruitment strategy and a hiring procedure based on a consensus of expectations by all involved are two of the most important factors in ensuring that your new employee enjoys a successful Life Cycle with your company. When adapted to fit your needs, The Human Resource Store's 5-step model for an Effective Hiring Program can structure your efforts and guide your staff through what can be a hectic and sometimes confusing period.

5 Steps to a Successful Search

STEP 1.   Talk It Through

Get everyone's input on:

• Basic information

• Qualifications for the job

• Duties

• Salary and benefits

STEP 2.  Create An Effective Recruitment Description

Develop a realistic recruitment description (see the jobs section of our web site for samples) that outlines all the items in Step 1 and also takes into consideration:

• Your budget.

• Your hiring deadline so your start date is achieved on time.

• Clearly defined traits and values that you require in addition to the normal skills, education and experience.

STEP 3.     Lay Out Your Recruitment Strategy Before Doing Anything

Ask yourself the key question: How am I going to fill this position? To carry out a successful recruitment plan, you'll need a thorough familiarity with today's market conditions. Follow this procedure:

• Determine the availability of the candidates you're hoping to attract.

• Create a diversified recruiting campaign. For options call us at 708-645-2530, email us at info@hrstore.com.

• Carefully assess your own resources, such as time and experience, for conducting a successful search. Consider whether you'll need a professional human resource recruiter or other outside support.

STEP 4.  Start Your Search

This is the most time-consuming step so, unless you have individuals who will take the time to do the following, don't consider doing this yourself.

• Place the necessary ads in the right places to find the right people.

• Do resume and phone prescreening.

• Set up and conduct personal interviews that not only enable you to get to know the candidates but also allow the candidates to understand your company's goals, values and expectations.

• Check references to validate/invalidate your opinion. Make sure you get behavioral references in addition to verifying employment and education. If you need help, call us. We always get information we need to make a wise choice.

STEP 5.     Make An Offer

Once you have decided upon a candidate, follow this procedure to increase your potential for a successful match:

• Determine whether the candidate is genuinely interested in the job and is open to an offer. Make sure you ask the candidate what he/she would do if the current employer makes a counter-offer. Defend yourself against this before making an offer.

• Review with the candidate the job requirements, duties, salary and benefits to make sure that you both are operating from an agreed-upon total picture. Again, make sure the candidate will not accept a counter-offer by his/her current employer.

• Make your offer! Then set a mutually agreeable deadline for the candidate's decision. Schedule additional meetings if the candidate needs further discussion to reach a decision.

• Send a letter to confirm your agreement and start your preparation process for the orientation phase that will begin soon. If there is a long time gap before the start date, set up a lunch or calling schedule.

Phase Two: Employee Orientation

To be successful, an orientation program must be systematic, accessible and consensual. A comprehensive program--one that gives new employees, current employees and management a clear picture of the business and what is expected of everyone--will serve as a foundation upon which accountability, productivity and cooperative relationships can be built. For your orientation program to work, the new employee and managers/coaches must have clear accountability for their parts in this training process.

The Orientation Package outlines what you can do before the employee starts includes and employee and employer checklists.

As we see it, the basic goals of the orientation process are for the new employee to:

1. Understand why he/she is on the payroll;

2. Know what good performance looks like;

3. Receive basic direction on how to achieve good performance, including instruction on all company forms/IRS requirements; and

4. Totally comprehend "Your Way of Doing Business" - your goals, values, expectations.

5. You can achieve these orientation goals through planning and using a "review" process. We suggest using The Human Resource Store Review Sheet (Free Human Resource Bulletin#9 under training section) to cover four areas on a daily/weekly basis:

The key benefits of doing this are:

1. You will communicate again, as you did during the hiring process, Your Way of Doing Business so that the person knows your vision, goals, values and expectations.

2. Within 90 days you should be able to determine if the candidate was a good culture fit and, if not, can work toward terminating the relationship before you've spent months training someone who does not fit into Your Way of Doing Business.

3. Everyone gets involved.

4. The employee can schedule and control the pace.

5. Clear communication, using our model, starts day 1.

Phase Three - Professional Development and Ongoing Training Program

(This is a low cost benefit you can offer to increase morale, productivity and retention)

The Professional Development Plan is designed to increase productivity, morale and retention. It helps employees keep sight of their own vision while achieving the company's goals. It also helps you recognize and reward employees who deserve it, work to increase productivity on those who need it and provide for the compassionate exit of employees whose value exceed cost.

