Hire the right team members. There is always going to be trial and error in a fast-growing company, but you really have to begin with knowing what your core values are and where you’re trying to get as an organization in terms of the support of your customer base. You have to talk about those things well beyond somebody’s resume when you’re looking for people to join a team. In any business, retention is a key. You have to be looking for people who share the values, are excited about the values and mission, and want to be around for a long time.
There are a lot of great people out there, and the key is fleshing out those candidates. Building a strong human resources department allows you to get there and focus there, and having that strong lateral leadership in the form of someone who runs your HR unit, they absolutely need to know what you’re looking for in terms of the company’s focus and in terms of the specific role. From there, you narrow it down.
It’s an art far more than a science, but as you go through it and you have great people to help you, your batting average increases.
Here, our directors want to meet with them in the field, really to walk through the environment that they’re going to be operating in each day. With a company like ours that has a strong external sales force, you want to discuss and be within that environment.
We do a lot of things that serve as common denominators in how we bring new staff on board, be it sales or otherwise. It has to do with an exploration of people’s strengths. We have tools we look at — we set up protocols and benchmarks for looking at the common denominators, the glue and fabric, of what our business is and then trying to determine that fit. So we go through interview processes and also going through skills assessments and going back to how they interact with their peers and those who will manage them.
We’re very much less concerned about a formal interview environment. It’s far more about the exploration, about the day in the life and how that’s going to be, about the type of individual we’re looking to have come in and not only get into the role but enhance it beyond one’s job description. It’s the only way we really feel that we can grow the business — beginning with individuals. So we’re less formal with our interview process and far more focused on where the person can be successful based on what we’ve determined are their strengths.
