Archive
You are currently browsing the archives for the Hiring & Firing category.
By MollyandLaney
“We’ll just limp along without a receptionist for a little while.”
Recently, while helping a firm hire a new receptionist, or Director of First Impressions (DOFI), someone exhaled into the air the all-too- common comment, “We’ll just limp along without a receptionist for a little while.” We hear this one … hummm … All. The. Time. The reluctance often stems from valid “reasons.” The first is inconsistent cash flow. The second is too much change/unknown in the office. Regardless whether the inaction stems from the former or the latter, those are the very reasons TO hire right now. One of our earliest mentors taught us, “Reasons are the cemetery for your dreams.” And we couldn’t agree more when it comes to the “putting it off for now until ‘things’ are a little more stable” plan. When’s the last time unsteady grew into steady merely due to the waiting process? We see so many entrepreneurs limp along without the DOFI position filled, and having been team members in this situation, we know that is just flat out counter-productive.
Not having a DOFI creates a heap of breakdowns for every single person in your office, team member and attorney alike. If cash flow is a concern, you need a consistent front desk person so you can spend MORE time bringing in new business, instead of revamping who is covering what and dealing with things slipping through the cracks. We would REALLY love to see you NOT fall into this trap, but if you do, you don’t want to get stuck in this smaller world for long. Not having a strong DOFI will force you to shrink to a lesser reality versus giving you the ability to push through and grow.
The same is true if you are holding back because you have transition going on in the office. Again, you need MORE time to focus, not less. The decision to NOT fill the DOFI position is going to force everyone to spend time reacting day in and day out while all the “work” stacks up. You will never get off the hamster wheel. What’s the chance that any of you finds the time to focus on revenue-producing activities while trying to catch up on cash flow or getting through the hump of the transition or navigating whatever change the business is going through? Slim to none.
It is absolutely critical to move forward and fill this position. You must have proper help at the front desk making sure your existing and prospective clients are heard, acknowledged and serviced in real time, not to mention keeping your schedule correct and your team supported. Otherwise, any time and money you have invested in goal setting, coaching, new processes, systems or marketing will fall flat, because you and your team will be chasing your tail day to day versus controlling your week. The latter provides a much more powerful possibility to make decisions from a place of pro-activity.
If you are limping along without a DOFI, don’t delay. It’s costing you more than you know in money, time and energy, and the confidence your clients and power partners have in you is surely draining away.
Champions of your continued success,
Molly and Laney
By MollyandLaney
There are many reasons why hiring a new staff member may end in abysmal failure.
In our last blog on this topic we discussed reason #1, not knowing exactly what position you are hiring for, and instead hiring out of pain and overwhelm.
In this blog we’ll share reason #2 your attempts at hiring a new staff member may fail. It’s very simple, lack of process and time. In a moment of frustration or overwhelm, an employment ad is placed. Now what?
It sounds simplistic, but considering that your next three days are back to back with meetings, work you promised would be completed, phone calls to return and emergencies that will inevitably pop up, it could easily be a week before you even have time to start sorting through the too many resumes you receive.
When you do find some spare time, often at home when you would rather be spending time with your family, you start reviewing resumes from a “mood view”. This means you delete some, keep some, aren’t sure about some, get frustrated and you shut down the computer. Unqualified candidates slip through and possibly good candidates are deleted. Welcome to “the process”. And what is already a time consuming, frustrating process for you doesn’t produce valuable, dependable results.
Most importantly, once you get around to contacting candidates a week or more could have passed. The best of the best have already received job offers and are unavailable. At the very least, they have interviews lined up that will occur before they can meet with you, which will likely result in them receiving and accepting a job offer prior to you ever getting an interview.
Your hiring process should be just that – a process – predetermined, with consistent standards and steps. It should be designed to weed out not just the unqualified candidates, but the ones who are great (overqualified)…but not a fit for what you are hiring for. And it should allow this process to be streamlined and move candidates through the process quickly.
