Hire in a hurry, regret in spare time – Recruit for serious business growth

Would you call Richard Branson a manager or a leader? Bill Gates? Richard Branson? Kelleher grass? Great companies are run, not managed, and that’s the truth behind my final cardinal rule for serious business growth. Leadership is the ability to inspire others to be as good as they can be. So if you’re going to lead your people and your business toward serious growth, one thing you should never rush is hiring.
You are only as good as the people you hire.

If your brand is your greatest financial asset, your people are your most important business asset. It makes business sense to firstly find the right ones and secondly to take very good care of them. After many years of employing hundreds of people, I truly believe that you can bring out the best in them if you give them the chance to be all they can be. If you do this, they in turn will help make your business the best it can be. Take care of your people and you are more likely to achieve some serious business growth.
no one comes alone

I learned this lesson when I was very young working for the Hilton Hotel Corporation in London. One day, I was walking through the hotel lobby and the front desk manager yelled at me, “Sims, come here.” This was his style. Well, his style didn’t fit the way I wanted to be treated and I said, “You can call me Jack, Sr., Sims, or Jackson, (which some people have called me) but never call me ‘Sims’ again or I’ll use your last name too.” She couldn’t believe he’d said it, but the fact is, he never did it again. That’s when I started learning how to care for employees: give them the respect you expect them to treat yourself.

To hire someone for life or not to

There is another side to my People rule, and this is based on a lifetime of experience in hiring and firing. The thing is, when you hire someone, you should hire them for life, not short-term. And guess what, there are some people at your company right now who just shouldn’t be there. You may not know who they are, but I can assure you that the rest of your employees know who they are. Yes, you may have to lay off some employees.

Employees come in three flavors

Employees fall into three very distinct groups. The first two are growing their business. The third group is taking the life out of him.

1. Your senior management team. Let’s say they represent around 10% of your total workforce.
2. Your workers. These are the majority of your people, they make up about 75-80% of the employees and they are committed to the business, doing a great job, day in and day out.
3. Your nomads. Most companies have a few of these. These are the people who show up because they get a paycheck and are most likely already listed on Monster.com. They wander from one company to another, from one job to another, without relating to any of them.

The best thing you can do for your company and most of your employees is to get rid of the nomads. Even better, don’t let them in in the first place. And do you know what your employees will say when you fire a nomad? “What took you so long?!”

Hiring is a process, not an event.

Without a doubt, the best thing you can do to lead your business is to spend more time recruiting. Recruitment is something you need to work on all the time if you want to see serious business growth. Part of the hiring process is that you should have candidates interviewed by at least three different people to establish if the candidate will fit into your culture. Your culture is an incredibly important part of your brand and can seriously make or break your success.