Finding and hiring top talent doesn’t have to be complicated, regardless of your size. Read this guide on sharpening your hiring process with helpful tips from HR consultant Jody Friend.
Are you a small business ready to hire?
You may wonder how to find the right person for the job.
You know employees can make or break your business–and that hiring success is about finding, hiring, and retaining people that are a fit for what you’re doing.
So, whether you’re hiring your first employee or trying to sharpen your hiring process, this guide is for you.
By the end, you’ll have practical tips for landing outstanding employees without the grueling trial and error many businesses face.
Table of Contents:
- The 5 Qualities Of Outstanding Employees
- The 7 Steps To Hiring Great Employees
- How To Retain Great Employees Long-term
- Wrapping-Up: Hiring In Your Local Area
The 5 Qualities Of Outstanding Employees
There are 5 basic qualities that all outstanding employees share: reliability (integrity), a constructive approach to problem solving, some skill in communicating with others, a commitment to their work, and a willingness to learn and to integrate new information.
We talk more about them here:
1. High Reliability
A reliable employee continually takes responsibility for their work and completes tasks.
You can count on this person to stick to their word about what will get done.
At its root, reliability means an employee can be trusted, a character trait which is essential for your team’s culture to produce good results.
Regarding team culture, when everyone feels confident that they can rely on everyone else to honor their word, your team knows they can work together and succeed
Did you know that a good company culture increases revenue by 4X?
2. Consistent Problem Solver
Excellent problem-solving skills allow your employees to be self-sufficient.
As a business owner, there’s a high chance you have a lot on your plate. After the initial training phase, the last thing you want is for your employees to need help with every roadblock they face.
Spotting this problem-solving skillset in an employee or potential recruit can save you hours of training (and a lot of time and heartache if you hire the wrong person.)
Here are some characteristics of a good problem solver:
- Critical thinking skills
- Decisive decision-making
- Objectivity
- Proactivity
(Job application tests and quizzes are one of the best ways to identify problem-solving skills.)
3. Great Communication Skills
Employees with excellent communication skills benefit your collaboration efforts, team productivity, and customer management.
Those kinds of people tend to ask questions and they enjoy clarification.
Another benefit is that communication skills help avoid employee tension since the person can better express themselves.
Here are a few factors that make up how good someone’s communication skills are:
- Emotional intelligence (drama free)
- Listening (before speaking)
- Appropriate tone (based on context)
- Speech clarity (respectful and straight)
- Empathy
- Responsiveness (follows up quickly)
4. Commitment To Their Work
Committed employees will do their jobs well and stick with your company if you reward their accomplishments and otherwise treat them right.
This means less time training new hires and, more confidence in a team that works well together.
You can hire confidently after checking out a new employee’s:
- Referrals
- Employment history
- Industry knowledge
- Industry experience
- Continued curiosity about your business
- Focused interest in skill improvement
- The aforementioned problem-solving and great communication skills
If your employee will handle customer’ personal information where you have.
5. An Active Learner
Active learners grow their skillset exponentially.
An employee who does this is valuable, especially if you’re in a technical or niched knowledge industry.
As the business owner or hiring manager, you can also influence how much an employee actively learns. They’ll need training from you, or your approval from outside training, that helps them excel.
This is what HR expert and consultant Jody Friend emphasized. She strongly encourages business owners to “offer (employees) meaningful work, along with opportunities for growth and training.”
The 7 Steps To Hiring Great Employees
1. Outlining The Employee's Role And What You Want
First, get clear on what the employee is responsible for. What should they focus on, and what shouldn’t they focus on?
Getting clear on this helps you write an accurate job description. (If you are specific enough, you will attract ideal candidates.)
This accuracy will also help avoid “scope creep,” where employees start to take on responsibilities outside their job description.
Be sure to include the intangibles that will also influence the employee’s job:
- What kind of experience are you looking for?
- What skills do you want them to possess?
- How will their role benefit the company as a whole?
2. Creating A Detailed Job Description
Using your notes, write a job description about what your employee will do.