So, before you ever place an ad make sure you have a process in place of what to do next and time scheduled on your calendar to handle the next steps.
If you are trying to hire a new team member, but don’t have a process in place to produce results (and reduce your time and frustration) consider our Smart Hire Solution™ process and let us be your virtual hiring team. We handle guiding you to the clarity you are hiring for, crafting and placing an ad that attracts qualified candidates and weed out unqualified ones, receiving and reviewing resumes in a systematic, consistent, timely fashion, conducting phone interviews to further qualify candidates and assisting you with a decision after your face to face interviews. Give us a shout out if we can be of service.
Champions for Your Continued Success,
Molly and Laney
By MollyandLaney
A tricky and common problem business owners deal with is how to handle hiring a new employee who makes more than the team you’ve had for years.
Often when you go to hire a great, new team member the current market may demand a salary higher than what you pay current team members or sometimes the position is just a higher paying position. Either way, once your team finds out (not “if” but when) it can cause an explosion on your team of bitterness and resentment.
Ignoring the issue just allows it to unexpectedly explode in your face one day when a team member announces they are quitting or you can’t put your finger on why she suddenly has an attitude problem or seems to have shut down. Proactively addressing the state of affairs will allow you to take a position of leadership and head off the potential of employees coming to their own conclusions.
We suggest you follow the three steps below to proactively take control of the situation.
1. Written Standards for Employee Reviews – Look at when the last time you gave your team a review and a raise. Be honest with yourself. It is not uncommon to look and see that the current team member hasn’t had a review or a raise for many years, if ever. We know this is the last thing you want to think about when you are already bringing on a new team member, but consider the possibility the current team you depend on may quit if they find out a new person is making more than them without any context.
This happened to me once. I’d hired a new Client Services Coordinator and the market, at the time, required I pay her more than the boss’ strategic assistant, who’d been with us for over three years, was being paid. I was already in conversation with the boss to correct this, but we decided since we were paying out quarterly bonuses the team had earned that month to wait to finalize her raise until the next month. I thought I was doing her a favor by not overwhelming the boss with too many ‘money discussions’ in the same month but instead alerting him to the issue and getting his agreement to handle it the following month. Big mistake on my part. Within two weeks the strategic assistant heard a comment from the new hire revealing her pay rate and was completely offended. I found out when she came into my office a week later and gave me her two week notice. She felt so unappreciated she’d applied for another job, which she got, and quit. And while I wish she’d have discussed the issue with me so I could let her know we were working on it, it was my mistake to not proactive bring up the conversation with her. Instead I let her come to her own conclusions. We lost a good team member and to add insult to the situation, the new hire quit a few weeks later! This was a HUGE learning opportunity for me to proactively address pay conversations.
To avoid this becoming a problem it is best to proactively spark the conversation with existing employees. One quick suggestion is to bring the conversation to your weekly team meeting like this, “Now that we are adding to the team, I think it is an ideal time to start formalizing our Employee Review Process to make certain everyone is on the same track for quarterly and annual reviews. What do you think about taking this on as a top project for this quarter? Let’s schedule a one hour meeting within the next two weeks to brainstorm if raises are automatic, what criteria we want, etc.” You will be amazed at how receptive the team is to this conversation and it eliminates any potential for drama and/or justification on anyone’s part. The act of proactively identifying this area as one of importance and attention up front is authentic. And if it comes up you can honestly say it’s been identified as an area we need to standardize now that the practice is growing.
2. Employee Manuals – If you don’t have an employee manual in place, including a process for team reviews and expectations for raises, this is a great time to put one in place. Start your new employee off right and get your team on the same page. WRITTEN Employee Manuals are a must once the 2nd employee is added to the bus. It is now time to start operating like a real business, including all facets of HR.
