Helpful Tips To Recruit Better Employees
In this day and age hiring is tough. There is no quick fix to getting the perfect team. My hope is that these few tips can help you recruit better employees.
#1 If you are going to hire someone you need to be comfortable firing someone.
Before you even think about hiring, you need to be prepared to fire someone. Reality is not every employee will work out, so you need to know how to let them go when the time comes. Prior to having my own lawn care business I worked for Little Caesars. At that time I ran a store with about 25 employees, so of course there was turnover. Some employees quit, some got fired, all the while continuing to hire new employees as needed. My job was to make the store the best it could be and personnel is a key part in that. Because of my prior experience, I knew I was comfortable firing employees. You never want to keep an employee that’s not serving your business in a positive way, so you need to be able to take the action that’s best for your business.
#2 Priorities of the working world have changed, so your messaging should change too.
There are many things that are attractive to today’s job seekers. In my opinion the most important is providing a challenging work environment. I know you may be thinking people are lazy these days and don’t want to work, so why should I make working at my company more challenging? Because the lazy people are not the ones you want to hire. We are not looking for people that want to do the bare minimum. You are looking for the people that want to learn and grow in their positions. Whether they want to learn more about the equipment, or the behind the scenes of the business, you want people that strive for more. People that want to learn to be leaders. People that want the opportunity for growth. That is what you should look for in an applicant because those qualities make a great employee.
Another appealing quality you can share with a potential employee is that they will be part of a team. Whether you are a solo guy looking to hire or have several crews, they will always have someone to work with. Their team will be dependent upon them and they will be dependent upon their team.
Taking pride in what you do is a bit of a lost art these days, so finding a company that values that can be very exciting for a potential applicant. Show them that you and your employees take pride in your work.
Provide a casual and fun work environment. Everyone wants to know how long they will be working each day, what time they get off, will they be working weekends, and will they be able to take days off. Here’s my policy: we are a team, so if someone needs to take a day off, as long as we communicate and plan ahead it should all work out. We work together to make things happen. We work late or start early to be able to accommodate those days off. I am happy to do what I can to accommodate my team as long as they remain hard working and dedicated.
Finally, people want stability. Potential applicants want to know that they can depend on this job. Make it known that your business has been successful and you plan to continue being successful so the job isn’t going anywhere anytime soon.
#3 Always have a recruitment system.
It’s important to have some sort of system in place so that you can have a log of potential hires. It doesn’t need to be fancy, it can be a sheet of paper, or a note on your phone where you keep contacts of people looking to work for you. Once, I had someone approach me while I was working, wondering if I was hiring. At the time, I didn’t have any available position, so I gave the guy my number and told him to reach out with his contact information and I’d keep him in mind for the future. You never know where you may encounter someone that wants to work for you, so it’s a good idea to have a system for tracking these encounters. You may also have several quality applicants when posting a position online, and unfortunately you can’t hire them all, that’s why keeping resumes on file for the future is an important system to implement.
I know hiring is tough, but keep at it and market yourself accordingly so that people want to come work for you!
