Hiring the wrong employees can destroy your business
We’d like to share some headlines and extracts from newspapers that caught our attention in recent times –
“Altercation between employee and guest at a prominent hotel leaves guest injured”
“Bank sues rogue trader for US$7.6 million”
” Customer was given proper ‘mouth-thrashing by store’s floor manager and fled the store in shame –money in hand”
Unbelievable right? So now you understand why we chose to focus on the risks of hiring the wrong person for the job.
Hiring is probably the most critical aspect of a company’s human resource management function. Whether it’s small cook shop or a large commercial bank it can be fatal for companies to make bad hiring decisions.
At Future Services, we are personally aware of cases where employees have sabotaged businesses, deleted files and customer databases, beat up clients, stolen money, and left the company to start the exact same business – with the previous employer’s clients in hand. In one of the abovementioned cases the business nearly collapsed.
New recruits may be impressive on paper and in the interview, but may simply be in conflict with the values and expectations of your organization. This can result in:
- Reputational damage & financial losses
- Procedural break down
- Damaged relationship with customers, co-workers, and suppliers etc.
Here’s an important point – capability does not necessarily mean an individual is a good fit. Skills and experience tell you very little about someon’e character, integrity and intentions. And remember, it is no secret that most candidates exaggerate their abilities on their resumes.
So the question is – how do you manage the risk of hiring the wrong person? Here four strategies we highly recommend:
- Psychometric testing – This is a highly effective personality test that’s hard to cheat, tells you what type of job persons are best suited for, and if they will break the rules. We highly recommend it although it can be expensive and time consuming.
- Reference checks – We don’t mean from friends and family. Detailed reference checks include verifying that the applicants worked where they say they used to, in the capacity they claimed, and for the period they stated on their resume. Most important is how and why they left.
- Application form – An effective application form can capture crucial information that was ‘left off” the resume. It can also serve as a useful check & balance for the resume.
- Police report – In our experience the just mentioning the words police report will make the ‘wrong’ employee squirm. The good news is that the cost is minimal, anyone can get one and bad hires usually decline the job offer if it’s contingent upon a ‘clean’ police record.
These are just a few ways to prevent hiring the wrong person. If you want even more effective strategies we can help!
Our staff risk assessments and risk training programs ensure that you always hire the right persons for the job, tell you which of your current employees may cost you millions in losses, and improve the quality of output from current staff.
For further information contact us at info@futureservicesja.com