3. Create Growth Tracks – We realize that the position you just hired may truly be a higher paying position than the ones your current team fill. This isn’t a matter of who is more important – all team is important – but some positions may carry more pressure to produce revenue and come with a higher salary. Now is the time to have this crucial conversation with your current team members. Set aside the common misconception that team is paid based on seniority or titles. Let them know everyone has the opportunity to grow in the firm including growing into positions that pay more. Create a path and plan with each team member of where they’d like to grow and what it would take to be qualified for that role. Let them know what areas they would need to start learning and stepping into.
You will keep your team members vested in your company as they know how to grow there. You will also allow some team members to realize they want to stay in a certain position and understand why they aren’t making as much as some other team members. For example, I had a phenomenal receptionist once. The best I’ve ever worked with. We had a client services position open up and she asked if she could move up into that position. We agreed. She was fantastic with people, our clients already loved her, and we thought it could be a great fit. She was thrilled with the promotion and the pay raise that came with it. However, after a few weeks she came to me and told me that she honestly wasn’t a fit for the position. The pressure to convert appointments and the increased expectations of hosting evening and weekend workshops was stressed her out, keeping her up at night and interfering with her ability to be there for her young daughter. We talked it out and agreed that she would move back into her role as receptionist. It was a great conversation which she was thankfully brave enough to have with me. We didn’t want her miserable in her new role and she now understood why that position paid more than hers. There was no bitterness when we hired a new person to fill this role and she made more than her. The key is that she was allowed to choose her own growth path. She had a say in the matter versus being ignored.
As long as each team member has a growth track with clear expectations then you can have salary conversations authentically and without fear of team leaving or growing resentful. Team reviews are a great platform to create a growth track for each team member and to check in at least annually on their progress.
Remember, ignoring the issue will only allow it to fester and become unnecessary, uncontrolled problem(s) versus handling it proactively.
If you are ready to implement employee reviews or take yours to the next level, register for our webinar “Empowering Your Team Through an Employee Review System“. November 29th at 4-5pm ET. $45 registration – includes a copy of our Team Member Growth Map™, the tool to support you in preparing and conducting your review. Click here to register.
Champions For Your Continued Success,
Molly and Laney
By MollyandLaney
There are many reasons why hiring a new staff member may end in abysmal failure.
Not only is a failed hiring attempt a waste of time and money, but a huge confidence and energy loss as well. There are several reasons we consistently see people fail at hiring new team members.
Reason #1 is that most bosses don’t know exactly what position they are hiring for. Most entrepreneurs hire from a place of pain…work is not getting done, someone quit, everyone is overworked and we need HELP! They certainly may need to hire someone, but there is no clarity of what role needs to be added to the team. Broad terms like “assistant”, “paralegal” and “marketing assistant” lack clarity and that is a BIG danger. Having worked with over 400 small businesses we see a different definition for each of these job titles. Does assistant mean this employee has a lot of client interaction on your behalf or are they more strategic – handling your scheduling, project management, etc. Is your paralegal handling client meetings or doing all drafting? Is your marketing assistant handling your blogging and social media or interacting with people or reacting to all of the above at any given moment?
Before you even think of posting an ad or talk to a potential candidate, you must be VERY clear on the nitty, gritty specifics of what you are hiring for. Otherwise you end up hiring a marketing person and in two weeks they are drafting documents because the business is backlogged on work. The new hire ultimately ends up confused, the entrepreneur ends up frustrated because she just doesn’t “get it” and either way the story ends with the new hire leaving or the attorney feels they just have to let them go.
Often the bottleneck isn’t necessarily the area where the entrepreneur needs to hire. A classic example: we assisted one law firm who desperately needed to hire an attorney to help get work moving in their probate department. They had one attorney working in this area but she was swamped and work was backlogged. After completing our initial analysis call, we determined that a new attorney was actually not what was going to unlock the bottleneck of work. For less than what one attorney would cost to hire, we could instead hire two support team members. One to take over the billing and a majority of the document drafting the attorney was spending time on and the other to be a client coordinator. So much of the attorney’s time was being spent fielding “one quick question” from clients calling in or having to make the follow up calls to obtain missing information…which always turned into a 30 minute phone call because the client had direct access to the attorney for some “quick advice”. Having a support person, with great people skills, to proactively handle communicating with the clients not only freed up the attorney but also provided a better, more consistent service to the client. Adding another attorney to the mix would have actually compounded the problem and two attorneys would have been spending time on activities they could have a support team member be accountable for, freeing them up to do the specialized (ummm….revenue producing) work only an attorney can do.
