A founder can’t grow a winning enterprise single handedly. Some may try, but it is nearly impossible to do so. Every famous entrepreneur that has succeeded in building a flourishing company has done so with great employees by his or her side. That’s why Human Resources i.e. the hiring and retaining the best employees, is more important than ever.
An entrepreneur can invent and even commercialise an idea as an enterprise of one. In time, however, the tasks of running a business become too great for the entrepreneur to manage alone. At this point, a savvy business leader must find and hire the best workers to help achieve the entrepreneurial dream.
Entrepreneurs can’t afford to lose time, money and results from a bad hiring choice (a recent Forbes article by Falon Fatemi quotes Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh who once estimated that bad hires had cost the company “well over $100 million”). The cost of finding, interviewing, engaging and training new employees is high. Employees also require desks, computers, phones and related equipment, let alone the largest costs of being an employer—salaries, benefits and taxes.
Over the course of my career, I’ve hired hundreds of people. Some were exceptional employees who were major contributors to our success. Others didn’t work out. What I have learnt from all hires is that consistent review and updating of the recruitment and onboarding process is key to getting it more right than wrong.
Human Resource process and induction programs work together during the hiring process of employees into an organisation and involve the co-ordination and effort of many departments. Human Resource Management professionals recruit suitable candidates which is either done at the company level or through recruiting agencies.
Every phase of the onboarding process with a new employee is important, from before they begin their job, through their first month, to the successful completion of their first year. With an eye towards the goals of helping create a welcoming atmosphere and providing the guidance necessary for new hires to acclimate to life at MindGenius, we’ve designed a series of useful checklists and an overall template that provide a step-by-step guide for managers to navigate this process. With the ability of MindGenius Online to be able to copy repeatable processes we have also benefited from being able to replicate our best practice process in a seamless, efficient manner in our own products.
But first you have to hire the right employee and manage the entire Human Resource process for the candidates. The Harvard Business Review states that one of the most important choices a company can make is who they choose as a manager, and that 82% of the time, they get it wrong. Unfortunately, there is no set list of the best interview questions to use, organisations need to develop their core questions and adapt and update them through their own personal experience. Developing templates and consistent reviewing criteria will help fine tune the process. Once again, we have used MindGenius Online to develop the process and templates help us with the recruitment process. As we embark upon a period of significant growth, the use of MindGenius Online is undoubtedly helping us identify the best talent and is empowering our human resources processes.
Best of luck with your future Human Resources plans and we would love to discuss any processes, templates or checklists that have helped your organisation recruit great employees.
