CIO
opinion
CIO
OPINION
“
COMPANIES
SHOULD BE
EXTENDING THEIR
RECRUITMENT
OPPORTUNITIES
TO A WIDER
AUDIENCE.
business will never go amiss but hiring new
staff can be expensive and it never hurts to
boast a high staff retention rate.
results they got as a teenager? Everyone has
the potential to achieve greatness if only
given the chance. In my personal experience,
formal apprenticeship schemes that enable
people without degrees to experience all
aspects of business are a great opportunity
to give people that chance.
With that in mind, focusing attention
on existing staff as well as updating the
recruitment process will ensure businesses
strike the right balance between retaining the
best and hiring those who can be the best.
Making the most of existing talent Regular complaints that I have heard a lot
as a business owner and CEO usually come
back to the feedback process during staff
reviews. Having to tell a staff member they
aren’t doing so well is never a nice feeling
and something that all managers dread – a
bad staff member doesn’t always mean a
bad person.
Many business owners find themselves in
a never-ending hiring cycle. Fresh talent is
always welcome and a great addition to the But with that in mind, if you want a staff
member to succeed, sometimes you must
be cruel to be kind. First off, a member of
Naturally, they can be a slight drain on
resources in the initial stages, but the end
results can be highly rewarding for both the
candidate and the company.
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management should never use the term
‘need to improve’. To have any kind of
helpful input, you must call out the specifics
– what do they need to improve on and how
can they do it?
Otherwise that staff member will never feel
empowered to change. We’re not at school
anymore – staff get better job satisfaction
from proper, actionable feedback.
Sometimes though, it will come around to
review time and there will be staff that are
doing great, they just aren’t quite ready for
the next step yet – and that’s fine.
The problem is that those people too need
encouragement and considered feedback
that they can act on and feel inspired by to
achieve their goals. A simple ‘keep doing
what you’re doing’ just doesn’t cut it in
these situations.
Ultimately, people are like sponges – they
learn quickly if they are bright and given
the opportunity.
The problem is that they can be missed if the
hiring criteria is too narrow, or management
fail to nurture them in the right direction. I
can speak from experience when I say that
not hiring someone based on a superficial
basis will only result in the company missing
out on great talent.
Expanding recruitment opportunities to target
those from varied backgrounds and offering
existing staff the appropriate feedback
will ensure that isn’t the case. As business
management author, Tom Peters, once said,
‘hire for attitude and train for skills’. n
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