In another instance, an entrepreneur contacted us to help them hire a new marketing assistant. Cash flow was down and they needed someone to help drum up business ASAP! Well…after completing our analysis, we all realized that the marketing assistant had a tremendous amount of opportunities to schedule for the boss to bring in new business. Her problem was his calendar was so jammed up she couldn’t get anything scheduled for a prospect or marketing opportunity for 6 weeks out. And it had been this way for months. People were going elsewhere because he had no capacity to assist them in a timely fashion. She we created a plan to hire a drafting paralegal to take the majority of the drafting preparation off this plate, thus freeing up 10 hours a week on his calendar for new client meetings or marketing activities. And this allows clients to move more quickly through the process and the firm collect payments faster.
So often we see business owners place employment ads out of a reaction to their overwhelm and frustration. Unfortunately, without some analysis and intentional thought on what you really need to hire, hiring someone only causes more pain. Thus perpetuates the story that you can never get ahead and hiring is a torturous process. That doesn’t have to be the reality of your situation! Take some time to really think through what your firm needs to unlock its potential. If you aren’t sure and need help, this analysis is included in our Smart Hire Solution™ process. Contact us for more details.
Champions for Your Continued Success,
Molly and Laney
By MollyandLaney
We’ve seen exceptional people quit lucrative jobs because of the team players they were forced to work with.
The team you work with is the make or break part of your ability to succeed in the workplace. In the workplace there are two sides of the equation, namely, those whom look to you for support, and those whom you look to for support. In other words, are you working in and providing others an environment of co-workers who inspire and allow growth?
The biggest trap you can fall into is the trap of “I can do it faster myself” and this is one we have fallen into ourselves time after time. If you are overloaded with work and feel you don’t have the “time” to stop and train someone how to help you, things will never change. You will continue to be overloaded and overworked.
The other devastating effect of “I can do it faster myself” is that you not only harm yourself, but you take away an opportunity of growth for your team. A team that grows together stays together. To empower yourself and your team, create growth opportunities for you and them. As you move forward, they move forward in unison. No talented team member is going to be satisfied without growth.
If you’re still overwhelmed by the thought of training a new person, think of how much time you’re already dedicating to dealing with issues of problem employees. How much time do you spend cleaning up their messes, having corrective conversations with them, or calming down your boss when they are in an uproar? Are you really saving time and energy by not correcting your team issues?
Hopefully you realize the importance of a solid team to your own career growth as well as the company’s success. If you are ready to start taking the steps to build a solid team with integrity, passion, and potential join us for our free webinar, “What Your Support Team Needs to Know to Help You Succeed” on September 28th at 11am-noon EST. To register email info@yeschick.com.
Champions of your continued success,
Molly and Laney
By MollyandLaney
Today we ran into one of the biggest breakdowns in the hiring process.
We had to stop for a moment and blog about it because we see it SO often and it abolishes all the time, effort and money you’ve invested in your hiring process. We call it the “Quick Start Cluster”. For those of you familiar with Kolbe Action Modes® you know a Quick Start is the person whose modus operandi is to jump in quickly, aim, fire and figure out the rest later. This can be a very valuable trait, particularly in an entrepreneur. However, a Quick Start also tends to have low follow through and love the creative/brainstorming process so much they can carousal there and never get off. They can, in essence, over create where creation isn’t even necessary. Laney is a Quick Start, so we write this with complete understanding and appreciation of how a Quick Start thinks and operates.
