I love a good war story. I don’t mean like ‘1917’ or ‘Warhorse’ or ‘All Quiet on the Western Front’ (Don’t get me wrong, I like them too, in fact I have another website where I review War films, greatwarfilms.com. You should have a looksy). What I mean is, I love listening to people recounting tales of when it all went wrong. Because of what I do this invariably means I get hiring managers telling me stories about some shocker of a hiring decision they made.
The vague outline of the story usually goes something like: I could see from their CV they would be a good fit for the role. They told me they were experts in…, They previously worked at XXX and I know they only employ good people. I knew they were perfect after the first five minutes of the interview. That kind of thing. Oh, nearly forgot, Their references were great!
And then it all goes wrong. The new recruit fails to produce and somewhere down the line a long drawn out process kicks off. HR gets involved ***SHUDDERS***. The work piles up, the rest of the team shoulders the burden and eventually the bad hire gets their pockets checked for stationery and is booted out the door. I exaggerate for dramatic effect but you get what I mean.
The point is so many negative things happened in that process. All the people involved had to deal with difficult situations, lost sleep, the dread of going to work. The poor team has had to cover for all the undone work. The culture is on a downward trend, the customers are getting poorer service. There’s the financial costs, the hours of people's time, the training, the onboarding, the company benefits, all down the drain.
And let’s not forget the poor candidate. Chances are they thought they could do the job, and were excited for their new role. They’d quit their old job and said a sad goodbye to their old teammates. They told their friends and family about their new dream job. Then it all goes wrong and there’s a drawn out process that causes more harm to their self esteem. And, you know what, rarely do the storytellers place any of the blame for this omnishambles on their own decisions or processes.
Of course, it doesn’t have to be that way. If you take the time to nurture your employer brand, the right people will want to work for you. If you understand your candidate market, and create honest attraction campaigns, suitable people will apply and those unsuitable will not. If you understand your innate biases you can mitigate against them. If you reference and background check effectively, your decisions will be better informed.
Ultimately, the effects of these war stories are multifaceted and far-reaching. From black and white financial losses through to intangible cultural upheaval, the repercussions will hinder growth, erode morale and jeopardise long-term success. By investing in training, honest attraction content and robust, timely processes people leaders can stop the whirligig hire/fire cycle and finally focus on the day job.
If you’ve got a few war stories of your own, and you're interested in knowing what you could do differently, please get in touch.
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