Right now you may be using overtime to add needed work hours. But the time will come when growth dictates the need to add an employee or two. With the unemployment rate predicted to stay high for a considerable time in the future, you may be inundated with applicants making it difficult to choose the best one.
Jim Blasingame wrote in August 2002 that the answer to the question, “What areas do small business owners most need to work on?” is a tie between marketing and human resources. My experience confirms his statement. Let’s just consider the latter one.
The hiring decision for small businesses is often made in haste, with too little serious analyses of the needs of the job (properly written job description) and the fit of a candidate to the job. Big businesses, writes Blasingame, have long had seriously sophisticated hiring protocols. They can afford the expense and time to thoroughly check out an applicant. And they have lots of depth on the bench and can suffer a hiring mistake without too much problem.
But small businesses that are always short on capital cannot afford to make hiring mistakes, yet the hiring decision is often made on a “gut feel.” Not a good way to run a business where adding another employee may represent an increase of 10 to 20 percent in your headcount.
There are, however, simple low-cost tools you can use that can help you make your hiring decision more successful. Here are a few ideas to consider.
First, take the time to do an accurate, thoughtful job description. Begin with a title, and then write two sentences on why the job exists. Next record the reporting relationships for this job: upward, downward, and peer-to-peer in your business, as well as any external relationships required. Now the real work begins. Decide what the incumbent’s authority really is. What can the person decide for him or herself? Can the person hire, fire, price, sign checks, etc. After this you need to get specific about the person’s responsibilities and principal duties. Begin each statement with “Is responsible for…” For duties include a detailed list of specific primary and secondary duties, usually beginning each one with a verb. The job description next must contain requirements for the position such as prior jobs, past work history, education, software skills, etc. You also need to include the physical activities and requirements of the position (e.g. driver’s license, etc.) if applicable.
Finally the job description contains the criteria to be used to measure job performance. Determine what specific goals or targets will define the success of the incumbent in the job. Not only is this part important for an applicant to understand, but it serves as the basis for a performance review of an employee. Although more detail will be required in a formal review process.
With a properly constructed job description, you are well-equipped to sift through applicants quickly and identify those whose resumes indicate a potential fit. Using online job posting will generate a ton of applicants these days. The problem then is how to winnow down the number to a manageable group you can process. There are now software approaches to doing this even small business can afford use. In addition, there are software based employment assistance services such as New Hire http://
www.new-hire.com that will take over much of the administrative aspect of finding and sifting through applicants for a very reasonable fee. Not the 30% often associated with search firms.
Once you have an applicant pool, the next idea to consider is how to pick the best fit. The resume, job description, and screening interview will help you match an applicant’s education and training, and skills and experience to the job requirements. Now you have reduced the flood to a small pool of candidates.
But there remains an important aspect of the candidates’ overall fit with the job that it is difficult to clearly measure in interviews. This is the person’s behavior and emotions. In other words, how does the person’s observable behavior fit the behavior that the job requires? Different jobs have different behavior requirements. A customer service rep will need to exhibit consistent behaviors that are very different from a machine operator or a research scientist. Behavior styles are an integral part of who a person is. Much of our behavior comes from nature (inherent) and much from nurture (our upbringing.)
There are well-researched tool that you can rely on to assess a person’s behavior. The same tools are used to define the behavior a job requires (easy to do once a job description has been written.) When a person’s behavior fits the job well, the person will be relaxed and comfortable in that position, given that he or she possesses the other attributes needed for the job. If the person’s behavior style is significantly different from the behavior style the job requires, the person may be able to adapt to the job style for a period of time. But this will be a stressful experience for the person and under pressure may cause the person to revert to his or her “natural” style with unintended consequences in job performance.
Tools for assessing behavior are also available and are relatively inexpensive. Target Training International, Ltd.
www.ttiltd.com is one source that offers behavioral assessments as well as other assessment tools useful in the hiring process. The common name for these assessments is DISC. A search online will reveal a number of sources for this kind of hiring help.
To wrap it up, there is no excuse for a small business to forego a proper hiring process for lack of time or money. The payoff for a good hire is high and the cost of a bad hire in a small business can be catastrophic. You certainly can begin by creating job descriptions for all your current positions. Ask the incumbents to help with the job description details. This can be an eye-opening experience for a leader. Once they are done, you are ready to start a smart hiring process whenever it’s needed.
