Building Better Teams

Five Secrets To Successful Hiring – No.5

Your company has a new position and you need to fill it fast. What do you do?
Should you just go out and grab the first interested person? Maybe you should do what you see happening a lot: companies taking new talent straight out of college?
No. None of those.
In these situations, you must remain calm and if you want to be successful in the long run:

Trust. The. Process.

We have all seen situations in Human Resources where we are willing to skip a step if we find someone who we think is going to be a good fit for the role.
After looking at a resume and having a small chat, we want to pull the trigger before someone else scoops them. This is the situation when we fail each time.

You need to trust the process to have good long-term results.

Guessing can go either way. But, it probably won’t.

When I first started my company, I used to guess just like a lot of people do. But whenever you guess that someone will be a good fit, chances are you will make a mistake. That used to happen to me as I didn’t have processes in place.
Before starting my medical billing company I was mostly in the teaching business. So, I didn’t have any process for comparing. Also, as a High I personality, I am not a process-driven person.

What I used to do is I would hire people who were like me. Fun, making everyone laugh, had a talent for telling stories, charismatic, etc. While this is a great tactic for meeting new friends or having a conversation, it’s a terrible idea when hiring people for different roles.

I wanted to build a business that required people who are detail-oriented, who are going to build claims daily and remotely. High Is are impulsive, have the shiny-object syndrome, and just want to have fun. So having someone like me in a position that requires you to be concentrated and detail-oriented is a recipe for a disaster.

Don’t cheat

It took me a couple of years to set processes in place. It was not an easy job and it took a lot of time and energy both from me and my team. But, I am putting out what I have learned.

There are 5 steps for hiring and retaining people:

Alignment of core values
Job benchmarking
Put people in the role before they get the role
Ask the right questions
Trust the process

This process is similar to building a house: you need a firm foundation on which you will build the rest of the structure.
One of the most important things is to not cheat, not skip steps. Or: trust the process.

Do it all the way through and you will get better candidates. I guarantee that.
You will spend less time re-hiring people, you won’t need to waste that much energy and money on training people or getting certificates for them, your HR will not waste time…

If you don’t put the process in place you can expect to be going through resumes and interviews, guessing which candidate is the best, training them, making arrangements on the team due to the newcomer, getting licenses, and different requirements for them, putting in a lot of energy… And then seeing them walk out the door after a few weeks, leaving you to go through the whole process once again.

Do you want to hire and keep good people?
Trust the process.

By Alex Swire-Clark

Five Secrets To Successful Hiring – No.2

Full-time, part-time, remote, freelance… any kind of job arrangement is now available. And everyone wants to hire good people, but there are burning questions: how to find good people and how to keep them?

We have gone through step one: alignment of core values and you can find it HERE.

Now that you have that out of the way, it’s time for step two in the hiring process. These are my secrets of employing people in my company Solor where we have 92 percent retention. What do we do when we figure out a new person is aligned with our core values?

Job benchmarking foundation

To put it in simpler terms: this is a process of matching a person to a role based upon their Emotional Intelligence. The goal here is to have a person get the energy from a role instead of losing energy.
Remember: when an employee is losing energy from a job role, the only possible outcome is the creation of a toxic, gossipy, passive-aggressive atmosphere. And who wants that?!

Use the available tools

To determine whether someone is good for the role you need, there are plenty of tools out there. I use DISC assessment and recommend it as it has proven to me times and times again that the results I’m getting are right on the spot.
DISC divides people into 4 different categories, ensuring that if I follow it and match it with the role that’s “empty”, a new employee will feel comfortable in a new role.

Let’s put things into perspective

If a person applying for a job is a D/I, they are very driven and outgoing. Let’s say you want to put that person into the sales department where they have to make a phone call every week, maybe not even to make a sale but to create a relationship with a customer. You want them to be interested in the person on the other side of the line.
Your new D/I employee will not be comfortable with that. What drives them is commission, quick turnaround, fast transaction. And they will not get a single thing from forming a relationship with a customer. They lose, and you lose. No sales, and no relationship.
Remember that we are not all wired the same. We are not all driven by the same things. Some people what to climb the corporate ladder, while others want to stay where they are and create long-term relationships with their clients. Some want money, others want connections.

How to connect the right person with the right role and why do we use DISC

When looking for a new team member, you need to find a tool that is going to work for you. You need to know how will the people be triggered by a role, and how will they communicate in a role. What are the things that will cause a conflict in your organization?
We use the DISC method in my company because we are working remotely. Many companies have switched to this kind of arrangement due to the pandemic so I’m sure DISC can help you organize your company as well.

What is important when you work remotely is to have people who are task-oriented. High D and C will be great because they will be more independently capable than I and S styles. I don’t need to micromanage D’s and C’s because I know they will make the job done, even though they will do it a little bit differently than how I would have done it.

