You have full responsibility for hiring the best-qualified people into your company. How do you proceed? What steps would you take to help these new employees fit into the work environment in a way that furthers his/her development and performance potential? The first step would be to outline each opening with a job description, including job title, salary range, desired experience level, skills required, skills preferred, behavioural and personality profile, reporting structure, functional responsibilities, performance expectations and how they will be measured.
The next step would be to identify if there are any suitable internal candidates able to fill any of the immediate job openings. These candidates must be both interested in the positions and qualified to fill them. First preference is to promote internally in an effort to reduce turnover and maintain high morale within the organization. Once internal employees have been identified, their positions in turn may have to be back filled. Job descriptions must then be put together for their positions.
Now we are ready to commence the external recruitment effort. A number of means may be used to find best-fit candidates externally. I would set up an employee referral program, which would encourage the staff to recommend their friends to the company. They would receive a cash award or prize or extra vacation time for each successful referral. This is a cost effective way of finding good candidates and builds loyalty to the company. It also potentially reduces turnover, as staff are working with their friends.
I would also post the job descriptions to the company website as well as to job boards such as Workopolis, Jobshark, or Monster. If there were a large number of openings, I might hire some recruiters on contract to actively recruit people for the company, or set up a booth at a career fair, or advertise an open house. Where appropriate, I would also contact the appropriate professional associations for assistance. For the most difficult positions to fill, I might entertain using an executive search firm or professional staffing agency.
All these methods of external recruiting bring in outsiders with fresh perspectives. They also provide access to specialized expertise or work experience not otherwise available from insiders, but at some expense. Once a shortlist of candidates has been identified, the interview process would begin. The potential new hires would meet with human resources for a behavioural and personality assessment and overview of the company and its culture.
They would meet with their potential new manager to assess their ability to perform the job. Finally, they would meet with me for an executive interview. Depending on their job assignment, it may be beneficial to conduct some testing. A background check and at least two business references would have to be conducted on each candidate before an offer would be extended. After acquiring these new employees, we must help them fit into the work environment in a way that furthers his or her development and performance potential.
To do this I would implement an orientation-training program, which would formally introduce the new hires to their jobs, performance requirements and the organization as a whole through a set of activities. This includes clarifying mission and culture, explaining operating objectives and job expectations, communicating policies and procedures and identifying key personnel. Orientation is very important because it enhances a person’s understanding of the organization and adds purpose to his or her daily job activities.
As a result, we hope to see increased performance, greater job satisfaction and greater work commitment from the new recruits. Another step to help the new recruits adapt into our company’s work environment would be to provide on-the-job training and off-the-job training. This would give them the opportunity to acquire and improve job-related skills. Also, we offer extensive training programs to ensure that our workers always have the skills and computer literacy needed to perform well. We are committed to furthering our employee’s skills in order to be a successful business.
