Hiring employees remains a critical function for Human Resources, managers, and all employees of an organization. Finding the right match in the new employees that you hire is critical for your organization's success. The financial cost of hiring and training a new employee who fails to succeed is expensive.
The emotional cost is even more expensive, but not considered with sufficient frequency by organizations practicing short-sighted thinking. Employees invest themselves emotionally, as well as time-wise, in getting to know, training, and developing a relationship with a new employee. They become invested in the new employee's success and take failure personally when the new employee fails - even when significant time has passed.
Steps to Improve Hiring Employees
You can take steps to insure that the employees you hire have the best chance to succeed. Consider adopting these.
- I recommend that a new employee is hired using a team approach. Team members should include an HR rep, the hiring manager, potential coworkers of the new employee, and internal customers of the position you are filling. Using a team allows you to rely on the knowledge and instincts of a number of individuals. You are also developing team member ownership of the new employee, a group of employees who feel responsible for and are dedicated to the success of a new employee.
- Plan your approach and methods in hiring each new employee. Make sure that each team member understands his or her role: the skills, behaviors, and experience that they are assessing during the hiring process. This allows your team to review candidates from all important viewpoints.
- Train team members in how to hire, legal interview questions, how to select employees in a non-discriminatory manner, how to assess experience and knowledge, and other aspects of bringing a new employee on board.
- Adopt written hiring process policies that are equally applied to all candidates who make it to the same point in the hiring process. (For example, if you provide an email customer service questionnaire / test to applicants applying for a customer service role, you must ask all applicants who are still under consideration, to take the same test, which I would reserve for finalists only.)
- Design your new employee employment offer process, welcoming procedures, and new employee orientation, so that every new employee receives the same welcome, training, and equivalent chance to succeed.
I have put together a new, comprehensive hiring employees resource that starts with a hiring checklist and takes you through to the employment offer. (Welcoming your new employee is the subject for another day.) Please take a look at the new resource. As always, I'd like feedback about major steps I missed that need clarification and illumination. I recognize that there are many mini-steps I have not covered, and they are available in the initial hiring checklist.
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More About Hiring New Employees
- 10 Tips for Hiring the Right Employee
- Recruit and Hire the Best - Free Email Class
- Readers' Top Ways to Recruit Employees - Please Add Yours
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About the issue of hiring without discriminations. Does this really happen? I mean, I have the belief most employers do discriminate somehow. The question is on what?
The employer seems to be always biased in his choice of a new employee. As a former employee and present employer, I could say that can’t help having certain preferences. I think it would be rare to find an employer that is not putting his personal views and preferences in the choice. Hiring someone totally objectively seems to be an impossible.