How to Hire Better and Build a Strong Working Culture

Why is that? Why so much talent is going out of our country? Why people prefer doing same job in another country? There are many reason behind someone’s decision. But, there are some key points or factors that need our attention.

Usually there is no such check and balance in hiring process of many companies. Usually our hiring process begin with an Ad on job portal. Most of those Ads are either copy & pasted or generated from pre-define templates. Some of those Ads even demand for expertise that we don’t even need for that job. One solution is to involve a field expert in process or creating an Ad. Another solution can be to involve the team itself in that process. Because, ultimately every new person will join a team. And who is better than the team to tell us about the job description and role.

There is another mistake that we are doing is use of references. And I believe this is a much bigger problem in our hiring process. If someone from a company referred someone for a role or job, we usually soften our process for that person. In some cases, we don’t even interview properly or ignore recommendations for interviewer completely. This usually result in hiring wrong person for that role or result in grouping. I am not saying that referring someone is not good (I believe this is great and very important), but we should not soften our process in any way.

When we hire a person who is not suited for a role it affects company business and it affect that individual more than anyone else. He/she will end up switching a company or the field. Because, he/she will not be able to adjust, meet up the expectations or fulfill his/her role.

Many big companies or the companies that has started growing create a HR department or feel the need for one. But, I believe we don’t even need this department or may be not some aspects of it.

One of the key responsibilities of HR department is recruitment to keep the head count at the required level. But, what happen here is that it become their (or our) main focus. Company management start giving them targets to hire required number of people by a specific deadline or start of a project, etc. As a result, they start putting other responsibilities and important issues behind or on back burner.

There are many individual and companies who are already providing recruitment services as full time and part time basics. We should take advantage of that. They may charge you some extra bucks. But, I think it’s much better to keep recruitment and hiring as a separate process. Our HR department and team should be the last final barrier or stage of hiring.

This way they can focus on other responsibilities as well. That are important to build a strong culture for a company. A culture of great quality, healthy competition and team building. Where someone will love to work and earn a living.

Good leaders are also good managers. But, there is no guarantee that a manager can also be a good leader. There is already much information available on this topic. I don’t want to discuss or compare these here. Point that I want to make is simple. When you give someone responsibility to lead or manage a team of some shiny individuals or brilliant minds. Don’t just ask them to manage their day to day affairs like office timings, work load, leaves, etc. Their primary goal should be to produce results. They should not be reporting or responsible for un-reported late arrival or leave of a team member. Let them focus on their actual job of producing results, delivering a project, meeting a deadline, etc. Let them become good leaders instead of foreman or manager.

Actually, when you start micro-managing your team leaders and project/product managers, or you put someone else in charge to do this for you. You automatically start encouraging them to also start micro-managing their teams or the people working under them. And this type of culture is not going to stay or work for long. But, if you start encouraging them and help them focus on their actual job, you will start seeing great results and improvement in performance of your team.

Many private companies prefer hiring people on less salary at start. And because there is no such salary meter or algorithm available to help knowing a person their actual worth, it is very easy for them to fall for smaller perks and boosts. So what happen here is that if you are paying someone less, another company can easily break them by a little more salary increment or financial perk. And don’t worry, same is going to be happened with them as well.

Salaries are not the only factor there are many other financial benefits also, including health insurance, family insurance, small loans or lease for car and house, etc. And when you are competing with other industry giants and established companies these benefits and small perks become equally important.

Continuous learning is very important. We should encourage our existing employees to join learning programs and earn further certifications to sharpen their current skills or learn new ones. We can offer some learning programs and certifications to new people coming onboard. This will help them feel valued and result in favor of company.

Our workplace/office/company is the place where we usually spend most time of day and weekdays. We should not promote late night shifts, extra working hours or working weekends. Human body and brain need rest, whether it is in form of sleep, time/day off, spending time with kids and family, watching movie or match, playing video games or any other sport. If someone has delivered or complete their work on time don’t ask/force them to complete office hours. If someone don’t want to work on weekend don’t ask/force them to come on weekend.

Help people enjoy working for your company. Don’t make them work for you. Because nobody can!!!