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Our Tips and Tricks on Hiring Staff.
You will hear the phrase, ‘right person, right place, right time’ when you talk to HR professionals and there is so much resting on getting your hiring right.
When we talk about this, we’re really talking about a small part of Workforce Planning but what does it actually mean? Let’s break it down.
Let’s pose the question: “How do you know if you’ve got the right person for the job when you don’t know how their role fits in with the rest of the organisation?”
The answer of course is to know where they fit in the organisation. You actually need to start with ‘Right place’ to get it right.
During the planning and budgeting process, you’ll be reviewing the company needs for the following year, this will determine your vacancies.
As pre-work, you’ll need to map out the key deliverables of each of these roles and how they will interlink and support other positions to drive the business results you need.
A Good Position Description will also highlight the knowledge, skills and competencies required for the role.
A competency is an attitude, behaviour motive or other personal characteristic that is essential to perform a role.
Now you’ve got the roles and numbers decided on, you can turn your attention to the right people.
Using competency-based selection techniques (as well as considering candidates’ previous experience) you’ve got a better chance of making a successful hire. When a candidate’s values also fit with the company’s goals you’ll drive ownership over outcomes and, in turn, higher retention rates.
So, to get the right person, you not only Need To Know How They’ll Fit In to the organisation right now but also the competencies they can bring to the team and organisation as a whole.
The identification and development of these competencies is key to improving overall performance as well as personal development.
Using a competency-based selection and performance model will:
It’s not just about the right person in the right place. You also have to get the timing right and have the support networks there to help your employees succeed.
In HR we often think, ‘the timing just wasn’t right’, and a lot of the time it’s true.
In these cases, we should have realised that a different person would have been better at that point in time.
Let me explain. You’ve got a rising star, Lucy, and she’s ready for her next role. A Sales Coordinator role is vacant, it’s the right one for them and it’ll further develop her skills in the area she’s been just itching to get into.
If you’ve got a strong sales team in place, with the management and leadership skills necessary to coach and develop Lucy you’re in luck. But if you don’t, you’ll end up putting her into a role where she’ll feel she doesn’t have the support around her to make the most of it. She’ll wonder why she ever put her hand up for the position in the first place. In that case, you’ve let Lucy down and she won’t perform.
So it’s not just about getting a square peg in a square hole, but also about getting the timing right.
A Strategic HR Function will go further to retain and develop the key talent already in your organisation and getting the right person in the right place at the right time is a critical element in driving your Business Forward Through Good HR.
Human Resources for Consulting Small and Medium Businesses in Adelaide and South Australia. Simple, and tailored advice, what you need and not what you don’t.