Tag: hiring

Compensation

Human Resources, Managing Others, Talent Acquisition

|

0
(0)
people management

This job would be easy if it wasnt for the the people!

Anonymous

by Maria Sampalis, OD

Compensation plans for optometric practices need to be executed carefully since they are a significant expenses for an optometry clinic.

You need to do is the right way to ensure that you don’t end up costing the clinic too much money. Here are five critical steps required to implement a proper action plan that will make the entire process more efficient.

1. Determining the Right Market Pay Rate for Every Position
Each position at the clinic will require a different compensation amount. You will need to use a salary survey to establish bands for salaries. These bands are basic groupings of existing salary rates based on the experience of the candidate or the employee. You will need to determine the amounts for senior, mid-career, and entry-level positions. This can help you make decisions about hiring and raises.

Publishers’s NOTE:  Published Salary rate bands are difficult to come by in Canada.  With a little bit of effort, data points may be available with minimal cost or even free of charge at PayScale.com.

2. Creating Comprehensive Job Descriptions for Every Position
You should think carefully about the responsibilities and duties of every position.

Having a detailed and proper job description that includes duties, required skills, educational levels, and working hours can help the candidates and employees understand their position in a better way.

The description should also have a summary of expected employee behaviour.

The more accurate you are, the more realistically the employees can approach the task. The optometrists should make sure that the employees do their tasks well, and the job description can help with that.

3. Explain the Entire Process to the Team
Making sure you are transparent is the most important thing.

You should answer any questions and make sure the employees know everything they can about the job.

You should also meet with every employee individually to make sure they have a clear understanding of the expectations and compensation plan. This process will pay off in the long run.

4. Ensuring Team Accountability
The performance standards and responsibilities need to be met, but don’t wait till the end of the year to update the employees on their standing.

You should give regular and clear feedback throughout the year to ensure that they are able to improve their performance. Frequent evaluations and reviews will help them, and they will definitely appreciate it too.

5. Reviewing Team Performance, Revenue, and Potential Raises
Evaluate who are the top performers for the year and reward them before anyone else.

Then, you should look at the employees who may not have met your expectations and consider other options.

For example, you can look for new hires or provide a chance for them to develop further. Offering formal reviews for all the team members can help.

Optometry compensation plans may not always be easy to execute, but only if you don’t follow the right steps. It doesn’t have to be such a complicated procedure if you have an action plan in place

MARIA SAMPALIS

is the founder of Corporate Optometry, a peer-to-peer web resource for ODs interested to learn more about opportunities in corporate optometry. Canadian ODs and optometry students can visit www.corporateoptometry.com to learn more.

Share:
Rate:

0 / 5. 0

Three Common Hiring Practices that are Completely, Utterly Wrong

Human Resources, Talent Acquisition

|

0
(0)

These three commonly-held beliefs about hiring have been around for a long time. They might have been good advice to someone, at some point in time… but if they are part of your unconscious belief systems, you’d best revisit your assumptions.

The thing about ‘conventional wisdom’, is that all too often it relates to things we’ve been doing a certain way for so long we don’t even remember the original assumptions any longer. It’s kinda like autopilot – you set it and forget it. There’s an awful lot of ‘autopilot’ in our lives. Sometimes that’s OK – and sometimes it can hurt you.

Here are three areas where you may be on autopilot without realizing it… and where you may want to consider taking back the controls and charting a different course:

1. The ideal candidate will possess X years’ experience in the job/function/industry.
How often, in your advertising and in your mindset, to you impose the ‘experience required’ rule? How critical is that previous experience, really, or would you be better off to hire someone with a great attitude, a diversity of experience they can bring to bear in a creative way, and a track record of learning quickly and figuring things out? In many cases, that experience that people bring to the table may actually be a liability, in the form of bad habits and narrow beliefs.

2. Hire the very best you can afford at all times.
This may seem like sacrilege, but think carefully for a moment. You have a certain amount you can afford. Stretching financially to hire a rock star can sometimes backfire on you in a couple of ways – one, it can starve you of talent in other areas (think baseball – are you better off hiring an expensive home run hitter, or three far less expensive players who consistently get on base?) – and two, they can sometimes be high maintenance. Are you and the rest of the team up for the challenge of managing the chemistry?

3. Referrals from your existing employees is your best source of quality candidates
Again, there is a nugget of truth here. Yes, referrals can be your cheapest source, and they can yield some of the very best candidates. Generally speaking, though, the very best referrals will only come from your very best employees. That’s because of the old birds of a feather thing – we all tend to surround ourselves with people who share our standards, attitudes and values. Top performers tend to hang out with others who share that standard, and poor performers – well, you get it. So be careful whose network you ask to tap.

