Turnover is an inevitable aspect of running a large company or business. The more employees you have, the more frequent turnover becomes. Employees come and go—that’s just a part of doing business. However, if you want to reduce the amount employees coming in and out of your company, you need to improve your hiring and firing process. If you think your HR department isn’t doing enough, here is a guideline on how to hire and fire employees the right way.
Hiring and Firing Guide for Organizations
1. Hiring Process
a). Do a trial week
Rather than hiring someone as a full-time employee right off the bat, consider doing a trial week. A trial week will give you the opportunity to review the quality of a prospective employee’s work before offering them a full-time position.
b). Hire who you need
While there is nothing wrong with giving your friends and family jobs, they need to be qualified and fill a position that your company actually needs. A manager or someone with a position that goes above HR, you need to put the company first.
c). Do a background check
Why do employers check credit reports? Because they can tell you a lot about how responsible a potential employee might be. If they have a bad credit score it might be a reflection of poor money management skills and a lack of responsibility.
d). Company Culture
Company culture is an element of the hiring process that gets overlooked far too often. You want your employees to feel like they can relax and be comfortable in their work environment. Ask questions like: do you prefer to work close to people or be isolated to focus on your work? What are you looking for in terms of company culture? Try to feel out how casual or rigid of a work environment they want and compare it to your company’s.
e). Test their social skills
It’s not uncommon for major science and technological companies to make their applicants build something together as part of the interviewing process. For example, Illumina in San Diego tasks their engineers with building a Lego car, but only one person is given instructions and has to instruct a team. If you have the time and resources, create challenging projects to test the leadership and teamwork skills of your applicants.
d). Mentoring system
Incorporate a mentoring system in your on boarding process. When someone comes onto a team, they may know how to do a job but not in the same fashion that your company does. One way to accelerate job training is to pair your new hire with an existing and experienced employee. This will also give you an opportunity to view the leadership skills of the employee that trains the new employee.
2. Firing Process
a). No surprises
If you have ever been fired for seemingly no reason and out of the blue, you know how devastating it can be. If your employee has no idea that they are about to be fired then something has gone horribly awry. When an employee first starts displaying signs of under performance, let them know through meetings and messages. Employees should be receiving constant real-time feedback from management all along. Firing an employee out the blue can lead to a lawsuit depending your state laws, as well.
b). Make it quick and painless
You have probably heard the phrase, “Hire slowly, fire quickly.” If you hire someone that turns out to be a dud, don’t drag your feet. A team’s short-term moral damage is always better than slowing down production, client happiness or company performance.
c). Severance Pay
If you are concerned about lawsuits, severance packages are a great safety net for a company. When an employee has a month of pay to keep them afloat while they are searching for a new job, they are far less likely to retaliate or hold a grudge.
d). Know who not to fire
There are people that you really want to avoid firing in certain situations. If you choose to fire a woman who is pregnant rather than allowing time for maternity leave, you can almost certainly expect a lawsuit. Not only is it the wrong thing to do from a moral perspective, but it can easily end up costing your company more than it would have lost in productivity.
Give your company’s HR department the makeover it needs to be more successful when you use this hiring and firing guide.