In today’s hiring breakdown we have a classic Quick Start Cluster. Through our process, we’ve identified, interviewed and found five phenomenal candidates for a position. We were delighted to hear the business owner declare that he stinks at hiring and that his CEO will take over from here. His CEO will contact the candidates, interview them, and have the best of the best complete an assessment with his DISC™ consultant. Awesome! The Quick Start business owner was in on the initial discussions to outline what he wanted in this position, what worked and didn’t work in the past, and to brainstorm what characteristics would create success in this role. Then he got out of the way! And then…he got back in the middle of it and we have a Quick Start Cluster.
When we did a routine check in with the CEO to see how the interviews were going we got the response “The boss took the candidates’ resumes to brainstorm with a guy in his coaching class he likes to run things by.” Classic example of how a Quick Start can jump back into a process, AFTER the creative phase is over and start re-creating where no creating is needed. The creation has been completed, the brainstorming done, and now it’s time to anchor to process, implement and get it done.
From a hiring perspective, this is why you must have clarity before you ever embark on what you are hiring for and how committed you are to invest in that next hire. Once you put your ad out there, you must move quickly through each step in the process. Otherwise, your most qualified candidates will no longer be available. They go fast. You can’t sit on resumes for weeks and expect talented people to not be snapped up.
From a bigger perspective, the Quick Start Cluster happens in many processes when the Quick Start starts interfering in the implementation part of the process. If something isn’t working right, it’s a great move to pull the Quick Start in and use their ingenious problem solving skills. Otherwise, they need to be focused on other things requiring their creativity and let the process move on. If not they just slow it down when it isn’t necessary. (And again, Laney is a Quick Start and can vouch for admittedly getting ‘creative’ where ‘process’ was all that was needed.)
Dealing with a situation like this requires the technique we talk about in Don’t Be a Yes Chick’s team tele-training program. It’s the ability to have the “honest, while respectful” conversations and let the Quick Start know they are becoming the bottleneck. In addition, understanding The Kolbe Index A™ can really help give your entire team a common vocabulary so you can easily say “We are complete with the Quick Start phase of the process and we are at the point to move on to a Follow Thru part of the process. If we run into a problem, you will be the first person we call for. Otherwise, the process is working so let’s not re-create it.” And if you are a Quick Start, you need people around you that will be honest and let you know when you are causing an interruption where it’s not needed. You want people on your team that will let you know about your blind spots and help you get out of your own way.
Your team can learn how to have the “honest, while respectful” conversations as part of the “Don’t Be a Yes Chick” team tele-training program. Our next 12-week program begins October 10th. Contact us at info@yeschick.com for more information.
Champions of your continued success,
Molly and Laney
By MollyandLaney
Today we ran into one of the biggest breakdowns in the hiring process.
We had to stop for a moment and blog about it because we see it SO often and it abolishes all the time, effort and money you’ve invested in your hiring process. We call it the “Quick Start Cluster”. For those of you familiar withKolbe Action Modes® you know a Quick Start is the person whose modus operandi is to jump in quickly, aim, fire and figure out the rest later. This can be a very valuable trait, particularly in an entrepreneur. However, a Quick Start also tends to have low follow through and love the creative/brainstorming process so much they can carousal there and never get off. They can, in essence, over create where creation isn’t even necessary. Laney is a Quick Start, so we write this with complete understanding and appreciation of how a Quick Start thinks and operates.
In today’s hiring breakdown we have a classic Quick Start Cluster. Through our process, we’ve identified,interviewed and found five phenomenal candidates for a position. We were delighted to hear the business owner declare that he stinks at hiring and that his CEO will take over from here. His CEO will contact the candidates, interview them, and have the best of the best complete an assessment with his DISC™ consultant. Awesome! The Quick Start business owner was in on the initial discussions to outline what he wanted in this position, what worked and didn’t work in the past, and to brainstorm what characteristics would create success in this role. Then he got out of the way! And then…he got back in the middle of it and we have a Quick Start Cluster.