There you go – a little unconventional wisdom for a change. It can be fun and useful to flick off autopilot once in a while to take a closer look at the terrain.

TIM BRENNAN

is Chief Visionary Officer with Fit First Technologies Inc, the creators of Eyeployment, TalentSorter and Jobtimize.

Share:
Rate:

0 / 5. 0

Are Your Candidates Engaged?

Human Resources, Talent Acquisition

|

0
(0)

If the candidate’s not engaged, the employee never will be.

The axiom seems self-evident, doesn’t it?

After all, we don’t value that which comes too easily. It’s a quirk of human nature. If we don’t have to work even a little bit for something, we take it for granted. This applies in all aspects of life, including when we are looking for work.

A certain amount of desire is critical to good matchmaking. It fuels the chase and builds commitment – not just to the consummation of the deal, but to making the relationship work in the long term.

In case you think I’ve forgotten about the looming talent shortage, rest assured I understand market dynamics, the laws of supply and demand. When the economy’s booming, it’s a seller’s market. Employers feel a sense of scarcity and respond by dropping their pants. That’s nothing new. And this is about keeping your clothes on, even in a tight market.

Engagement starts early, even when the practice is the suitor.

The principle of engagement is the same, regardless of the market – you’ll need fewer people if you hire those who’ve taken the time to do a little due diligence of their own, who are willing to invest a little time and effort in declaring their candidacy. If they have joined you for the right reasons, they are going to be less likely to leave for frivolous reasons.

If the axiom is so self-evident, then why have we made such a mess of things?

In the rush to build systems that supposedly make it easier both for employers to search through vast résumé databases, and for candidates to find the next, better opportunity… we have succeeded in commoditising both talent and work.

Recruiters and the systems they use are designed to check each candidate’s pedigree against a set checklist of criteria in the posting specs, each time asking themselves, “based on their education, credentials and experience, can this person likely do the job?” We’ve created enormous databases and elaborate search engines, the logic being ‘the more résumés I see, the more likely I am to find a candidate who can do the job’. Not the right candidate, necessarily, but one who will satisfy the specs on paper. We are admitting people into the talent pipeline and filtering them out on the basis of information that has no bearing whatsoever on retention, performance, or how engaged they are likely to be as an employee.

Candidates, for their part, have their own tactics for ‘marketing’ themselves in order to make it through the usual screens and filters. It’s also a numbers game for them; we have taught our employees through the school of hard knocks that survival requires the adoption of a ‘free agent’ mindset. Most have learned the hard way not to entrust their best interests to anyone else and, as we saw in the last boom, many very average performers had adopted a ‘mercenary mindset’, repeatedly selling and reselling their skills to the next higher bidder.

In both cases, the rules of the ‘game’ , if you will, are clearly established. The candidate’s objective is to always have their résumé ‘out there’ and to ‘win’ by receiving a range of offers from which to cherry pick; the recruiter’s is to screen and disqualify contenders, but ultimately to close the search and get the open requisition off their desk. All too often, neither side gives due reflection to whether or not it’s the right candidate or the right job.

In this transactional approach, much has suffered over time. For too many, work is nothing more than a means to an end, something one puts up with to meet another need. Both sides of the supply/demand equation lament the absence of loyalty. Relationships are shallow. Work is less rewarding. Stress and conflict are at an all-time high. Productivity, morale, esprit de corps, even organizational depth are at an all-time low.

Both sides are feeling ripped off, and as a result we face an epidemic of disengagement whose cost to lives – not to mention the economy – is staggering.

If you want an engaged employee, you need to engage the candidate.

Just stop it. Stop relying on traditional means to find people. Think about it – a job hunter can visit Monster or Workopolis and spam their résumés out to 25 employers over lunch, and still have time for a sandwich. Systems like CareerBuilder and others will actually send their CV to employers they have never even heard of! You’re getting a raft of names of people who may only marginally meet your specs, but who are totally uncommitted to you as a prospective employer.

Stop going out of your way to make it easy for candidates to get into your hopper. One-click resume attachment allows them to play the numbers game and get on with their day. It doesn’t help you.

Stop using education, work history and (God help me) keyword searches as the primary means of filtering people in. That methodology is busted.

Perhaps most important, stop lying to candidates. Stop telling them what a great place this is to work, amplifying the features and benefits without presenting a balanced picture. Candidates are adept at finding out the truth; in fact they probably know more about what your people are saying about you than you do.

