Peak performance begins with surrounding yourself with talented people who are compatible with your company’s culture and who have the skills needed to succeed in the job. Excessive employee turnover ends all hope of developing peak performance. Two major reasons for people quitting are 1) they hate the job and can’t perform well or 2) they hate the person they work for. An effective hiring process is your best defense and firewall against both of these problems.

We have all left jobs. We’ve seen employees come and go. Most of them liked their job when they started out. But something happened that caused them to quit, especially if they quit a short time after they were hired. Why do people leave?

Research has provided us with some answers…

•Some people leave because they felt that they were not appreciated.

•People leave because they think the job is too difficult and they couldn’t perform as well as other employees.

•Some leave because they never felt accepted and didn’t fit in.

•People leave because they think that they have better opportunities elsewhere.

In my experience, too many of them leave because they were poorly hired and shouldn’t have been there in the first place.

Employee turnover is an expensive proposition. According to Cornell University, direct turnover costs range from 40% to 100% of an employee’s annual income, depending upon the complexity of the job. The costs of turnover impact all of us. It impacts the profitability and value of the company. It impacts quality and customer relations. It is a huge inconvenience to active employees causing them to work longer and harder to make up for the loss. Excessive turnover destroys the spirit of teamwork.

Hiring Discipline

Good hiring isn’t "rocket science". Hiring effectively involves doing two things very well… 1) developing a thorough understanding of the job and … 2) using a thorough assessment process staffed with interviewers who know what they’re doing. It boils down to knowing the requirements you’re looking for and knowing whether the candidate measures up to your requirements. Like I said, it isn’t rocket science.

Companies that hire well take time to identify the skills and attributes that they’re looking for. I’m always amazed talking to managers with interviewing responsibility who actually have no idea what they’re looking for in successful candidates. They rely on their instincts, pet theories, or some quick "fix" hiring tool they picked up along the way. It’s like they’re driving to a distant vacation resort without a road map. I think you can predict the outcome.

Good hiring depends upon a thorough job analysis that defines the human attributes needed to succeed. Then that knowledge is distilled down to a small list of the most important job requirements that we call "hiring standards". Hiring standards form the foundation of the entire hiring system and help us identity candidates compatible with your company’s culture and values, and the specific skills and attributes the job requires. When we know what we’re looking for, good hiring depends upon managers with solid interviewing skills… managers who through dialog with candidates can accurately predict a candidate’s probability of success.

Everything begins with hiring and, the most important component of any hiring system is the interviewer. There simply are no shortcuts, quick fixes, or substitutes.

William E. Miller

performanceleaderhipllc.com

wmiller@performanceleadershipllc