Hire the right people
Patel didn’t wait for growth to happen, and then scramble to find people. He had most of his staff assembled before the major growth hit.
“You don’t stack 100 percent to that need, but you at least make sure you are well on that path,” he says.
But, that method of hiring, at first, created a small problem — employees had nothing to do.
“In some ways, that’s what happens with the pregrowth strategy,” he says. “You end up with people who feel slightly under-utilized until the work flow hits and, at which point, it becomes normalized.”
When things get settled, you want workers who will have a number of talents and skills to get the job done.
“In a perfect world, you want somebody with lots of experience and a tremendous work ethic and great attitude and flexibility,” he says. “Finding that magical employee who has all of those attributes in that one person is tough to do.”
Since those magical employees are so hard to find, you should hire employees who, collectively, will create an organization with all of those attributes.
“They may not all be residing in one particular individual, but it is there in an organization,” he says.
Patel first hired employees with experience in the business and then hired employees who had less experience but a get-up-and-go attitude.
“On the other hand, we don’t hire everybody with just no experience and lots of great get-up-and-go because you need people who have been there and know how to do this,” he says. “So, we try to balance between the two at any given moment in time.”
When hiring, have potential employees meet various people around the organization because different individuals notice different things and that collective feedback is accurate.
“Obviously, depending on the level of position you are hiring for, it’s a different set of people who interview the individual,” he says. “In reality, the other side of this is you try to create a good stable work environment. You want any new people to, in some ways at least, meet the people who are actually going to be their peers.
“In doing so, you very quickly ensure that the people that you bring in fit with the culture that is already here.”
The department the company is hiring for will affect who is interviewing the person. Sometimes a position calls for certain specialties, so people within the department who know how to find that technical expertise will be a part of the interview process.
Positions that are less about technical qualifications and more about personality and aptitude give you a wider range of people you can choose to be a part of the interview process.
If you have a board of directors, you can also look to get it involved in the interview process, especially if you are hiring someone at the senior management level.
“Because they are going to be dealing a lot more with board folks, on those occasions, bring them in.”
Patel and his team will also ask board members to be part of the interview team when the board member shares a similar background with a potential hire.
“To some degree, if we can’t find anybody within the company to interview people, we sort of bring some of the board members in to interview the person,” he says.
Much like the position you are hiring for will affect who is on the interview team, the position will also determine the questions you ask.
“But the other side of this is inevitably when you do interviews, we are trying to get a grasp of an individual,” he says. “We do generally go with the conversation to some degree, as well.”
For example, when the company hired a controller, Patel and his team had very specific conversations with candidates about financial statements and other specifics for that position. But because there were many people applying with that experience, they also wanted an idea of the person’s style and personality.
While there are many variables in hiring, Patel always remembers one thing when hiring.
“Never be afraid to hire people who you feel are more qualified than you are,” he says. “If the team does well and you are their leader, you inherently do well.”
While many companies might not be thinking about growth or hiring right now, don’t let a talented person applying for a job get away.
“Sometimes we interview people and there isn’t quite a job opening for that position yet or for their set of skills,” he says. “If you know you are going to be growing, you can say, ‘Well, this person is a good person; I’d like to add them to the organization.’ The organization will grow into that kind of thing.”
