by Tim Fulton
Employee selection. No two words frighten small business owners more than these two.
Why is this? Maybe it’s because the selection process can be so time consuming. Maybe it’s because the process can be so costly. Maybe it’s because we are never quite sure we know how to select the right person for the position.
I believe that the main reason so many small business owners and managers dread the thought of hiring new personnel is that they have made bad decisions in the past and the thought of duplicating such decisions brings terror to their hearts.
Why is it that despite our good intentions, we still make bad decisions in selecting new employees?
The reason is simple. We usually base our decisions on the wrong set of information. This fact became very evident to me recently in talking to a small business owner. Bill had just about sworn off hiring any more new employees as a result of the horrible experiences he had experienced recently in trying to fill several vacant positions.
Predicting future performance
Bill had owned this small retail business for five years and had always struggled in hiring new employees. I asked Bill on what basis he made a hiring decision. His response included such common factors as appearance, communication skills, and past experience. He than shared with me that his most important factor in hiring a new employee was his ability to predict their future behavior and performance in that particular position.
I was glad to hear that Bill used such a criteria for hiring. Experts tell us predicting future performance is quite normal and a good practice in the selection process.
I than asked Bill on what basis he was able to predict such future performance. He responded that he would often times ask hypothetical questions such as, “If you were getting ready to close the store and a customer entered and demanded that you stay open for the next thirty minutes while she browsed for a future purchase, what would you do?”
Bill also suggested that he tried to determine applicant’s work attitudes and moral values during the interview. That information, he felt, was important in trying to predict future work habits.
Bill felt that despite getting great information asking such questions, for some reason many of his new hires did not perform the way he had imagined during the interview. In fact, several of his newly hired employees turned out just the opposite of what he had predicted during the selection process.
Hiring is Similar to College Football?
In talking to Bill, I also found out that he was a huge sports fan. He loved college football and confided to me that he was known to place a wager on one or two games a week. In fact, he bragged to me that he had earned enough money last year from betting on football games to pay for a recent week-long vacation to Florida for his family.
I asked Bill what he contributed his betting success to.
He responded that he had become very good at predicting the outcomes of games almost to the exact point spread. He was able to do this by studying each team’s past performance in close detail. He would watch replays of their last games. He would scrutinize their statistics. He would research how the teams had played under like circumstances in past years.
In simple terms, Bill had created a science of predicting football game outcomes by looking at past performance.
I asked Bill if it was possible to draw a parallel between predicting winning football teams and predicting the future behavior of a potential employee.
At first Bill had a confused look on his face. He was having a difficult time correlating the process of picking football game winners with the selection of productive employees. Slowly, a grin emerged on his face as he realized the connection between the two processes.
“Are you saying that I should pick my employees the same way that I pick my football games?” he asked.
“Absolutely.” I responded.
A New Approach to Hiring
All of a sudden Bill experienced a huge awakening. He considered that he would never bet on a football team just because the coach talked of winning such a game. He would never pick a team to win just because of their apparent work attitude or values. In picking his teams, he predicted future performance based on past behavior under similar circumstances. It had always worked. Why wouldn’t it work in selecting new employees?
Of course it would.
Not only will it work for Bill, but it will work for any business, large or small. Research has conclusively shown that the only way that we can accurately predict an employee’s future behavior is by looking at their past behavior under similar circumstances.
Why is this so? Because behavior can be measured, it can be evaluated, and it can be changed. To the contrary, attitude is difficult to measure, evaluate, or change. Which one would you want to use to predict future performance?
If an employee has a history of satisfying customers in similar situations as your workplace would require, you can bet that that same employee would continue at that same level of performance under your supervision. Likewise, if an applicant has had negative experiences in the past, you can rest assured that he or she will repeat that behavior in a future position.
So the formula is simple: we select employees on the basis of predicting their future performance as a result of their past behavior under similar circumstances. This formula has been tested many times in many different situations and has always provided the best means to acquiring great employees.
I received a call from Bill last week. He had hired his first new employee using this new philosophy and he was certain that this young lady was going to be a star employee. In fact, in just a week’s time she was setting a new standard for outstanding customer service for the other employees.
Bill was ecstatic. He couldn’t wait to hire his next employee. He is also enjoying football this fall. He is certain that this will be a profitable season.
Tim Fulton a business coach and CEO of Small Business Matters, a leader in small business coaching and development. Learn more at www.smallbusinessmattersonline.com.