I get to hire 3 additional quality technicians to deal with increased business and the future growth our new building will allow. How do I make sure I hire the right people?
A big question is how to weigh the internal candidates against the external applicants.
We have a handful of production operators that have applied. They bring knowledge of our product and of many of the functions that they would be performing on the floor. They also bring loyalty to their friends on the plant floor creating a difficult situation when products and processes are nonconforming.
The external candidates bring their own ideas, and new perspectives to our team. They typically require a longer training period. It can also be more difficult to gauge whether an external candidate will mesh well with the team.
It looks like we will split the openings using two to promote internal candidates and one for an external candidate. We view the chance to reward high performing internal as an excellent tool to show our hourly employees there are upward moving paths for them, something we have historically been bad at.
I'm looking forward to the challenge of adding 60% to my team over the next 2 months. I'll be reporting back how the new team members are performing and how well we are able to stick to the training plan.
60% growth to your team is excellent. Should be an interesting challenge though.
ReplyDeleteIt is definately a good idea to promote from within as long as you have the talent to pull from and it shows the other employees that there is growth potential within the company. Tropicana was very bad at that and had a negative effect on employee morale.
One of our toughest jobs as managers is hiring the right people for that employee/job fit and organizational fit. Hire hard, Manage easy.
ReplyDeleteGood luck with the hiring process Patrick. I'm with Dr. Kirk on this one, you want to make sure you get "the right people on the bus" (Good to Great, J. Collins).
ReplyDeleteIt is, however, not to say you should always grab the person with most experience. It may often be more beneficial to hire a less experienced person that has the ability to grow into the role.