What should you start doing? Start filtering candidates in on the basis of the four critical aspects of fit first, then on the basis of skills and experience. That will require you to do away with the résumé, or at least move it to the side and look at other factors first. Factors that are predictors of retention, performance and engagement. A Case for a New Approach: www.hiringsmart.com/articles/479/.

Start asking different questions. Ask candidates questions that will reveal their underlying attitudes and preferences in areas critical to their success, and use those as the admission tickets that determine whether the candidate should advance or not.

Our clients have learned that when they adopt a Fit First Philosophy, everything changes.

Allow the candidate to be the first to opt in. Or out.

We need to trust that, presented with the opportunity, candidates are a pretty good judge of what’s right for them, and what’s not. Very few will consciously invest time in pursuing job or a situation that presents a poor fit.

This is where current thinking around employment branding is so critical. The standard thinking has taken a dramatic turn in the last few years. Gone are the days when polished marketing materials and glowing claims had any appeal; in fact, the opposite is now true: those traditional approaches raise suspicion and doubt, and can actually be talent-repellent.

Truth, transparency, respect, openness and authenticity are the new hallmarks of successful employment branding.

The most successful organizations are those that lead with frank information about what it’s like to work there and to be successful. Many have a series of ‘man in the cubicle’ interviews of real employees, unscripted and unrehearsed, saying in their own words why they joined the company, what works well and not so well from their perspective and, more importantly, why they keep coming back every Monday. Others offer blogs, live chat with existing employees, and other features that allow candidates to obtain meaningful, live information about the employment experience. This approach ultimately conveys respect and gives candidates the opportunity to be the first to opt in or out on the basis of fit.

In this way, candidates become engaged early… setting the stage for a well informed, engaged and productive employee.

TIM BRENNAN

is Chief Visionary Officer with Fit First Technologies Inc, the creators of Eyeployment, TalentSorter and Jobtimize.

Share:
Rate:

0 / 5. 0

Hiring for Your Practice – A Confirmed Headache

Human Resources, Talent Acquisition

|

0
(0)

What hiring trends are emerging in 2019?  The 3.8 million members of  Alignable.com, the largest social media network of small businesses in North America, have identified three key trends from surveying nearly 6000 small business members. Do these themes sound familiar?

Trend 1: Hiring surges are predicted among many small businesses in the U.S. and Canada for the rest of 2019. 

According to the survey results, 33% of small business people polled want to hire even more people than they had planned in early 2019. However, 59% of those hiring say it’s a growing struggle; finding the right people is a huge problem.

In Canada, New Brunswick and Saskatchewan businesses anticipate being the most active recruiters while Manitoba trails the pack.  (see table below )

Trend 2: Small business owners who are hiring are having a tough time filling their open positions.

Getting a good number of quality candidates a problem?  You are not alone. Unemployment levels remain low and are getting lower.  The June 2019 unemployment rate nation wide fell below 5% in June and the trend is down.

Trend 3: Despite the heightened demand for help, thousands of Alignable members 50+ are still struggling to secure full-time or even part-time positions, pointing to blatant ageism.

Tim Brennan, Chief Visionary Officer of Eyeployment.com said the Ageism called out in this survey doesn’t surprise him, noting, “one of the most obvious visual discriminations is age and it’s a weak predictor of behaviour”. Employers may perceive that older candidates may want higher pay and employers do not necessarily value the experience and mentorship attributes an older employee might bring to the team.

Brennan’s hiring technology provides the ability to “meet the candidate before you see them”, which reduces all forms of visual bias and improves your odds of getting talent stars for your business and avoiding the passengers.

Brennan advises, it always better to get the best person possible rather than “settle” for someone who walks in your door and looks the part particularly in a tight labour market.  Making a hiring mistake gets amplified under such market conditions.

 % of Small Businesses that plan to hire more than initially planned in 2019. 

NB – 60%

SK – 40%

BC – 31%

AB – 25%

QC – 25%

NS — 25%

ON – 24%

MB – 20%

Source:
https://www.alignable.com/forum/hiring-expected-to-escalate-among-33-of-smbs-for-the-rest-of-2019

Share:
Rate:

0 / 5. 0

The Wisdom of A Seasoned Staff Consultant

Human Resources, Managing Others, Practice, Resources

|

0
(0)

There is a resource reference in the summer issue of Profitable Practice magazine entitled A Startup’s Secret Weapon: Retirees by Liz Brody. Recent U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reveals that people 65 and older lead the way as the fastest growing segment of the American labor force. For the most part, these people have exited their former jobs and careers for retirement. Many, it seems, want more than a sunny beach, an afternoon nap or satisfying round of golf. They are not ready to go quietly into retirement and believe they have much to share given their previous experiences.