Part of maintaining the Professional Development Plan is a continuous review process throughout the life cycle of an employee. There are 5 steps to doing a good review:

1. To let employees know what they are doing that is good and effective

2. To let them know in what areas they could use improvement

3. To let employees know what is going on with the company and what their role is in the future

4. To make sure they continue to align with the vision, goals and values of the company

5. To make sure employees can see their individual vision is achievable

It is important that you use this review process to determine if the employee's value exceeds their cost. Keeping employees whose cost exceeds value is a management problem, not an employee issue, and the most costly item in your company's HR expenses. When you encounter such an employee it is necessary that you make a judgment as to whether their performance can be brought up to par, if a transfer to another department might be effective or if their relationship with the company must be must be terminated.

PHASE THREE: TRAINING AND DEVELOPING YOUR STAFF

Protecting the investment your firm has made in recruiting and hiring a new employee makes sound business sense because:

• Staff costs are the leading budget item for most firms.

• Lack of a systematic staff training and development program is a key factor in high turnover.

• Your mission/vision will be difficult to achieve unless you are able to build a team that understands and can execute "Your Way of Doing Business."

TRAINING YOUR EMPLOYEES TO "YOUR WAY OF DOING BUSINESS"

Training your employees to "Your Way of Doing Business" is an overwhelming challenge to most people. Where to start and how to create the time to do this are common questions people have. In this section I will try to give you a) a general perspective, b) a place to start, and c) a model to work from that we or your trainer can develop with you.

A. General Perspective

The human resource market is like the weather.......as it changes, so must you.

Key Factors That Affect the Human Resource Market

1.      Unemployment rates

2.      Volume of Help Wanted advertising

3.      Interest rates

4.      Your local business/industry cycle

5.      The media of the day

An integrated analysis of these points will help you to anticipate more accurately the attitudes of both staff and potential new hires. Accept the human resource market as it is because this is the "reality" you must deal with. Just as you adapt to the weather, so must you adapt to the human resource market to make sound decisions. For example, in a period of relatively low unemployment you may find a more aggressive mood among employees and candidates in salary negotiations. If you see an abundance of "help wanted" advertising for the types of positions you are recruiting for, you most likely will have to pay more. Climbing interest rates usually slow down business, make people more cautious about moving and directly affect relocating people since houses become hard to sell. If the media of the day are telling people it's a "candidate's" market, expect existing staff to demand more and the people you want much more selective.

B. A Place to Start

Clearly define "Your Way of Doing Business."

Don't do anything until you write out and communicate "Your Way of Doing Business!"

Why? How can you play any game "effectively" without knowing the goals and rules? Employees must grasp your rules, your goals, and the critically important corporate values that define Your Way of Doing Business (read Free Human Resource Bulletin #5 The Game under Orientation) so that they understand your vision of success. I suggest you put your mission, vision, values, goals and expectations into a "recruitment section" of your employee handbook and, during recruitment, orientation and the rest of the life cycle of your employees, use creative ways to revisit these.

Show/tell employees why supporting the company's goals benefits them.

You will achieve greater buy-in and, ultimately, success if your team members clearly see how supporting the company vision and mission benefits them. When you help employees attain their personal goals, getting commitment to your vision and mission is much easier.

C. A Model You Can Use

If you know your vision and values and you have a basic idea of how you want things to look, you are half-way home. The next step is to be aware of, and properly qualify, the "challenges" or breakdowns you are facing. The challenges you face will tell you what you are committed to...so don't hide them.

All training methods fall into one of the following three categories:

1.      In-House Group Training

2.      1-1 Coaching/Training

3.      Outside Public Workshops/Seminars

Below are examples of training you can do.  I recommend you have "process oriented" ongoing training vs. trying quick fixes.

Below are examples of training you can do; I recommend you have "process oriented," ongoing training vs. trying quick fixes.

1. In-House Group Training Examples

2. 1-1 Coaching/Training

3. Outside Public Workshops/Seminars

Use public workshops and conferences to get exposure or an overview on a subject of interest. Send select staff out and have them give your department or company an overview from the session. If appropriate, then do some 1-1 training or group sessions.

• New Technical Developments

• Employee Handbooks, benefits, new/current human resource legal issues

• Industry trends at conferences

• New marketing trends

When broken down into bite-sized pieces, employee training is very manageable. One by one, you'll identify your challenges and address them by holding one-on-one or group sessions, or by sending employees out for workshops or seminars. All training and development will support Your Way of Doing Business so that everyone understands the big picture. The training will support your company's mission and vision as you develop your most costly and important resource: Your Staff.

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