Promote and hire employees who are good for a role — and say goodbye to bad hires — with these four tips!
The greatest challenge of any recruitment company is attracting quality candidates. There’s a very good reason for this difficulty – for any business, regardless of industry, bad hires are a nightmare; good hires are gold dust.
Companies don’t mean to place employees in the wrong position…but it happens.
Rapid growth, sudden vacancies and other pressing demands can prompt employers to make rushed hiring decisions.
Workers are also sometimes promoted to incompatible roles because their employer has inaccurately assessed how their skills and goals align with the company’s overall plans.
Connecting workers with the ideal position can have a number of positive effects, including fueling engagement; studies have shown employees value being in a position they feel they can excel at that involves meaningful work.
Conversely, research also indicates choosing the wrong person for the job can produce a considerably negative outcome. A single good hire leaving the company because a position isn’t a good fit, for example, will cost the company 6-9 months’ salary for that individual, on average.
So, losing a great manager on a salary of $60K would cost you $30-60K in recruiting and training a new employee.
Putting the right person in the right job is important. To ensure your employee hiring and management efforts are successful, consider the following suggestions:
It Starts with the Job Description
To avoid hiring the wrong person for the job, an accurate job description is key. An inaccurate one can draw unqualified candidates.
It’s vital that you incorporate the success factors for a role as well as identify the behaviors, qualities and skills that will bring value.
Keep things short and sweet, and ensure you mention the company culture, as well as the specifics of the work. Company culture heavily influences candidates’ opinions. And this can be the difference between a quality candidate applying for your role or moving on to another company.
Accurately describing the job is vital for both ensuring job satisfaction for the successful candidate and avoiding a bad hire.
With 72 percent of hiring managers stating they use accurate job descriptions, and only 36 percent of candidates agreeing, it’s clear there’s a gap that needs closing.
Screen Candidates Carefully
In some instances, new hires don’t work out simply because they don’t possess the skills needed to do the job. Only 16 percent of new hires have all the skills they need to fulfill the responsibilities of their current role and the position they’re moving into.
This includes the cost of hiring and training a replacement, as well as the loss of revenue and missed opportunities, termination costs and the damage to your brand and team morale.
In short, bad hires can be an expensive mistake.
It’s important for hiring managers to be thorough, asking behavioral-based questions, checking references and following through on other important interview process steps to avoid bringing bad hires on board. In addition, using data analysis techniques to identify specific experience, skills and other traits that candidates who have been successful in a role have possessed in the past may indicate candidates who have similar qualities will excel if hired for the position.
To identify jobseekers who might be a good fit for a role, some companies are utilizing AI in HR, employing talent rediscovery solutions that essentially comb through previously reviewed candidate credentials to see if any individuals would be qualified for another position — or may have been inadvertently overlooked at first.
Help Employees Advance
A lack of career advancement opportunities is the second most frequent reason employees leave jobs. According to Gartner, 40 percent of departing employees leave due to dissatisfaction with their career development and future prospects.
To determine the right person for the right job — and structure a career progression plan for that employee — managers need to understand workers’ goals, and many aren’t effectively trying to.
With 96 percent of employees viewing empathy as a vital element of employee retention, it’s important for managers to take the time to listen to their employees and understand their needs.
A Towers Watson survey found employees feel only 41 percent of managers are effective at conducting career development discussions as part of the performance management process. Employers may be in the dark about the problem — because just 27 percent of organizations monitor their career management program’s effectiveness, a significant amount of companies may not be aware their efforts aren’t working.
Focus on Finding the Right People for Management Roles
One of the most vital decisions a company makes is who they name as manager. In fact, companies choose the wrong manager an astonishing 82 percent of the time, which definitely makes this an area worth focusing on.
Investing in training can help. Although naturally great managers are rare — only one in 10 people possess the talent required to be one, according to the Gallup study cited above — an additional two in 10 exhibit some characteristics of basic managerial talent. With coaching and developmental assistance, these prospects can function at a high level as a supervisor.
Managers, it seems, overwhelmingly agree. In 2018, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics found that companies with fewer than 100 employees gave only 12 minutes of manager training every six months. Organizations with 100 – 500 employees provided just 6 minutes.
Mid-level supervisors said more than two out of five of their company’s managers, on average, were unprepared when they assumed their management role. And less than half of the managers in their organization fall under the “highly effective” category.
If you’re not sure which elements can indicate an employee isn’t a good fit for a management role, our blog post on clues that suggest someone may be a bad manager highlights a few potential warning signs.
For more information on how to select the right person for the job, read our blog posts on secrets to finding the perfect candidate culture match, three innovative ways companies are using AI in recruitment, creating an ongoing talent pipelining program, HR’s biggest succession planning challenge — and why you need to focus on soft skills when assessing candidates and employees.