Hire Like You Mean It!Tips for a Faster, Smarter Hireand Solid Employee Retention

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HUMAN RESOURCES

A lthough most employersregard themselves as keenlyfocused on profit marginsand the bottom line, they

usually base their financial considera-tions solely on things like productioncosts and sales volumes—things thatare relatively tangible. But such a focusis dangerously narrow if it fails to con-sider the relationship between prof-itability and personnel: how mucheffective hiring practices and goodhiring decisions can elevate produc-tivity and profits; and, conversely, howmuch ineffective hiring practices andbad hiring decisions can harm themboth in the short term and over time.

Accordingly, this article outlines thenuts and bolts of achieving a successfulhire and subsequently a mutually prof-itable, long-term employer/employeerelationship. Besides breaking downthe hiring process into a practical “todo” list, it will offer you some insightsinto why and how you can motivatethe high-quality employees you’vealready painstakingly hired to stay withand build your organization.

In hiring, your obvious first steps are:number one, to confirm the need tohire and, number two, clearly define theposition you need filled. Consider thatcompleting the hire successfully musthold considerable importance for yourcompany’s profitability—or else youwouldn’t have undertaken it in the firstplace. Also consider that in today’s just-in-time business climate, timeliness isa factor of huge significance. So as athird step you need to schedule yourhiring process just as your companyschedules all other important projectsto ensure its timely completion.

Moreover, just as with print job work-flow, a successful hire requires its ownseries of steps and involves more thanone person. So not only must you besure you’re serious about the hire; youmust also commit the resources neces-sary to achieve it. And finally, for rea-sons explained below, you must alsocommit effort and respect to the peopleinvolved in the process.

A lack of sufficient commitment inany of these regards is apt to result in

Being committed to the process enables you totake control up front by defining an action plan,establishing a schedule for accompanying goals,and assigning responsibility to specific people.

BY ARNOLD KAHN & MYRNA PENNY

Make An Initial Commitment

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a hiring process that wastes time. But conversely,being committed to the process enables you to takecontrol up front by defining an action plan, estab-lishing a schedule for accomplishing goals, andassigning responsibility to specific people. Assigningresponsibility is indispensable because if you onlyvaguely presume that “somebody” will do a task,then most likely it will revert to the person whoseems to do so many things in the workplace: theperson named “nobody.”

Take Systematic Action Using “To-Do” ListThe following to-do list will walk you through each ofthe main steps required to reach a rational andappropriate hiring decision, thus providing you witha comprehensive overview of the hiring process. Ofcourse, in any interactions with people there are no

guarantees. But if thoughtfully followed, the stepsoutlined below will help you ensure as far as possiblethat your new hire will constitute a valuable additionto your operation.

1. Once you recognize the need to hire, define andprioritize the specific job functions and skills you need.This initial step is critical for at least three reasons.First, once you have pinpointed the job’s require-ments, you can use them as your dominant selec-tion criteria for hiring, thereby balancing the morenebulous factors of personality and subjectivity withreason. Second, you must clearly know the completeperformance requirements of the job not only tohire but also to manage the person who fills it. Andthird, most of the remaining steps in the list focuson ensuring that your hiring decision meets the cri-teria established in Step 1.

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2. Decide on one or more methods for sourcing can-didates. Options include: internal postings, referralsfrom staff, print media, Web-based job boards, yourown Web site, colleges and universities offeringprint-specific programs (for entry level positions),generalist staffing firms; and industry-specificstaffing firms like PrintLink.

As in all business decisions, your main consider-ation in deciding among these various alternativesshould be ROI—return on your investment ofmoney and time. We believe our services offerclients the best ROI for human capital since our

resources include an extensivedatabase of prequalified, moti-vated candidates from all overNorth America and a discerningstaff of industry-experienced man-agers who will introduce you onlyto candidates with the specificbackground and qualifications yourequire. Similarly, we save candi-dates valuable time by recom-mending only positions that meettheir career objectives, geographictargets, and compensation goals.

But hiring managers need toweigh the pros and cons of eachsource for themselves every timethey hire; then choose the one thatmaximizes their own hiringprocesses and odds of success atfilling their current needs.