As a consequence, there are a number of companies today (YourEncore, Empowered Age, Patina Solutions, Work At Home Vintage Experts etc.) that are staffed with these “retirees” who bring expertise from a wide variety of business jobs and careers. They act as consultants as characterized by Liz Brody “who have been there and done that”. Their clients are often young millennial-aged entrepreneurs with startup business problems. These young gurus often face a business impasse they can’t seem to bypass and are stymied. While they are often superb risk takers and decision makers, they realize they need help and that more brain power and another pair of eyes is required to get them mobile again.

All entrepreneurs try to invent a new product, service or process or at least apply an innovation to an existing one. In doing so, they are repeating a journey that many others have taken before them—a few successfully and the many who got hung-up along the way. Health care practitioners are constantly searching for new and better ways to deliver health care service. Many find a successful track of operation either by perseverance or by enlisting the aid of others.

The above scenario got me thinking about my own company, which my father started and eventually sold to me. Recently my dad and the company received recognition for 45 years of distinguished service to the practice sales industry. In my case, he was always there in the background giving me the wisdom of his experience. In addition, the company had—and still has—a number of senior associates (retired dentists for the most part) who left dentistry to start a new career in practice sales. This core of elders was invaluable to the growth of our company and allowed us to be successful by avoiding many of the impasses all businesses face.

To my mind, no matter what business or health care practice you are in, it is wise to seek out the advice and ideas of both the young and old. Health care graduates today are schooled in the latest procedures and technologies and bring a contagious enthusiasm and a refreshing willingness to share with and learn from their older peers.

TIMOTHY BROWN

is Chief Executive Office of ROI Corporation Canada’s national professional practice and brokerage firm.

Share:
Rate:

0 / 5. 0

Hiring a Receptionist? Get it Right Using Behavioral Science.

Human Resources, Managing Others, Talent Acquisition

|

0
(0)

The first face of your practice is, arguably from a customer service perspective, the most important. A friendly and empathetic first encounter can leave a lasting positive impression on your practice … or… it can go the other way and be the root cause of a nasty review on Yelp!

Using the scientific algorithm from Eyeployment.com, the behavioural characteristics of an “ideal candidate” can be determined with science.

Because of the way Eyeployment.com’s assessment engine has been designed, it is able to compare the personality traits and other attributes of an individual to those of people who have been high performers in a given role, and generate a FitScore™ that is a very accurate predictor of success in a particular role.

Ideal Candidate Traits: Health Care Receptionist

For each role in your practice, Eyeployment.com has identified the the ideal behvioural traits that can make the difference as to whether your new hire is a star or a passenger.

 Extraversion: Degree to which one requires social interaction and authority.

Perhaps surprisingly, a Receptionist position calls for people that display this trait less prominently than most people. The ideal candidate will likely follow group consensus when required to work in a group.

Agreeableness: Tendency to be friendly, approachable, and easy to get along with.

This position calls for people that display this trait like most people. The ideal candidate usually cooperates with others in order to ensure group harmony as long as their goals do not drastically differ from those of the candidate.

Conscientiousness: Tendency to strive for perfection, sometimes at all costs.

Receptionist positions call for people that display this trait like most people. The ideal candidate prefers to be precise in their actions, but can take the big picture into account when necessary.

Stability: Degree to which one reacts positively to negative or stressful situations.

This position calls for people that display this trait more prominently than most people. The ideal candidate is usually objective in their decision making and actions, even in trying circumstances.

Openness: Willingness to try new ways of doing things.

Receptionist positions call for people that display this trait like most people. The ideal candidate usually appreciates being able to try new methods, but is able to accept tried and true methods as well.

Resolve: Willingness to work for the intrinsic benefit of work and its ability to enhance character.

This position calls for people that display this trait differently than most people. The ideal Receptionist candidate tends to be passionate about their work and get a lot of enjoyment and pleasure out of it.

Reliability: Tendency to behave in an uncompromising and consistently honest, moral, and ethical manner.

Receptionist/Information Clerk positions call for people that display this trait differently than most people. The ideal candidate always follows through on their commitments to others to the extent they are in control of a situation.

Cooperativeness: Tendency to be friendly, agreeable, and to be a team person.

This position calls for people that display this trait more prominently than most people. The ideal candidate is generally not one to express their opinions unless absolutely necessary.

