5 Hiring Mistakes – And – The Reasons New Hires Fail
When trying to void making a hiring mistake…here are just five quick points to consider and implement into your next hiring “experience!”
1. Self-Assessment
What makes you tick? What are your goals, vision and values for the practice? Do the people that you’ve hired reflect these goals and values? Do you know what type of employee you are trying to attract? It may sound obvious to have celerity in your goals and personal vision but without these being clearly defined in your own mind (and those around you who will be working with the new hire) you may find yourself with the chronic “revolving door” hiring syndrome.
Take the time to put down on paper your Personal vision for your practice and share it with your staff.
2. Balance
While it’s important to find a person with the clinical requirements and experience you need it is equally…and probably more important to find someone that has the behavioral characteristics and interpersonal skills to make them a good fit with the current policies, personnel, values and vision of the practice.
Discipline yourself to look at the Objective “business” and Subjective “people” elements of the potential employee and find a balance of both. A common mistake that people make is to hire someone like themselves! Don’t you think that maybe one of you is enough! And consider the position and job requirements and the person or persons the new hire will be working with.
3. Job Descriptions
We stopped being surprised at how many offices DO NOT have clearly defined job descriptions. How can we expect a potential staff member to operate at a professional and productive level when the role that you are hiring for is not clearly defined? How will you ever evaluate their performance? How will you have legal precedence if you must “separate” them from your practice? Put yourself in their shoes. This may sound picky but “vague” is not the way to run any business and has a negative effect on your staff, production and even your patients.
The best candidates (and best employees) expect a defined job description. It’s one of the main reasons GOOD employees leave and it’s an easy fix.
4. Training
When I became the national trainer for a well-known dental company in Chicago, I was shocked at upper managements response when I suggested that we have an “orientation” for a new hire … as part of a new training protocol…it was as if I was speaking Esperanto to them!
Throwing employees into a new job and culture without supplying an orientation and only minimal training for is another common and major mistake that is one of the leading reasons new hire fail or quit!
Many employers just assume that someone with experience “just knows” what to do and are surprised and disappointed when their new hire is not up to the standards they “assumed” they will have and we know what happens when we “assume” right!
Lack of adequate training without “verification” sets a new hire up for failure and doesn’t help to integrate them into the practice. Having GOOD training protocols sets them up for success from day one!
5. Hiring Fast/Firing Slow
Ok this could have been the #1 reason for personnel issues as it gets to the cause of the overall problem. Hiring fast and firing slow is a philosophy all too often employed in practices and the outcome can be devastating. A “poor hire” is like a cancer that metastasizes it’s way throughout your organization affecting you, your staff and your patients.
New hires should be evaluated throughout a 90-day probationary period. A 30, 60, and 90-day evaluation is recommended and current employees need scheduled performance evaluations too. Using a professionally designed and legally compliant evaluation will also remove stress when it comes to either rewarding that top performer with a raise or bonus – or – “separating” a poor performer from your practice and will be based on objective and subjective requirements of the job as laid out in their job description!
Finally, employees that are not “making it” should be cut loose ASAP. If you ignore the problem it will not go away and will result in seeing a serious decline in your staff’s moral, efficiency, production and like it or not… respect for you!