Put the tool to use for proper job benchmarking

I usually have a manager or someone who is high-performing in a certain role already to do a DISC assessment with people because he/she will know what they need for a specific role. They also go through an assessment together. They compare what is written in an assessment to what a manager needs a person to do in order to determine where exactly is a new employee on a DISC circle.

Why? You need to know if a High C will struggle to get into an I role, or a High S in a D role. That will allow you to coach your people better, to understand them before they are even hired to determine if this person is going to need a lot of coaching or will they feel like a role is made for them.

Image by Here and now, unfortunately, ends my journey on Pixabay from Pixabay

Our retention is so high (92 percent) because we do job benchmarking and we connect the right people to the right roles.

Hiring is subjective. It’s super difficult to find objective means to hire someone. Some people are better in a resume, some are better in an interview than others. That’s what makes us all unique!

But if you use the tools available, you get more objective data points.

Watch out for this

Tools available out there to determine the right role for a good employee are vast. However, always consult with your labor attorney. You want to make sure that whatever tool you use, it’s not causing an impact it shouldn’t have. You cannot discriminate against one body of people (race, ethnicity, sexuality….). This is a tool you don’t want to use.
This is why I recommend DISC, as it is non-discriminatory.

Whatever tool you use, keep in mind that you want people to gain energy from their role because if they are losing it, that will create a toxic workplace, gossipy, passive-aggressive atmosphere.
Even in this case, people can stay for a long time but probably won’t.

Keep your workplace energy-driven and keep it up for many years to come.

By Alex Swire-Clark

Repetition is the mother of success. True or false?

There are many actions that each of us takes in a day, every day. I’ll assume most of us wash teeth every day, puts on clothes, brushes our hair… These are all actions that we take in a day and that we have been practicing for our whole lives. But can you say that you are doing any or all of these and similar actions perfectly? Do you have the best hairstyle, or the best style, the strongest teeth out there?

If the saying „Practice makes perfect“ is completely correct, you would be able to answer these questions with a strong and confident „Yes!“. However, there is a high chance that you are not so sure about it.

These are small actions, and there are far bigger in our lives that prove that not every practice makes perfect, and not every repetition is the mother of success.

Practice makes permanent. Perfect practice makes perfect.

In our daily lives, if we’re doing something over and over again, we will create a habit. Repetition of action becomes engraved in our brains until we break the habit. The consistency that we create by repetition can be something that is consistently good, but it can easily be something that is consistently bad.

That means that the saying that repetition is a mother of success is true, but only if you’re doing the right things. The logical question is: how do I know that I’m doing the right things? How do I know that I’m on the way to perfect?

First and foremost, you need to be intentional about your actions. Just like when you are trying to eat healthier or exercise more; you are very intentional about it. That’s how you get the results that you want: feel better or have more energy.
In the business world, I find that a great source to find the right way is by using mentors. Finding people who have done what you would like to do and getting ideas and processes from them reduces the effort of having to „re-invent the wheel“.
Another way to make sure you are doing the right thing is to implement the processes that are easily implemented by a larger number of people. The reason is that some of us are task-oriented and can easily get tasks done in a very logical manner. Some of us are more people-oriented and can be all over the place. But if we all have a process that is easy to follow, we will get the result we want and make perfect!

Ask yourself these questions: Do I have the best practices in my daily life? Do I have processes that I follow each day, that bring me the results that I want? Am I just trying new things all the time and having new ideas each day?

Find those things that you are consistent about and use mentioned techniques of finding good, proven processes and implement them consistently. This will cut down a lot of insanity in your company or in your relationship. And it will finally make perfect!

It is worth mentioning that a guide to making your relationship perfect is coming your way next month as I will be holding a FREE webinar for all the couples out there. If you want to learn how to communicate more effectively, watch this space and sign up on time!

By Alex Swire-Clark

Do You Know What Is Your Passion?

What are your passions and purpose in life? What is it that drives you? Whatever that is, you need to find that in your life.

For me, my passion is my family and friends. This should not come as a surprise as I am a combination of High I and S personality styles, and S in me is all about relationships in life. I want to support people and others to feel good about themselves. From that perspective, I have always had a special place in my life for the camp experience.

As a child, I went to camp many times and had an excellent time there, so naturally, when I became an educator and had to do my summer practice, I chose camp! After switching between a few, I found my forever camp in 1997. That camp is Broyhill Leadership Conference.

Teach them about leadership!

Broyhill Leadership Conference is unlike anything that has existed or will ever exist. First off, what kids are learning in this camp is leadership. We teach uniquely; we go from go-setting activities where we teach our students how to set the right goals that matter; we teach them about better communication skills, cooperation, and teamwork, and how to integrate themselves within the clubs they serve. That means we talk about Emotional Intelligence issues and the heart of leadership: being there for people when they need you.

The fact is that when any of us comes to an organization, we come with a heavy heart and some issues that we are carrying from previous experiences. And every other person comes with their own experiences. And we must meet people where they are. In Broyhill Leadership Camp, we prepare teenagers for that: in a way, we peel the onion layers so they can get to know each other better and form lifetime friendships.