When we did a routine check in with the CEO to see how the interviews were going we got the response “The boss took the candidates’ resumes to brainstorm with a guy in his coaching class he likes to run things by.” Classic example of how a Quick Start can jump back into a process, AFTER the creative phase is over and start re-creating where no creating is needed. The creation has been completed, the brainstorming done, and now it’s time to anchor to process, implement and get it done.
From a hiring perspective, this is why you must have clarity before you ever embark on what you are hiring for and how committed you are to invest in that next hire. Once you put your ad out there, you must move quickly through each step in the process. Otherwise, your most qualified candidates will no longer be available. They go fast. You can’t sit on resumes for weeks and expect talented people to not be snapped up.
From a bigger perspective, the Quick Start Cluster happens in many processes when the Quick Start starts interferingin the implementation part of the process. If something isn’t working right, it’s a great move to pull the Quick Start in and use their ingenious problem solving skills. Otherwise, they need to be focused on other things requiring their creativity and let the process move on. If not they just slow it down when it isn’t necessary. (And again, Laney is a Quick Start and can vouch for admittedly getting ‘creative’ where ‘process’ was all that was needed.)
Dealing with a situation like this requires the technique we talk about in Don’t Be a Yes Chick’s team tele-training program. It’s the ability to have the “honest, while respectful” conversations and let the Quick Start know they are becoming the bottleneck. In addition, understanding The Kolbe Index A™ can really help give your entire team a common vocabulary so you can easily say “We are complete with the Quick Start phase of the process and we are at the point to move on to a Follow Thru part of the process. If we run into a problem, you will be the first person we call for. Otherwise, the process is working so let’s not re-create it.” And if you are a Quick Start, you need people around you that will be honest and let you know when you are causing an interruption where it’s not needed. You want people on your team that will let you know about your blind spots and help you get out of your own way.
Your team can learn how to have the “honest, while respectful” conversations as part of the “Don’t Be a Yes Chick” team tele-training program. Our next 12-week program begins October 10th. Contact us at info@yeschick.com for more information.
Champions of your continued success,
Molly and Laney
By MollyandLaney
The decision to let an employee go can be one of the most torturous decisions. It’s wrought with emotional guilt and uncertainty.
It is more common than not for us to have the same conversation with a business owner, about the same employee, for years…yes, years! Just when a business owner has ‘had enough’ the employee pulls off something ‘good enough’ and buys some extra time. Often the business owner hesitates on letting someone go because they admittedly may have contributed to the problem. Their complaints about the team member often include acknowledgements of not providing the proper training, or time to work with the employee on systems to help organize the work load. Because they know they haven’t kept their word in some areas, they are hesitant to let the employee go and the problem becomes a circular, recurring vortex of frustration and emotionality.
The most honest admittance about firing is the business owner who will admit, “I just don’t have the energy to deal with rehiring and retraining right now.”
Firing someone will never be easy. Whenever we are dealing with another human being, it is hard to make a decision we know may impact their life, their children’s lives and their well-being. However, you can apply a process to let someone go with the least amount of suffering possible while retaining your integrity, compassion and sanity. The face to face termination may still be tough, we all have compassion and emotions, but you can be confident in your decision and what is best for your business.
If you’re wrestling with the pain of firing then we recommend you grab a pen and pad of paper and conduct what we eloquently refer to as a “brain dump”. Sit down and get it out. Write down every frustration, annoyance and toleration that has kept you up at night about this employee. Don’t worry about what is right or wrong, just get it out. This is for your eyes only. You have to get all this out of your head and on paper so there is room for you to think more rationally and calmly about the situation. If you don’t ‘dump’ all of the ‘stuff’, it will cloud your decision-making ability. A major reason why bosses have a hard time making a final decision is because they start the decision process with all this ‘stuff’ rolling around in their heads, come to the conclusion they’ve ‘had enough’, then by the time the next day rolls around and their emotions have calmed they are questioning their decision. Applying a process to the decision that isn’t based on just emotional frustration can significantly reduce your self-torture and improve your final decision.
