Finding Rockstars For Your Organization

There are many things a business can’t live without. One of them is a strong team. Hiring the right people for your business is important. If you get your recruitment strategy right you can reduce costs, increase capacity and ensure that work is completed with your business’ unique branding in mind.

One of the best ways that costs can be reduced is by hiring the rockstar employees that will stay with your brand. So many companies have high staff turnovers because they hire people for the wrong reasons.

It costs 3x more in salary when you hire the wrong person. Click To Tweet

What Is An A Player?

An A player is a staff member who is aligned with your business and its culture. They understand why you exist and how important it is for your processes to be followed. At the same time they work extra hard to complete tasks on-time and to a high standard, and can often produce more work than you expect.

B players are coachable and can become A players.

C players, however, should be coached out. They may still understand what your organization does or why, but they aren’t rallied behind the cause. More often than not, they aren’t motivated to necessarily put in as much as effort as they could in the work assigned to them.

Evaluate to your organization momentarily. Do you have someone that is pulling down everyone else’s performance and focus? Chances are, they are that C player.

C Players can have a negative impact on your customer’s experience. An A player will delight your customers with excellent service whereas a B may at best satisfy, but a C player makes people not want to do business with you.

What Are The Key Differences?

The key differences between different players include:

Accountability – C players will almost certainly blame others for their mistakes whereas A players will take ownership for errors but see them as learning opportunities.

Motivation – A players will come into work energized and happy to do a good job. Others will be there just for the rewards.

A Players are accountable, motivated, and loyal. Click To Tweet

Low Loyalty – C players will always be looking for another opportunity. This means you could be wasting training and recruiting costs.

What Can You Do?

The first step is to cut loose all those who are C players. These are the people who aren’t interested in being at your business and are just there because they need a job. In fact, you are doing them a favour by trying to get them to find something they would enjoy doing.

Next, look at bringing the B players up to A players by engaging them in organizational culture initiatives and aligning them to your brand’s core values. Or, coach them out as well.

Next you need to improve your organization’s recruiting strategy. Look at these questions to help shape the image of your perfect new employee:

1. Your limits: How much time are you willing to invest in a new candidate? How many can you employ?
2. The unwritten rules: Are you formal? What hours do you expect everyone to work even if it’s not in their contract?
3. The priorities: What are the main messages you try to convey? How will the candidate respond to them?
4. Defining stories: What experiences define you and your brand?

Once you have these sorted you can look for suitable candidates.

Fire fast. Hire really slow. Click To Tweet

My friend Floyd runs a remote company of over 60+ employees around the world, he shared with me some valuable questions that he asks when he interviews candidates that will determine whether or not that person 1. fits into the culture and values, and 2. have a likely chance of becoming A players.

Core Value: Service

• “What does great customer service mean to you?”
• “In your last job, how did you know if your customer was satisfied?”
• “Give an example of a time you went above and beyond, why did you do it? Any regrets?”
• “What’s the best work-related compliment you’ve ever received?
• “What’s something that you did at work that maybe no one else knew about but you are very proud of?”

Core Value: Transparency

• “What does it mean to be transparent to you?”
• “On a scale of 1-10, where 1 means ‘I am very unlucky, bad things happen to me all the time’, and 10 means ‘I am extremely lucky in life and great things happen to me all the time’, where do you rank yourself?”
• “In your previous jobs, give us examples of high transparency or low transparency that happened around you, how did it feel? What were the differences?”
• “What information do you think is important to share with other team members?” [You want candidates to have many of answers here, to show that they are very open and communicative.]
• “Describe an ideal work relationship between yourself, your team and your manager. Describe how communications would be in such a relationship.”
• “Are you always transparent or sometimes? When have you chosen not to be transparent in the past and why?”
• “Give us examples of when you had to deliver bad news.”
• “What have been some of your most and least favorite experiences in your career? What did you learn from these experiences?”

Integrity

• “What are your greatest strengths, what are your greatest weaknesses?”
• “What do you worry about? What keeps you up at night?”
• “Give me an example of a project or customer interaction that didn’t go as well as you wanted it too. What would you do differently next time?”
• “Do you have examples where you did the right thing even though nobody else did?”
• “Give us an example where you took a risk by being honest.”

Mastery

• “Did you ever have an unpopular or minority viewpoint and if so, did you stand up for it? What happened?”
• “How did you get into your current line of work? What did you want to be when you were growing up?”
• “Tell me about a time you had to really stretch yourself at work? What happened?”
• “What was the hardest thing you had to do professionally in the past month?”
• “What accomplishment are you most proud of from the past year?”
• “If money and time were not a factor, what is the one thing you would love to learn that you feel would enrich your skills and improve your career?”

Accountability

• “Give us some examples of times you went well above and beyond to maintain the expectations you had set.”
• “Have you had experiences when working with people of high vs. low accountability in other work environments – what was it like when you had people of higher accountability?”
• “Give us some examples of huge challenges or obstacles you had in your work and how you overcame them.”
• “Can you tell a story of a time where you did NOT meet expectations? What happened and why?”
• “Take me back to a time when you knew you were going to miss a deadline, and how you handled it.”

Conclusion

Finding the right employees is essential if you want to succeed in business. They are the lifeblood of your organization and will help it grow and be profitable. Check out what my friend Tony did with his company, Roma Moulding, and you’ll see why it is important to have A players in your company. Secure their loyalty and there is no limit to what your company can achieve.

Take Action

Assess your staff and look for A players, B players and C players.

Adjust your recruiting strategy and get the best chance at attracting and securing A players.

Photography Credit: Eileen Sandá (Flickr)