Young people are inspirational

What always happens in this camp is we, as educators, go to the camp to try to inspire these young people, and they end up inspiring us. The stories they tell, the goals they set, and the dreams they have for one another are fantastic! And they are young people, still at the beginning of their lives and with not much wisdom that we older think we have. But you’d be surprised.

So what’s stopping us from following our passions? Maybe the fact that we don’t know what our passion is?

Ask yourself: what is my passion? Whatever that is: GO GET IT! Today is not too late to start with whatever your passion is. Just go out there and do it.

Don’t make excuses. Maybe you are in debt or in a toxic relationship, and perhaps you think you are too old… But all those things don’t matter. If you see something you really want, go get it and do it. We only get one time on this planet so let’s make the most of it.

How to find your passion

If you need some help with finding your passion, feel free to take a personality assessment. Then I can give you information about career opportunities and things you might want to get involved with based on your personality style that you may not even know existed. These assessments are even made for children and teenagers who need so much guidance and it’s the perfect time for them to take one. I’d be more than happy to help!

By Alex Swire-Clark

Black Widow And Its Impact On Your Life

There is no doubt that we are living in a remarkably interesting time. The pandemic that’s been going on for more than a year has changed so many things in the lives of all the people around the world. Some changes have been huge, and they are obvious, while others might go under the radar. One of them is the way we watch new movies.

Streaming services have been around for quite some time now and they have seen an increase in subscribers during the pandemic. But now, we don’t just watch TV shows on there, we are actually swapping the experience of going to the movie theatre for the comfort of our couch. An excellent example is a new movie Black Widow. It has been offered to the viewers in theatres and on Disney+. What do you think brought more money?

After Disney released their opening weekend, we saw that the 80 million dollars came from the box office. However, 60 million dollars was generated from Disney+ purchases. Those are numbers that we couldn’t even imagine two or three years back.
Many found this interesting so there was a lot of talk about it on LinkedIn. What sparked my interest from the Emotional Intelligence and DISC Method standpoint was a post by Brad Krueger who said:

Disney made 60 million this weekend of people who decided they would rather watch Black Widow in the comfort of their own homes. That’s 3 million households. And Disney+ isn’t even available worldwide and it doesn’t include a monthly fee for the service itself. So, the families decided that the “experience” of going to the theatre wasn’t worth the time and expense and opted for the digital experience. So, do you think people will start making the same choices with events? If so, in what percentage?

This is a great question in terms of events. More so, in terms of Emotional Intelligence.
One of the comments on the mentioned post said that events are all about the people. I will confirm this through my 20 plus years of experience speaking at different conferences. What people taught me a long time ago is: the magic of conferences happens in the hallways. It’s all about the relationships you make between meetings.

To be more exact, everything we do in life is about people. It is almost impossible to do any kind of work and not be involved with others. However, we don’t all enjoy it equally.

I and S personality styles are all about human connection and interaction. They find their energy in others and love to share hugs, food, drinks and memories that are very specific to in-person events. On the other hand, D and C personality styles love the virtual atmosphere since they are task-oriented. The ability to get tasks done without having to engage with other people after the work is done makes them thrive.

So the answer to the question about whether the situation that we have right now where 3 million households decided to avoid human interaction and watch the movie with Scarlet Johansson as a star in the comfort of their couch is here to stay is this: it depends on which side of the fence you are. Are you on the left side of the DISC model graph or you are leaning towards the right? And this is something that has to be kept in mind for business in the future as well.

We have all switched to online, remote work. And we have seen that it is doable. However, it is crucial to check with your employees how they feel about it before making decisions about hosting events or weekends in a virtual world. If you are working with D’s and C’s they will be more than happy to perform the task from their home and after it’s done get back to their families or any other offline activity they enjoy. However, your I’s and S’s will miss the chit-chat at the office and the ability to be in the same room with other people.

The most important thing to remember is: ask yourself where do people get their energy from? Are they task-oriented or people-oriented? Everyone assumes that everyone wants to go back to live and in-person events, but that is not necessarily the case. If it was, those 60 million dollars from the beginning would have never happened. Set the correct atmosphere for them and you will have a happy, successful and world-class team on your hands.

To create a world-class team in your personal life with your partner, keep an eye on this space! The beginning of August brings a free webinar: Three Steps To Better Communication With Your Partner.

Building Better Teams

Trust. The. Process.

Guessing can go either way. But, it probably won’t.

Don’t cheat

Job benchmarking foundation

Use the available tools

Let’s put things into perspective

How to connect the right person with the right role and why do we use DISC

Put the tool to use for proper job benchmarking

Watch out for this

Practice makes permanent. Perfect practice makes perfect.

Teach them about leadership!

Young people are inspirational

How to find your passion

Concise Adult Version