The importance of hiring the right people for your business can sometimes be disregarded or not given enough time to ensure the right people fit with the right job. Business owners need to carefully consider their standpoint on building a strong team from the ground up; as your team can, in fact, make or break your entire business.
Not only is your team both the face, and the everyday ambassadors of your brand, but your staff are also the determining factor of whether your consumers will decide to return and use your services again. Whether it’s face-to-face customer service, or over the Internet through an e-commerce website, consumers will judge your brand on the quality, passion and presentation of your employees.
Here are some of the most valuable tips to keep in mind when hiring staff.
- Commitment: When hiring potential new staff, it is vital to get a gauge on their commitment. Tailor the right questions in the interview process to get a read on how they view what work is to them. If your staff are unreliable and don’t turn up to work when rostered on, this can be detrimental to the overall operation. Business can be stressful enough with the need for unnecessary stress, therefore lowering the quality of service across the board, plus impacting morale.
- Team compatibility: It is always good to trial the compatibility of a potential team member prior to taking them on, if your business allows for this. Regardless of the role, it is vital to ensure the potential new employee will adapt nicely. Ask other team members for feedback, try to expose the staff to various interactions to get a good read on how they respond to the various facets of your business. To me, a cultural fit is just as important as having the right expertise, as having someone that goes against the grain could elicit additional issues for your business, and be a cause of ongoing conflict and headaches.
- Genuine interest: Ensuring, as best as you can, that any candidate is genuinely interested in your business, is crucial. Ask questions about what else the staff member likes to do in their general life activities, ask about situations that might help you understand what type of person they are in particular situations. A genuine interest then encourages further passion and commitment to the service from the employee, therefore allowing them to completely immerse themselves and put in 110 per cent.
- Adapting to the environment: Over the years during expansion, learning to be agile, flexible and reactive can hold any team member in good stead. Work with your teams to encourage responsiveness, share how you think and how you’d react so they can learn what and how you do things and encourage them to be autonomous and confident in making decisions, to adapt to your business environment.
Overall, when hiring new team members, keep in mind the kind of culture and personalities and what is important to your business direction. Don’t try to fit a square peg in a round hole, trust your gut, keep asking questions and share how you expect things to be to ensure you get the right crew on board.
Some questions are vital to ask in any interview, including:
- Do they know about your company/ what do they think about it (This will show you if they’re invested and have carefully researched the company prior to the interview)
- Ask them about their successes/ strengths
- Enquire about their hobbies and interests (to get a better understanding of their personality)
Johnny Di Francesco, Founder, The Gradi Group
