Where else in your business do you accept a 60% failure rate?
Article posted on 17th July 2005
I recently surveyed CEOs and Business Leaders of small and large companies and organisations and I asked just them just one question:
'What is the single biggest factor that you believe
will inhibit your sustained profitable growth into the
future?'
A, perhaps, surprising 37% responded that it was people - the recruitment, motivation and retention of people that was the biggest factor.
so let me address the first one - recruitment. I see many, many businesses through a year from
the very smallest through to the largest corporate and I am simply amazed how many people still
use 'traditional' methods to recruit - maybe a couple of interviews, nothing more - together with a great reliance on the content of the CV and on references.
As you may know, the generally accepted wisdom is that by using these methods you are likely to get it right just 2 times in 5 ie. a 60% failure rate!
Is there anywhere else in our businesses where we would accept that degree of failure?
When we recruit a sales person how often do we establish directly whether they can sell?
When we recruit an accountant how often do we establish whether they can read and interpret a set of accounts?
There are methodologies that will dramatically improve your recruiting success rate and I have been using them for many years. They take longer and they may cost more, but it is nothing compared with the cost of getting it wrong - I saw some figures recently that that cost was around five times annual salary!
With these figures and my experiences, therefore, I thought it would be worth sharing these with and I've therefore put them onto a double CD set 'Recruiting to Win'. In this programme I have covered each of the stages necessary to ensure that you get a "round peg in a round hole" including specifications, finding candidates, selection process and the taking of
references.
This comes with a free copy of my Staying in the Helicopter Keynote CD for a limited period only.
Can there be anything more important to the sustained profitable growth of your business than this?
(c) Roger Harrop
Speaker of the Year with the Academy for Chief Executives, Roger Harrop is a former plc CEO, international speaker, author, business adviser and consultant. He is an expert on sustainable profitable business growth.