3. Recruit candidates. The dictio-nary defines “recruiting” simply as“enlisting new members.” Butrecruiting new staff effectively alsoimposes an additional demand ofquality—you must engage high-

quality candidates in your selection process andmake your job opportunity attractive to them. Thushiring specialist Lou Adler wisely wrote, “The key torecruiting is to create a compelling opportunity, pre-sent it early and often, and make the candidate earnthe right to have it.”

This quotation underscores the fact that successfulrecruiting is largely about offering opportunity. Gen-erally, top candidates are less apt to be excited byhigh salaries than by opportunities for professionalgrowth and challenges. Compensation is also impor-tant because it is a measure of value, but it is just one

of the components of opportunity. So usually the keyto making a job attractive to the best candidates isto present the job itself as a strategic career objec-tive. Similarly, a job has more perceived value forhigh achievers when it has to be earned.

Effective recruiting starts from the moment youfirst contact a candidate—usually with the commu-nication of position requirements—and continuesthroughout the selection process. Pacing can affectyour message as much as wording so be sure tomove your selection process along consistently andsuccinctly. Otherwise, delays can cause good candi-dates concern to the extent that they will lose interestor accept an offer elsewhere.

In short, recruiting top candidates carries highstakes, and its mechanics are complicated. Relyingon a third-party recruitment firm can often help youarticulate the attractive features of your job and yourcompany to top performers—sometimes in a moreconvincing manner than you can do it yourself.

4. Gather information for your hiring decision aboutcandidates’ competency. Scrutinize résumés first, thenlimit your further assessment to just a few carefullychosen candidates, utilizing one or more of the fol-lowing methods: telephone prescreening interviews;one-on-one interviews (indispensable for obtainingthe essential information you need to make the righthiring decision); second interviews and multipleinterviewers to gain more facts or specialized infor-mation about the candidate.

Multiple interviews can either occur serially or ina panel. Panel interviews are worth consideringbecause they may minimize emotions and give indi-vidual interviewers more pauses to listen and thinkas well as to judge. They certainly save everyone’svaluable time, demonstrate the potential for futuregroup interaction, and strengthen weaker inter-viewers, because their colleagues can jump in toclarify issues as needed. While some candidates mayfeel intimidated when sitting across the table from a“firing squad,” others enjoy the objectivity of a panelinterview and appreciate the opportunity it providesto meet more than one member of the prospectiveemployer’s staff.

5. Test candidates liberally. In addition to carefulreview of candidates’ past performance, you maywant to ask them to complete take-home projectsthat demonstrate their competencies, style, thinkingand problem-solving abilities, and the work they’recapable of producing in tangible form. Take-home

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HUMAN RESOURCES

Multiple interviews can either occur seriallyor in a panel. Panel interviews are worthconsidering because they may minimizeemotions and give individual interviewersmore pauses to listen and think as well as tojudge. They certainly save everyone’svaluable time, demonstrate the potential forfuture group interaction, and strengthenweaker interviewers, because their colleaguescan jump in to clarify issues as needed. Whilesome candidates may feel intimidated whensitting across the table from a “firing squad,”others enjoy the objectivity of a panelinterview and appreciate the opportunityto meet more than one member of theprospective employer’s staff.

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projects also help to minimize the emotional haz-ards and time constraints of interviews.

Specific examples of such projects include askingyour top candidates to return with a presentationthat “sells” the interviewers on what the candidatecould do for the company. Another example is to askcandidates to prepare and present a business planto the company’s executives. Excellent candidates willreadily respond with a display of their management,organizational, and presentation skills as well asdemonstrate that they have already acquired suffi-cient knowledge of your company to meet the chal-lenge offered them.

However, if you do assign take-home projects aspart of your hiring activities, remember you have notyet made a commitment to a candidate. So be fas-tidious in respecting the individuals’ time and makeit abundantly clear that you are not trying to get freework from them or steal their creative ideas.

For hands-on positions, you can easily evaluatewhether candidates’ skill levels meet your require-ments by testing them on your equipment andexamples of your typical projects—either followingthe interview or at a separate time. Such practicaltests confirm subjective verbal definitions of skilllevels, and give candidates a feel for the type of workyour company typically does.

Other means to confirm your hiring decision arepersonal profiles or psychometric testing, for whichcompetent sources abound. These tools are mostuseful when they relate to the requirements of a spe-cific position and can point out candidates’ strengthsand weaknesses plus suggest opportunities to capi-talize or compensate—in other words, show you howto maximize your human resources.

