Hiring A Bad Apple Can Ruin The Whole Bunch.
February 20, 2017 by Staff
Filed under Money/Business, Tech/Internet, Weekly Columns
(Akiit.com) Entrepreneurs dread making a bad hire. It’s not just that getting rid of them is difficult. It’s that they can do a lot of damage before you finally extricate them from your organization, causing other people on your team to quit and damaging your reputation as a company.
Hiring is a big issue for small businesses. According to a report from a small business organization, around 38 percent of small businesses are planning on hiring in the year ahead. Employees that are good add tremendous value to the firms at which they work, acting as ambassadors and generating camaraderie among their staff. But employees who aren’t good can have precisely the opposite effect, instilling low morale and bring your entire team down.
With these potential risks, it’s important to do everything you can to avoid making bad hires. Here’s how.
Check Whether You Really Need A New Person To Fill The Position
Sometimes companies think that they have to fill a particular position when they don’t. For instance, could the job be performed by someone your trust already on your team? Or could the work be outsourced to an external agency, meaning you have minimal risk and don’t have to employ anybody directly? For things like web design, social media, writing, IT or financial services, it’s possible to outsource the task and get somebody else to do it. If you don’t like what they’re doing, it’s simple to get rid of them, unlike a bad hire.
Do A Quick Background Check
People who have a shady past will often apply for work at small businesses, hoping that they won’t have the time or the resources to fully vet them. So it’s always a good idea to perform a warrant check on any candidate you’re considering hiring. Find out whether they have ever been arrested and on which charges. Needless to say, if they’ve been implicated in theft or drug use, it’s probably not a good idea to bring them into your team.
Beware Of Your Own Biases
Bias hiring is a real phenomenon. It happens when a person gets hired for a job because of the biases of the person doing the hiring, and not their own merits. The sad truth is that most people hire a person, not because they are particularly talented, but because they seem most like themselves. This is why some organizations fail to thrive. Without a diversity of ideas and opinions, organizations aren’t able to see things from the point of view of all their customers. They also don’t think outside of the box, and they can end up hiring people who are bad for the company.
Having an objective standard for hiring helps to remove these biases and makes it more likely that your company will find people who are actually good at their job.
Call The Applicant
Finally, give the applicant a call before inviting them to interview. Ask them a few questions and listen to whether or not they are enthusiastic and whether they speak clearly and confidently.
Staff Writer; Peter Day