Five Mistakes You Don't Want to Make When Hiring Staff - Kaye Bromfield

Are you worried about hiring your first staff member? Have you hired staff before and been scarred for life? Putting on a new staff member is no laughing matter, it’s scary hiring for the first time or even the 100th time knowing that the person you put on could be the best decision you every made or your worst nightmare. Let me tell you from personal experience what I have learned works and doesn’t work to get the right person in a role.

Don’t only hire relatives or people who come with a wage subsidy

This is a key area for small business’s , maybe you don’t have time to think about hiring let alone prepare a proper job description and go to market. Also your business is small right so it doesn’t really matter? I want to tell you it does. Who you hire will either boost your business profits and make you shine as a leader or waste countless hours in performance management meetings. Think about your team and your organisations culture, yes you can afford to have a relative and an apprentice that comes with a wage subsidy but be prepared that you need to be willing to put time into training and developing the person especially if they are straight out of school and have never held a job before. If your team is big enough to host a mix of staff e.g 2 apprentices, 1 relative and 2 mature staff members then yes you can afford to throw more into the mix and make training and development part of your culture. If your business is new and you need help to grow it it might be best to direct funds to key areas, e.g marketing and sales before admin and secretarial.

Do spend quality time and preparation on your position descriptions

I have done this myself and seen it many times, a quick PD with 5 bullet points and a commitment to work one day a week. Think about it, is the job really 5 days a week ? Is the job really 4 hours a week but you anticipate adding in extra duties? Have you made it clear what transferable skills you are looking for? Will the person reading the job description understand what the job role is? I have seen several ads recently for contact centre operators that are listed as communications officer or relationship advisor but in reality the job is on the phone all day every day. You don’t want to waste your time or your interviewees time so be honest and ensure the pd fits the role. You don’t want someone who doesn’t want to do the job you are offering.

Don’t waste money on job ads that won’t bring you the right people

There are many new ways to hire, Linked In, recruitment agencies, facebook ads and specialist recruiting firms e.g not for profit or government agencies have their own specific recruitment sites and methods. If you want to double your reach you can spend money putting your job ad out on every single platform but remember , what is the audience of the people you want to hire? If you want uni students for casual labour for example you could try the local uni facebook page, or if you want a consultant do a google, facebook search or use linked in.

Don’t waste time on unnecessary interviews

Interviews are time consuming, can be draining for you and your job seekers. If you are receiving countless applications for a single role best to narrow it down and conduct video or phone interviews prior to asking the person to attend an interview. You could find out in five minutes what 30 minutes that you don’t have will show you, whether the person is a good match for this role.

Win the war for talent

Marcus Buckingham author of the Stregnthsfinder has said “to win the war for talent we might first fight the right war.” Even if you can hire a talented individual, keeping them longer term is the key challenge. You need to be willing to invest in them, train them, let them have a say in helping the company achieve it’s goals and give them opportunities. Article by Marcus Buckingham

An 2015 AHRI pulse survey on turnover and retention reports that 61% of staff identified that their organisation uses training and development retention strategies as a way to retain staff and along with this the 3 areas identified by respondents for retention were effective leadership, opportunities for promotion, career progression and a positive workplace culture. Your talented people will want these things and you need to have a strategy to provide them. http://AHRI Survey Data