Companies that provide the best experiences and services are the most likely to succeed, grow, and ultimately become the most profitable. Having a great team that loves what they do (most of the time) and enjoys their jobs leads to great client experiences. Since hiring is a function of management, it all begins here. 

Bringing the best people who are aligned with your culture and mission into your business will greatly increase your bottom line. But many business owners are bringing in the wrong people because they don’t know how to define their company or its goals.

Bringing in the wrong people, losing key staff, and being forced to hire and train new people are all expensive. Having people who are not engaged—and therefore likely unproductive—or who don’t understand the goals of the company are also expensive.  

Having the right tools to identify, attract, and hire the best candidate for the position will not only improve your hiring decisions but also make your business more profitable and your life easier.

Key Tools for Success 

Some of the key items that will assist in hiring are:

• A mission statement
• A vision statement
• Core company values
• An organization chart
• An employee requisition form
• A great ad that speaks to your culture
• A hiring process with multiple interviews:
  • An initial phone interview with basic interview questions
  • A culture interview with open-ended questions designed to determine whether they can contribute to your culture
  • A skills interview with open-ended questions designed to evaluate whether they have the skills to get the job done
  • A team interview with structured questions designed to introduce the prospective employee to the teamAn interview evaluation form so that each participant can contribute
• A good performance-enhanced pay plan designed to pay well, hold margins, and motivate the new hire
• A job description and contract (depending on the state where you do business)
• Employee manuals
• Process manuals
• A formal mentoring and training program
• Regular reviews (at least twice annually)
• An active management team
• Consistent and regular communication processes

Breaking it Down

If bringing in the right people who fit your culture and enhance your team is important, then having a solid mission statement, vision statement, and core values in place will help you find someone who fits the company sooner and eliminate repeated attempts to fill the same position.

Having an employee requisition form will help you determine the traits and skills that you want, which will improve the odds of finding the right person for the position. This form will also help to build a successful ad that will attract the best person for the job.

Meanwhile, a good hiring process will help you find the best person for the job while reducing related costs.

Job descriptions and contracts help the team evaluate the qualities they’re looking for while also assisting the new hire in knowing what is expected of them in their position. These items can also direct the training process and help to guide the new hire so they are able to perform job duties sooner, which, in turn, improves margins and reduces costs more quickly.

Employee manuals help the new hire understand what is acceptable and how to do some of the important parts of their position so that nothing is missed and the liability for the company is reduced.

Process manuals spell out how to do the job and help the new employee create a consistent performance that gets the job done and makes them feel successful in doing their job, while reducing their confusion.

Having a management team helps identify problems within the company and among employees, and having a good manager who communicates regularly improves employee satisfaction, which increases productivity—and ultimately profit.

Finally, a large majority of the problems in your business are related to communication. Having a good process leads to clearer expectations, improved hiring practices, happier staff members, more efficient processes, increased profits, and a more loyal client base.

Make sure you have good job descriptions, clear expectations, employee requisition forms (for determining who and what you need), a consistent culture, good processes, and management and you will hire better, improving productivity and staff satisfaction, which improves profit.