On job descriptions, Jody Friend adds, “Small businesses sometimes don’t define what the help from a position will look like. A job description identifies the ideal candidate. It also helps with performance management.”
If you have other company stakeholders involved in the hiring process, or in managing the new employee, ensure you get their feedback on the job description.
3. Use Multiple Recruitment Methods
You can find local candidates using the following:
- Job boards
- Your network
- Social media
- Staffing agencies and recruiters
- Networking events
Ms. Friend mentions, “The most common platform is Indeed, but it shouldn’t be your only source (for hiring). I’d say think about where the person you want to hire “sleeps” (hangs out).
She also adds:
“Consider an employee referral program, paying a small bonus if someone you know refers someone else to your company and they get hired. Sometimes your best recruiters are your own employees.”
Using multiple streams of leads for recruitment increases the odds of interviewing the best talent.
And, as you collect applications, resumes, and conversations, it’s time to begin interviewing the ones that stand out.
Consider requiring completed skills tests for each application. Skills tests help you screen out those who may not be the best fit for a job. Tests should accurately measure a candidate’s job understanding and performance potential.
4. Interviewing A Large Pool
Success seems dependent on getting adecent-to-large pool of prospects to interview from . (This helps you compare candidates and how they respond to your questions).
Some candidates may look good on paper but lack the criteria you’re actually looking for.
The average employer interviews 6-10 candidates for a job, and these days candidates can expect to go through at least 2-3 interviews before receiving an offer.
Consider interviewing 6-10 candidates and keeping about 3-5 as “maybe” candidates as you work your way through the hiring process.
5. Choosing The Top Candidate
Now it’s time to choose the candidate that fits the job description best.
Consider how they’ll mesh with your business culture and if they will be willing to grow with your company.
It’s key to be on the same page regarding what “growth” means. Maybe it’s a position they could get promoted from, or their pay will increase by a certain amount after X amount of time.
6. Onboarding
Onboarding your new hire the right way sets the stage for their success.
Have the things necessary for them to be successful at their job. This includes training, company introductions, team building plans, and logistical details organized and lined up.
Sometimes new hires get more from their training when they have the opportunity to shadow a peer. Reflect on trying this approach since it also saves you hours of training them yourself.
There are 4 C’s to onboarding:
- Compliance – Make sure new hires know the rules of your company.
- Clarification – Hires are more likely to succeed if they fully understand their role and responsibilities.
- Culture – Expose new hires to the norms and customs of your company (for example., casual Fridays. Special rituals your team performs before weekly meetings, etc.).
- Connection – Encourage hires to build relationships with management and their peers. This opens the door to a welcoming work environment and boosts company morale.
7. 90-day Performance And Evaluation
The first 90 days of an employee’s work tell you a lot about their long-term fit. This is usually when they’ll grow the quickest in the shortest time, so you want to track how they’re progressing.
Create an evaluation checklist for performance. After 90 days, you can review the evaluation with them in a performance appraisal meeting.
How To Retain Great Employees Long-term
It’s one thing to land great employees, and it’s another to keep them. One of the keys to keeping top employees is challenging them with stretch goals that inspire them, and backing them up with a reliable team. But succeeding at this helps you reduce hiring costs and avoid the high costs and lost productivity of turnover.
Here are 7 ways to retain great employees so they love working with you long-term:
- Continuous training
- Offer good starting pay and a transparent pay structure
- Recognize their efforts continually (in some cases, offer awards)
- Provide a welcoming and safe work environment
- Give them room for career advancement within the company (promotions, challenges, etc.)
- Offer perks (ex., working some days remotely, vacation time, flexible work schedules, etc.)
- Performance feedback (This helps them grow and see that you’re investing in their betterment)
Wrapping-Up Hiring In Your Local Area
Hiring outstanding talent takes structure and a degree of patience. Knowing what gaps in your business the ideal person will be filling and the qualities you want them to possess is essential.
Once hired, continually investing in them will help them mold into an outstanding employee.
These practices build employee retention, which greatly benefits small business owners.
We hope your next hire is a big, long-term success!