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INTRODUCTION The most frequently overlooked business asset is the people you employ. The only way a business can produce a satisfied customer and increase success is to have employees who operate at a top level of efficiency. According to a survey done by the School of Management and Labor Relations at Rutgers University, companies with comprehensive programs for employee recruiting, selection, and training combined with sound incentive programs have greater market value, higher annual sales, and higher profits per employee. This is all due to lower turnover and higher employee productivity. Even a great product, service, or an innovative approach will not generate these highly desired results without a dedicated, capable staff to make it possible. If you own a business or assist with hiring, you need to learn the skills of smart staffing, whether you are getting ready to hire your first employee or have been in business for years with a few hundred employees already. Productive people who you and your customers can depend on are the essential ingredient in a successful business. They can literally be termed "human capital," which may be even more important than financial resources, equipment, or technology. Without this human capital, equipment would sit idle, technology would not be used, products would not move nor services be delivered. Your customers would soon look elsewhere. Knowing how to find and keep top employees is especially important in smaller businesses for several reasons:
Smart staffing should also be a priority of small business owners because according to the U.S. Small Business Administration, small businesses
There is no question that high-performance small businesses need highly skilled, highly motivated employees in the key slots. Small businesses need to be skilled in hiring and retaining. Smart business owners know where and how to look for the best and they know how to keep them. Ross Perot, the very successful entrepreneur who started Electronic Data Systems (EDS), had a great idea. But he credits the quality of the employees as the major reason EDS was able to grow into a successful Fortune 500 company. In On Wings of Eagles by Ken Follett, Perot describes his method of finding the best people this way: "Eagles don't flock -- you have to find them one at a time." This philosophy underscores the importance of taking time to find top employees, as a strategy that propelled EDS to a position as one of American's largest and most successful companies. This is not luck. Owners and managers who run successful companies thrive in competitive environments and survive tough times by making staffing a high priority. They know that their people are their most valuable asset and they do not lower their standards or accept lesser-quality employees because of inadequate candidate flow or unskilled, poor hiring practices. Smart staffing is not a natural skill and it can be difficult to learn as you go. It is not taught in college and is certainly not modeled by most American businesses. Too many tend to hire based on feeling, not on a logical, defined, reality-based process. Many small business owners will agonize over the terms of a lease or the wording of a contract, but do not give their full attention to the hiring process. However, losses encountered daily due to bad hiring decisions can make the money saved by negotiating the terms of a lease look almost insignificant. The cost of a bad hiring decision can result in the loss of customers, productivity, profits, and reputation, as well as losses from lawsuits or embezzlement. The need for smart staffing is especially acute in today's market where there are often more openings than qualified applicants. Many experts forecast that the applicant pool will continue to shrink because the creation of jobs out paces the numbers entering the workplace. The result of inadequate applicant flow does not mean you must settle for what's available at the moment. A short-term fix to fill positions will turn into long-term employee problems and high turnover. The solution to this problem of inadequate applicant flow is explored through the first half of this book. But the problem isn't solved when a top candidate has been hired. Getting quality human capital is only half the battle. The second half of this book will show you how to retain and manage this capital. You will learn how to keep quality people by providing an environment where employees feel valuable and needed. This book is designed to be used frequently to solve the most difficult problems of attracting and keeping top employees. Practical in nature and implementation, it is an invaluable aid in setting up a functional hiring process for an organization. Easy-to-understand directions, how-to charts and guides, and extensive checklists give you the proven tools you need to hire and retain employees. Key concepts that work and real adaptable strategies show how to create an environment that not only keeps employees, but keeps them happy and productive. In Step One of this book you will plan your hiring strategy. You will decide what kind of employee you need and you will establish written job definitions and candidate requirements. You'll then create a job application that will both identify top candidates and keep you out of legal entanglements. In Step Two you will decide exactly how you will locate the candidates you're after. You will develop a recruiting plan and investigate varied and creative sources of qualified applicants. Then, you'll learn how to screen your applicants and how to conduct pre-employment evaluations to quickly eliminate unqualified or undesirable applicants. In Step Three you'll learn how to get the most out of an employment interview and how to use reference checks to their fullest potential. You'll also follow the steps that lead you through the process of choosing and hiring the best candidate. In Step Four you'll find strategies for rewarding and keeping your employees. This section begins with the orientation and training of a new employee. It then discusses the importance of ongoing communication, career counseling, and esteem-boosting techniques. It concludes with specific methods you can use to offer your employees job enrichment opportunities and financial incentives. Step Five brings you full circle by giving you a peek at why employees leave a company and how smart staffing strategies can be used to reduce your present level of employee turnover. The Appendixes offer, for your own personal use, all the forms and worksheets that are used in illustrations throughout the book. What would it mean to your company to be fully staffed with significantly better employees than you have now and to reduce your turnover by 10, 20, 40 percent, or even more? I have seen some companies with turnover that hits 100, 200, or 300 percent in certain positions. When turnover is at this level, a change to smart staffing will offer a much more dramatic impact on retention and greater savings to your company. Add to this impact, improved working conditions, greater customer satisfaction, and increased productivity. What would be the dramatic increase in bottom-line profits? Some successful business people, who have learned the smart staffing techniques at Outlaw Group workshops and seminars, report bottom-line profits are doubled or quadrupled. Is that improvement worth the effort to implement better techniques in hiring and keeping top employees? I think it is and so will you when you use the strategies offered in this book and begin to see the difference it makes in your day-to-day operations and your bottom-line profits. A stable workforce enables you to focus on your product, process, and customers instead of continuously recruiting, orienting, training, and developing new employees. Your goal in business is to grow, to be productive, and to be successful. The goal of this book is to help you do that.
900 Johnnie Dodds Blvd., #115 · Mt. Pleasant, SC 29464 Voice: (843)884-9361 · Fax: (843)881-1758 · E-mail: info@smartstaffing.net |
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