You might be in a place where it is time to take a hard look at the potential of embarking on the firing process. Rather than focusing on the ‘right and wrong’ of the situation, work to determine which of the following three applies to the team member in question.
1. They are not a good fit for your team. This wording is important. Often we keep people on our team because they have potential or they are a good person. That doesn’t mean that they are a good fit for YOUR team. You are not determining if they are talented or a good person. You are determining if they are what your team needs to grow.
2. It’s a training or systems issue. The ‘miss’ you may be having with your team member may be that they need more training or a system to follow. This can sometimes be hard to determine because a frustrated team member may be showing up as disinterested or uncaring, when in fact they are just completely frustrated that they’ve asked you ten times for help on something they don’t understand and your response was to hand them a 3 inch binder to read to figure it out on their own. (Which they read, only to be more confused because the binder is out of date and doesn’t match any of the software or terminology you currently use.) You could have a great employee on your team who just doesn’t have the tools or training to get your attention, in a way that doesn’t annoy you, and let you know what they need to succeed. Instead they are showing frustration or ‘checking out’ because they’ve tried everything they know to get your help and it hasn’t worked. No one is ‘right or wrong’ in this scenario and both parties could certainly have handled things better, but they key we are trying to get to is that it could be just a training or system issue that needs to be addressed, not a termination issue. And if you fire and rehire, you will likely find yourself in the same situation because the problem wasn’t fixed.
3. Right person, wrong role. Sometimes you have a fantastic potential team member on your team that is put in the wrong role for their unique abilities. Like a flower placed outside of the sunshine it needs, they are wilting, not flourishing. Because business owners are often unclear when they hire exactly what they are hiring for, you end up hiring someone for help with client services and end up putting them in a production role doing administrative tasks. No wonder they aren’t flourishing! Because everyone wears so many hats in a small business, it’s easy for this to happen without us realizing it.
It isn’t always easy to determine which of these three you may be facing. Too often a business owner will get stuck trying to figure out which of the three applies and never take action. Often obtaining outside, objective help is the best route to go. Even if you pay for these services, it will likely be far less of an expense than the time you are spending every day dealing with this issue. Not handling the situation robs you of your energy and confidence, destroys the team and presents an unattractive situation to clients (whether you think they can see it or not – they can).
And honestly, you aren’t doing your team member in question any favors by keeping them on staff. Nobody wants to come to work every day and know they are failing.
Free yourself to find a great new team member and free your employee to find a workplace that is a great fit for them where they can thrive. It really is that simple.
This SmartFire Solution™ process allows you to let someone go with the least amount of suffering possible while retaining your integrity, compassion and sanity.
By MollyandLaney
Today, we heard the most honest words ever spoken by a business owner. “To tell you the truth I stink at hiring.”
Today I was conducting a phone interview with a candidate for this business owner’s National Sales position and I’ve never been so glad we offer the SmartHire Solution™. This business owner would have felt awful interviewing this candidate. Primarily because the interviewee was a nice guy and he was very eager to please. He was willing to “do whatever it takes to get the job done.” He had a lot of sales experience, but mostly following up on phone leads, that were handed to him. While he would be an awesome support person to a national sales producer and could grow into the position, he just did not have the makeup to step into creating the relationships this entrepreneur’s business needs.
In this case, it’s great we are handling the hiring process because we have the ability and tools to be more objective. This candidate authentically has ALL the right answers about why he gravitates to sales…because he loves to serve people and help people and finds people interesting. This entrepreneur would have completely gotten caught up in “liking” the guy and his authenticity about people but unfortunately the candidate just isn’t qualified to step into this position. The entrepreneur doesn’t have the need for a support position and doesn’t have the training structure/support process to grow someone into this roll. He needs someone who can get in there, understand the business model and then hit the ground running on his way to producing.
