Growing Greatly
Growth is expected for a successful organization. To properly navigate the challenges of growth, having team members who are highly effective, engaged, and dedicated is paramount. Effectiveness in recruiting, interviewing, and onboarding is key to an organization’s continued success through growth. Improvement in recruiting efficiency, retention, and onboarding has a significant impact on the bottom line. My program is designed so that organizations are able to realize more meaningful results in their recruiting, interviewing, and onboarding. This program is transferrable to companies of any size or stage of growth. Each phase further introduces prospective employees to the culture of the organization, resulting in better alignment and improved performance. Our Members and the communities we serve are counting on us to honor their past and embrace the future without losing sight of who they are or what makes them unique.
BusinessToCommunity.com recently conducted a study that stated 52% of turnover occurs in the first year—with 27% in the twelfth month. More startling is that only 17% of organizations are aware of the direct employee cost of this turnover “Vander Helm, B. (2013, January 1). The Significance of Year One.” Imagine half of your new hires—unhappy. What level of urgency would you have if 52% of your new Members were leaving in the first year? If you want to improve efficiency, service scores, and the cost of training, it starts with happy and engaged employees. This high level of turnover during the first year is preventable and that is why I have such passion for the implementation of this program.
Recruiting is the first step in securing exceptional talent. My recruitment philosophy is to attract and retain high performers who understand the importance of serving members. Often, Corporate Recruiters work to identify qualified candidates through LinkedIn, indeed or monster.com, with the operational hiring manager standing by passively awaiting a slate of candidates. However, my program builds upon the basics and calls for additional effort and a more proactive approach for recruitment. By evaluating prospective candidates while they are working in their current jobs you get instant confirmation of their skills. When looking for the right candidate you have to be open to finding them anywhere. Piquing the interest of a potential candidate is done by giving an honest opinion on the culture of the organization and why you feel they would enjoy being part of the team. I am developing a short video that can be shared with potential candidates to give a candid look inside the organizations success to peak interest. Once you have successfully recruited a potential new hire to apply it is now time to move onto the interview process.
I have selected behavioral interviewing as the standard for assessing candidates. The questions are created based on current and future needs. Questions are broken into four key categories: Sales, Service, Operations and Leadership. Scoring is then placed into a matrix for management to review. Annually, the interview questions are assessed and compared to the turnover percentage to quantify impact and effectiveness.
The final step is onboarding. The program focuses on Service and Leadership first. We work with new hires to gain insight into their previous experience. We trim, enhance and graft their ideas into our culture. An example is a department store employee who joined the team. She brought with her unique ideas to improve service. We filtered the ideas through our lens of Leadership and Service and adopted a new best practice. The new hire was ecstatic that her ideas were received so well and that she made an impact on the entire organization.
We then shift focus to Sales and Operations. We want the individual to keep their sales skill set and drive for results, but assist them in aligning with our organizational values. Recently a new hire after being immersed in the culture through his onboarding was tasked to create a regional sales plan. We realized a 40% increase in referrals and member comments were positive. The employee was able to leverage his skills while aligning with our culture.
Through this program we will recruit the best talent in the market, reduce turnover and improve employee and Member satisfaction. Candidates will know their goals and objectives before stepping into a new role. This program is cyclical, meaning we are always recruiting internally to keep our people engaged, interviewing them to measure the organizational culture, and onboarding them through coaching and personal development. All that’s left to do is grow, and grow greatly!
Danny DeLaRosa