Most companies we work with utilize the sameprofile or psychometric test for all new hires soeveryone is profiled the same way, thus enablingbenchmarking as part of the confirmation process.We stress, however, that this type of assessmentshould be utilized to confirm rather than predict on-the-job performance. It should verify what you havealready observed during the interview process.

Ultimately, your task is to research your hiringdecision as thoroughly as possible through a combi-nation of interview processes and an appropriateselection of skill, cognition, and personality testing,along with reference checks. The more tools you use,the more effective your hiring decision will be. Butagain, if your selection process involves multiple

steps, also make sure you move your top candidatesthrough them in fairly rapid succession. Otherwise,you risk losing good candidates because the processis fumbling or taking too long.

6. Make and close a final offer. The intricacies ofmaking and closing a job offer are too complex tocover here. For now, we’ll just generalize that, in orderto be effective, the process of closing a hiring agree-ment requires both employer and candidate to followa protocol that fosters increasing confidence on bothsides while still allowing for fine tuning—and resultsin a mutually satisfying conclusion for both parties.

7. Provide orientation for your new hire. Making sureevery new hire is inducted into the company appro-priately gets everyone off to a good start. So don’tleave it to chance. Be sure to provide new employeeswith a formal orientation, beginning on or beforetheir start date.

Also consider assigning new hires an internalmentor or buddy to answer their questions andfoster their full participation in the life of the com-pany. But remember to support not only the newhire but also the staff person performing this impor-tant role as guide. With a little thought, organization,and practice, the orientation process can become aseffective and integral to the success of your companyas the hiring process itself.

8. Don’t forget the candidates you didn’t hire. Weoften hear complaints from candidates that theyapplied to an ad or online job posting in a timelymanner—or even worse attended a first interview—and then heard nothing back: no acknowledgementof the effort they expended, no subsequent follow-up, no closure.

We believe such treatment is wrong and that aresponse is a professional courtesy you owe all can-didates who spent the time and effort to submittheir personal information to you. Extending suchcourtesy can be simplified significantly if you takeadvantage of today’s communication tools, such as

“The key to recruiting is to createa compelling opportunity, pre-sent it early and often, and makethe candidate earn the right tohave it.”—Lou Adler

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mail merges, automatic email responses, or tele-phone voice messaging. Whatever the means, werecommend that you always communicate in anopen and timely fashion with job candidates aboutthe status of their application and the job. Even inthe worst-case scenario, if you do advertise or posta position intending only to contact applicantswhom you have chosen to interview then at leastset candidates’ expectations appropriately bystating that only persons selected for an interviewwill be contacted.

Remember, as a potential employer, you basicallyhold candidates’ hopes, dreams, and lives—andsometimes those of their families—in your hands ata time when they are potentially most vulnerable(and therefore most likely to remember and tellothers about the unsympathetic or rude treatmentthey have received from your company). Thus, theway you treat your job applicants should form partof your company’s public-relations initiatives, andyou should regard them as invited guests or poten-tial customers for your brand.

We can’t emphasize enough that hiring should betreated as a project that operates on a specificschedule. Six pointers for compiling your hiringschedule are: kClearly identify a point person.kHave the point person verify who within your com-pany is involved with interviews and the hiring deci-sion then set up a schedule with them for selectingrésumés, conducting interviews, exchanging feed-back, and reaching a final verdict.kChoose hiring resources, such as Internet job boardsor third-party staffing service providers.kCommunicate openly and regularly with all con-cerned—both internally and externally—about thestatus of the position.kAs part of obligatory follow-up, be sure to notifyunsuccessful candidates and thank them for theirinterest. One advantage of using a third-partyprovider is that they relay such information diplo-matically to the candidates for you.kAlso when compiling your schedule, keep in mind

HUMAN RESOURCES

Make An Initial Commitment

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that the business of print is part manufacturing andpart service. This combination means that everyoneon a company’s staff is focused on their product-delivery commitment to the client. Meeting it some-times requires that certain action items on the hiringto-do list must be tabled to another day. Thus yourhiring schedule should allow for a certain amount oflatitude. And if you partner with staffing experts likePrintLink, be sure your service provider understandsthe need to reconcile the urgency of your hiring needwith the restrictions that day-to-day business man-agement places on your time.

