Video Transcript

So the first thing you wanna think about is who? Who do you need? Cuz planning’s important. . Uh, we see so many times that in organizations, especially if they’re growing quickly, don’t pay enough attention to who they need to hire. They just know that they need more staff, so they bring them in. We’re working with a client right now that we know has five more employees than they need because they didn’t plan.
So they didn’t stop and say, What makes the most sense at this stage of our, of our growth? What, what will they do? Are you ready for a specialist or a generalist? Are you still at the stage of growth where generalist makes the most sense? Or are you ready for special? When when’s the ideal start date? Is it now or in the future?
Ideally, you’re always thinking about the future, that you’re not reactive hiring. You’re proactive hiring. , Why is an important question if hired, how will they support your bottom line and how, how will you find them? And what has been successful in the past? It’s important that however you’ve done it in the past, if it’s worked, that you’re clear what that is and you continue to do it.
So when you’re thinking about recruiting, it’s who, what, when, why, how? Please, please, please don’t warm body. Please. It doesn’t work. It really doesn’t. It seems like it does in the short term, but it doesn’t. So I’m gonna give you a fast track system, uh, process that I hope, um, you can get done in one to two days that will, um, stop you from maybe doing that warm body hire.
So here’s a fast track Pro process. Write the job posting. Now first you’ve done your planning. You know that this is a higher that you need, you know, whether they’re a generalist or a specialist because you’ve already taken care of. You write the job posting, you post the job on the website. Any other sources where your candidates will be looking?
Ask your current employees for a referral. Collect resumes, put them in a pile of yes no, or maybe pre-screen the yes pile by going through a 10 to 15 minute pre-screen interview. Ask two or three to come in for an in-person. I.  have the right people in the interview. So choose who should be part of that interview.
Check references, verbally. Offer the position, prepare an employment agreement to send a candidate for acceptance. Meet the person in person to go over terms and you’re done. So that may seem like a lot of steps, but you set it up once and you do it consistently over time. And this could be your fast track.
There’s a fast track, uh, hiring checklist here, and, uh, please know that they, you can find it on the website at the link where the forms are. So you’ve hired them. Now you’re gonna onboard them. And the way that we look at onboarding is we look at onboarding is the process from the time the person signs their employment agreement until the first day.
You wanna ensure that they’re brought into the company properly. So ideally, uh, what you wanna do is make sure that they’ve seen your employee handbook. They’ve had an opportunity to review their employment agreement, sign off on everything before they start. Some organizations set them up by sending out information ahead of time before they start company profiles go out.
Anything that you wanna do to make sure. That onboarding piece is nice and solid so that they feel like the day they’re coming in, they’re really clear. One organization we know sends out a, a letter that gives them some ideas of what to think of for the first day, where to park, uh, whether to bring lunch or not.
Just some things to get them set up to, to start on their first day. So you’ve done the recruiting, you’ve onboarded them, now you need to orient them. We look at orientations, the process that begins when onboarding leaves off. So this is, uh, a process that ensures employees are set up for. So I was just talking to someone yesterday that was telling me that a new employee came to work one day.
Uh, she was the finance person. They came up to the finance person, finance person, didn’t know they were being hired, hadn’t done any documentation, hadn’t done anything to support their hire, and yet they were hired and she didn’t know it. So it’s really important that you follow your own internal processes, and if you don’t have them, create them so that the minute that employee starts, you can set them up for success by onboarding them, orienting them, putting together an orientation program that makes sense for your organization.
So depending on how technical your organization is and the work that’s being done will depend on how long the orientation will take. For some, it can take. It’s important though to not set an employee up by, you know, giving them a manual to read on the first day and then going boom, they’ve got it, and then getting them into the job.
Uh, maybe start with that manual, but then three months later, check in to see if they know, uh, what’s in that manual. That, that they understand it in the way that you intend. Orientation’s important, so you wanna set up productivity properly within your organization? Higher well onboard, well, and orient. So the summary of this is failing to plan, his planning to fail.
Please, no warm body hires know the answers to who, what, when, why, how. And you know what? It doesn’t have to be formal. Sit down with a napkin and write it down. This doesn’t have to be a formal process, just has to be one that you follow consistently and follow a fast track process or longer track. This has been an initiative of the City of Penticton’s economic Development Department, and I’m Cori from the Data Performance Group.