This is such a common problem we see when business owner’s hire. They get seduced by the paper resume, then the personality or by something in their skill set or experience that stands out, without carefully evaluating if this person truly fits the role they are hiring for that supports the goals of their company. The devastating part is they end up with a nice person in a bad fit situation that the entrepreneur tends to tolerate because they don’t want to go through the awful hiring process again and/or cannot even think of the emotional vortex of the firing process. It can work very well to have a qualified company handle your hiring process. If you do prefer to handle your own hiring, make sure you are crystal clear on EXACTLY what role you are hiring for, what standards you are operating by and stick to guns until you find it. You only have so much of your budget available for salaries so you have to make sure you are filling all the necessary roles your company needs. Someone may be a great person, but not a fit for the role you are hiring for. They might be a great quarterback, but if you don’t need a quarterback they aren’t a good fit for your company.
Don’t be seduced by a good resume!
By MollyandLaney
We all dream of a workflow analysis that provides guaranteed results.
It is natural for workflow to become unbalanced as your company and your team grows and changes. Even worse are the bottlenecks that begin to occur with work in progress. Often the amount of work becomes uneven, as well as the matching of talents to job responsibility. To maintain maximum effectiveness, you must periodically evaluate the work levels and talents of your team and reassign responsibilities accordingly or conduct a stop restart to firm out where the traffic jams occurred in the first place. This allows flow within your system while allowing team to grow into new, challenging and fulfilling positions. Unfortunately we rarely intentionally look at this until we are faced with less than ideal (crisis) times like when we have to add or significantly increase a new service area, are considering adding new employees, lost employees or needing to let an employee go.
Here are four STRONG suggestions to eliminating bottlenecks. And below we explain HOW they do so.
1. Weekly Key Support Meetings: We recommend one hour of dedicated, consistent weekly time with the key person on your team that supports your world. This time is typically at the start or end of each week and allows each of you to go through your entire calendar, personal and professional, for the next 30 days, and look for any holes, double commitments, over commitments, potential roadblocks for work in progress and proactively looking at cash flow, vacations (or making certain a vacation is on the horizon) etc. This is a HUGE opportunity for a “board of directors” meeting to take a look at the current state of the union before a crisis occurs or a ball is dropped.
2. Weekly Growth Time: At a minimum carve out 90 minutes a week, consistently every week, to work on projects such as software training, systems training and/or book clubs for ideas you want to implement in the business to support future GROWTH. It’s time for all that “stuff” that you never can get to. Without intentional, proactive growth time everyday feels like ground hog day and it’s amazing how another year goes by and your business looks exactly like it did last year (if not worse)…and every year you say ”If only we could get to X, then Y would really change.”
3. Monthly Coffee Clutch: Where the hidden gems lie buried. This is agenda free, non-business time with your key team member(s) spent over breakfast, lunch and/or afternoon coffee. This time is purely to connect on a personal level. No files or work are “brought to the table.” This is all about building relationship, establishing trust and an opportunity for each of you to speak your truth and share your greatest visions. That’s it. We’re not going to go into what you can expect here but if you can come to the table being fully present, actively listening and with enjoyment for the downtime together, email us after four consistent weekly meetings and we will be happy to offer a 50 minute NO CHARGE coaching session with you.
4. Quarterly Spring Cleaning: The term “spring” means a rebirth. And that is exactly what this time will provide. Block out a ½ day each quarter for the entire firm (yes, attorneys too) to literally clean out each office, lunch room, storage room or whatever other “room” you are using as a closet. One key team member MUST be assigned to work WITH the attorney on their office (i.e., don’t leave them alone). We suggest the entire team tackle the common room areas together.
How do these 4 suggestions Eliminate Bottlenecks?
Once you make the conscious choice for uninterrupted communication, connection and collaboration you start to create a habit of proactively looking at the business and relationships. You become consciously aware of how you show up in the part you play in your role. When you stop long enough to create silence and space and drop all the agendas and “gottas” that is when possibility and opportunity begin to root, creating staying power. You begin to see where the bottlenecks are and how to eliminate them in the future in a proactive, powerful way versus a knee-jerk reaction to a crisis.
What bottlenecks are you tolerating?
Champions of your continued success,
Molly and Laney
