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Costly Mistake: Losing a Key Player

As CEOs and executive leaders, we all know our strengths/weaknesses. It is our goal to hire talent that rounds out and compliments those strengths/weaknesses. As your organization grows, if your recruitment department/recruiter is doing their job well, you’ll have a variety of strengths and weaknesses that complement each other and reinforce the culture of your organization. It is then that you need to ensure that employees within the same department and/or with comparable skill-sets are cross-trained. That way, you’re not caught with your pants down – in a desperate situation where you’ve lost a key player and have no one internally who can perform the same job duties until a new hire is made.

Per the Dictionary: “The key players in a particular organization, event, or situation are the most important people or things involved in it.” I couldn’t agree more! Now, what is one of your key players leaves? How do you determine the cost of losing such a player? Well, that all depends on how well you have prepared.

 

Cross training is smart business.

As the cost to you losing a key player, if you have prepared, will be significantly less detrimental to your pocketbook and to your organization’s day-to-day activities. Don’t have your people cross-trained? No need to panic! Take action. Get started right away – don’t delay! Here’s how you can get started:

1) Have your key player make a manual in case of absence. This should include relevant company passwords, login credentials, and any intricate details pertaining to their day-to-day duties.

2) Have the person directly below your key player (in title) sit with your key player for a week. Have them take notes on anything additional (beyond the manual already created) that are pertinent to that particular role.

3) Have your key player update their manual using the notes from the person they cross-trained. Make sure they update weekly to ensure the manual stays up to date.

Hire without time constraints

Hiring out of desperation, is risky because you are increasing the possibility of needing to spend resources on filling the need again in the near future. Rather, if you focused the resources and time on the front-end in ensuring key talent was cross-trained and ensuring you’re working with a Recruiting Firm/Recruiter whose focus is on the right fit and not the right now fit. Strong onboarding processes improve new-hire retention by 82 percent and productivity by over 70 percent, according to Brandon Hall Group research. Additionally, the research shows that companies with weak onboarding programs are more likely to lose these people in the first year.

Making hiring decisions out of desperation is never somewhere you want to be. First, you might not be hiring the best talent for the role. Instead, the focus is on patching the hole.  Second, candidates can sense desperation and that raises concern about the stability of your organization or of your decision-making skills.In those moments, the mentality is “just find me someone who can do this” rather than “find me the RIGHT someone who can do this and fit the culture of our organization”.

Hiring quickly versus hiring the most qualified is risky because you are increasing the possibility of needing to spend resources on filling the need again in the near future. Rather, if you focused the resources and time on the front-end in ensuring key talent was cross-trained and ensuring you’re working with a knowledgeable Recruiting Firm/Recruiter whose focus is on the right fit and not the right now fit, you’re setting yourself up for success.

 

Growth Mode vs. Sustainability Mode

Are you in Growth Mode? Or, are you in Sustainability Mode? Where to go from here?

 

Q1 of this year, I heard a lot of buzz about many of my clients being in growth mode. To be honest, this is nothing new to me as it seems as though growth mode is discussed more freely during that first quarter. Why? New budgets, new year, new outlook, new attitudes – mostly.

 

 

Let’s say you’re at or above your forecast for the year, now what? Now is when you should be doubling down on hiring new talent. Why not explore the possibly expanding new avenues of business? That, of course, requires finding the right talent to support the growth of your company. Talent that is invested and in it for the long-run. What better time than during growth mode to focus on what you want and to try and go after it? Go for it!

Come Q4, most of my clients are in sustainability mode – they’ve got key talent in place, and are waiting for forecasts to come to fruition, and budgets to be freed-up. However, there are some who must lay-off employees for one reason or another. Often, my clients think that we cannot assist them with this side of things. However, during this transition, there is no better assistance to provide the employee than an outplacement assistance resource.

 

Outplacement assistance is a way for your former employee to get their resume ready, dust off their interviewing skills, and receive expert guidance along the way. Most medium to large organizations offer outplacement stipends to their employees when they are being laid-off. The reason for this is is two-fold. First, it helps those employees who were loyal to them by accelerating their job search and providing tools to be successful. Second, it also helps the organization with unemployment claims as a well-prepared candidate with a targeted search will leaps and bounds be more successful than a candidate who is not.

 

Picking Talent to Last: The Difference Between a Staffing Agency Vs. Talent Acquisition Firm

The number one question we get from prospective clients is: How are you different than a staffing agency? The truth is, we differ significantly. However, to understand what we do, one first must understand what staffing agencies do

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