Once You’ve Got ’Em, Keep ’Em!Once they’re hired, why motivate employees to staywith your organization? First, employee retentionsaves you money. Conservative estimates suggestthat losing a middle manager can cost a companyup to 100 percent of his or her salary in reducedprofits while the loss of a senior executive costs evenmore. And most of these projections don’t evenbegin to consider such hidden costs as lost knowl-

edge and arrested return on training investments,the counter-productive effects of mourning and inse-curity among remaining coworkers, and an expen-sive replacement search.

Second, in the near future good employees willbecome even harder to find and keep. The reason:the up-and-coming workforce comprised of Gener-ation X (people born between 1965 and 1981) willnumber only about 58 percent of the presently avail-able work pool that includes Baby Boomers (peopleborn between 1946 and 1964). As the Boomers retire,a lot fewer people will be available to work.

Fortunately, you can do a great deal to ensureyour company is well staffed now and into the future.The key is to position your company as a goodemployer that people want to work for.

Ten Tips for Being a Good Employer1. Take an introspective look at your organization’sintegrity and fairness, and correct inequities. As anemployer, are you fair? Do you operate with integrity?Do you offer a forum for open dialogue? Is there

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pride in the workplace? Do you provide opportunityfor self-satisfaction and professional growth?

2. Know your company’s culture and communicate itopenly to prospective employees. Research indicatesthat employees’ fit with corporate culture is 80 per-cent responsible for determining their degree ofmotivation and emotional commitment to the job.

3. Communicate with your staff. Today’s employeesrequire more information than ever before to helpthem cope with multiple uncertainties—the waveringeconomy; downsizings; and the faster pace of changein businesses, marketplaces, and customer demands.By communicating your company’s goals and strate-gies to them, you not only keep them engaged butalso give them the information they need to tailortheir daily actions to support your initiatives.

4. Conduct exit interviews. Do your best to deter-mine why an employee has chosen to leave. This willprovide valuable insight for hiring a replacement andmay possibly furnish additional clues on how to stopother valued employees from leaving.

5. Recognize and reward team and individualperformance.

6. Provide training and professional development.Enable people to succeed by giving them the pro-fessional training necessary to do their jobs well.People are motivated to work for—and stay with—companies that nurture their careers.

7. Be proactive to improve team interactions. Peopleleave managers and supervisors more readily thanthey leave companies or jobs, so any measures youapply to improve the quality of supervision youremployees receive will aid in employee retention.

8. Adjust your physical environment to help staff meetyour customers’ needs efficiently. Functional workspaces and work surfaces, adequate task lighting, andappropriate safety and environmental conditions canall boost your staff’s performance.

9. Give staff a forum for open dialogue. Employeesare the ones who see your operation from a day-to-day perspective. They are stakeholders in your busi-ness. Value that!

10. Use humor. Some organizations have devaluedhumor and laughter at work, seeing them as unpro-fessional or unproductive distractions from getting the“real” job done. Yet, a recent study of financial insti-tutions found mangers who facilitated the highest levelof employee performance used humor the most often.

The Bottom LineWe strongly recommend that you follow the aboveprocedures for hiring and retaining good staff for onebasic reason—because it’s good business. Compa-nies that strive to hire and retain skilled personnelshow consistently higher bottom-line profitability,increased value to customers, and stronger sustain-ability—especially in challenging times. We hope inthis article we have provided some of the tools tohelp you achieve these objectives.

HUMAN RESOURCES

Arnold Kahn and Myrna Penny are with PrintLink, one of NorthAmerica's foremost personnel agencies for the industry. Theyoffer discreet, confidential placement for all permanentpositions in printing, publishing, packaging and documentmanagement. Their objective is to make introductionsresulting in productive long-term employer/employeerelationships. They accomplish this by serving as a bridgebetween employers and job-seekers. They provide a highstandard of professionalism and personal attention to bothsides while helping them achieve the best and most mutuallyrewarding matches possible. They have earned a reputationfor consistent, successful results. Employers who partner withPrintLink lessen the burden and increase the effectivenessof their hiring process. They are not headhunters and nevertry to recruit candidates away from their employers.Candidates go to them. Most want to explore newopportunities discreetly because they are activelyemployed—a situation that gives you comfort and value inaccessing hard-to-reach, motivated employees. ContactPrintLink at 800-867-3463 (U.S.), 877-413-2600 (Canada).

A good employer makes provision for team interaction as well asrecognizes and rewards team and individual performance.

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