Coach Advisors

Fundamentally your life is whatever form this moment takes. Your life is always what is now. That’s your life. Not some story you’re telling yourself in your head. Eckhart Tolle.

4 Tactics to Hire Long Term Committed Employees

By the ActionCOACH Team

Do you know that  2 out of 3 new hires prove to be a mistake within the first year?  It's a cost of thousands of dollars for each departing employee.

Hiring mistakes negatively impact productivity and erode your company’s profits. In Jim Collins’ landmark study and book “Good to Great” he states: “The good-to-great leaders understood three simple truths.”

1. “If you begin with ‘who’, rather than ‘what’, you can more easily adapt to a changing world”
2. “If you have the right people on the bus, the problem of how to motivate and manage people largely goes away”
3. “If you have the wrong people, it doesn’t matter whether you discover the right direction; you still won’t have a great company.”

What would your business look like if your hiring system delivered the right person 75% of the time?  Here are some tips to stack the odds in your favor.

Create thorough job descriptions

Most business leaders use job descriptions to insure the candidate understands the positional duties and responsibilities; but here’s where many fall short. A good job description should also include a list of the skills and competencies required to perform the tasks and duties expected and critical objectives. Many job descriptions simply state duties but you need pry deeper and outline what is a priority so all team members.  This will help keep you team  focused on what you want, facilitate quick hiring when the need arises, and communicate your expectations to candidates and current employees.

Market for employees, just like customers

Recruiting, like marketing, is most effective when it is targeted, planned and executed with consistency.  Start with the basic question, “What makes your company a great choice for potential employees?” Having a written Culture Statement that is alive and well will help you to answer this question. Cross checking your Culture Statement with your employees’ experience should be a regular practice. Now is a good time to ask your current team – they’ll tell you.

Next, identify the best ways to reach potential employees for the position you are hiring. It will likely vary based on the position. Develop the ‘advertisement’ to attract them and be creative. The rules of good advertising apply – great heading, good content and a call to action. Include the aspects of your company that make it a great place for the type of person you wish to attract, as well as the “spirit” of the person you desire. Additionally, always be on the lookout for good people who can bring value to your organization. Make recruiting something that is ongoing, not crisis driven!  Remember “Good to Great”.         

Make hiring a De-Selection Process

Your time is valuable! Don’t waste it interviewing potential employees who don’t possess the character qualities you need or don’t fit into your culture. You can improve your results and save time by incorporating a de-selection process, using a phone screen and group pre-interview assessment to test for integrity, work ethic, and passion.  If you design the group pre-interview assessment properly, those that have the “fire in the oven” will stand out and those who don’t will leave (de-select themselves), saving you time and hiring mistakes.

Your written Vision, Mission, and Culture statements are a valuable tool at this point to assist in the de-selection process. During the group pre-interview meeting use these tools with the position’s KPIs to communicate the high standards of behavior and performance expected by all within your company. If you effectively communicate these criteria, those that you would not want on your team will depart, leaving you with the “cream of the crop”.

What are you looking for at this stage? – Passion, confidence, and the desire to grow. These attributes are much more important than knowledge or experience, which can be taught. Stay disciplined and only interview candidates who make it through both the phone and group interview steps.

Once you decide to schedule someone for an interview, email them the job description so expectations are clear before they arrive. Have the candidate meet with multiple people, when possible, and employ behavioral interview techniques and tests to probe for the skills and competencies that are most critical. Be willing to turn down candidates who are not the right fit and don’t settle for less than the best! 

Believe You Can and You Will

Sounds simple, but too often we defeat ourselves before we start. Telling yourself ‘I just can’t get good help’ becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. Instead, start telling yourself “I have a great team committed to achieving our goals”. Even if it’s not yet true – YOU can make it so. Remember the objective when hiring is to be able to say 3 years later that, “Knowing what I know now, I’d hire this person again in a heartbeat!”

CEO OF GOOGLE TALKS ABOUT HIS EXECUTIVE COACH

Watch the CEO of Google talking about the value of hiring a  coach or mentor- crucial to provide perspective.

Embedded video from CNN Video

Recession-Proof Your Business

It's about how to survive and thrive, no matter what the economic outlook.

Why some businesses thrive while others implode during an economic recession remains a puzzle to many business-owning entrepreneurs. Some mistakenly assume that all businesses must suffer through recessionary cycles. But the fact is that some companies are essentially recession-proof, and it is not necessarily because they are bigger,
better known, or more generously capitalized.

What really separates the successful enterprises from those that collapse during down cycles is that they are organized around a uniquely dynamic and healthier approach to business. They plan for the future and have contingencies in place to confront whatever challenges might arise. They sell products and services that do not go out of fashion as easily; and they focus on profits in an intelligent manner that helps them grow and prosper in both good and bad economic environments.

Here are some ideas for creating a company that will greet a recession successfully:

· Set, measure, and consistently monitor inventory targets, sales goals, and revenues. But make profit – net profit – the main overriding focus.

· Weed out unprofitable accounts and lackluster ventures, services, campaigns, or products. Reward top performers and either reposition those who are not contributing to make them valuable or let them go for the benefit of the overall team.

· Keep in close touch with customers and track their demographic patterns and consumer preferences. The better one knows his or her customers, the better one understands one’s own business.

· Develop strategies to attract new customers, retain existing customers, and sell more products or services to each and every customer. Grow the customer base but also grow net profits in order to capture tangible bottom line benefits.

· Advertise and market aggressively but constantly refine and redefine the campaigns to strengthen the brand and enhance the equity of the brand name to give it greater power, meaning, and recognition.

Excerpt from ActionCOACH's white paper "Recession Proof Your Business".