Above all else, don’t short-change the evaluation process if you are hiring a receptionist.   Using behavioural science can help you find the ideal candidate for this important position.

JAN G. VAN DER HOOP

Jan is the co-founder and president of Fit First Technologies, a company that applies its predictive analytics to the task of matching people to roles. Those algorithms drive platforms such as TalentSorter, FitFirstJobs and Eyeployment.com, which are relied upon by organizations to screen high volumes of candidates for “fit” in their open positions.

Share:
Rate:

0 / 5. 0

Job Interview: 7 Questions to Ask Practice Owners

Career Options, Human Resources, NextGenOD

|

0
(0)

You’ve spotted a position at an up-and-coming practice that excites you. Before you go to the interview, there are key questions you may want to ask. Here are the top ones to pose during your interview with the practice owner.

Applying for a job in a practice is very much like dating. If, at the beginning of the first date, you suggest that two kids, a house in the country with a white picket fence, and a live-in suite for mom is what you are looking for … well, you just might scare off anyone who agrees to a date with you. When looking to be employed in a practice, you need to ease into finding out the answers you need to know. Conversations need to be logical, respectful and more about the owner-doctor and practice than they are about you.

The core question the owner-doctor is looking to answer is: how will you fit into the practice? If you start out with how much are you going to pay me, tell me about my benefits, how many days off do I get, will you pay for health insurance, dental insurance … all of this is about you. You are telling the owner you are more interested in you than you are in the practice. That’s a negative for an owner who is looking for someone who has the same passion about patient care and the practice as they do.

Here’s a better approach. Start the interview with the research you’ve done on the practice. Explain what you researched and how you’ve researched. This leads into the first question – Does my research accurately reflect your practice? This gives the owner the opportunity to talk about their practice. During this discussion one of the things you want to know is: how many full-time equivalent doctors are working in the practice clinic? This will be important later when you ask about practice gross revenue.

As you are talking about the practice be sure to ask: What are the most important needs you have right now – coverage on evenings or weekends, building the practice, bringing in a specialty? Where would you need me to fill in? You are beginning to explore the practice needs and how you will fit into the practice in a way that is helpful to the owner.

You are probably not the first employee-optometrist the owner has hired, so the owner knows that not all employee doctors are the same. There are productive doctors and there are non-productive doctors. Your task is to show the owner that you are a productive doctor interested in learning how to be even more productive.

The questions to ask are: What and how much communication do you need from me in performance reporting? I want to track my performance in areas such as gross revenue, $/patient and capture rate to make sure I am delivering high-quality care on every patient visit. Are there any other areas that you’d like me to track? How often would you like me to report these to you?

The conversation needs to turn to staffing, so you know what support you will have, so ask these questions: Tell me about your staff – will there be scribes, pre-testers? Tell me about the average patient flow through the practice. How often will I be scheduled with patients throughout the day? Do you want the patient hand-off in the exam room or in the optical?

If you are interested in partnership, then this needs to be brought up in the interview. Are you looking for a partner in the practice? If so, what are you looking for in a future partner? What time frame are you considering?

At some point during the interview you need to ask about the gross revenue of the practice. The question is: What was the gross revenue of the practice over the last three years? You are looking for the trend of the practice. Is this a dying practice, a flat practice or a growing practice? The trend of the gross revenue can give you insight into the answer. It also gives you the answer on the maximum wage package the practice can give you.

Take .2 times the gross revenue collected. That’s the maximum money the practice has to buy all the optometrists who work in the practice including the owner-doctor. If you know the number of full-time-equivalent doctors in the practice, then you can calculate how much is available to buy your services. You also need to know that, in contrast to the maximum, the average for the country is .15 times the gross revenue to buy all the optometrists who work in the practice. How much you are offered tells you how much the owner values you.

If the owner wants you to work in the practice, they will make an offer to you. The offer will contain all the information that you want to know, such as how much are you going to pay me, tell me about my benefits, how many days off do I get, will you pay for health insurance and dental insurance. Don’t lead with questions about this information. Let it come at the appropriate time in the discussion.

Your goal is to walk out of the interview with great knowledge about the practice, which will help you answer the most important question you have for yourself, which is: Do I really want to work in this practice? You will also have communicated to the owner that you are not the type of employee-doctor who is just looking to do the least possible to get a paycheck.

Be thoughtful and insightful in your questions, and find the practice which is the best fit for you.

 

MARK WRIGHT, OD, FCOVD

Dr. Wright is the founding partner of a nine-partner, three-location full-scope optometric practice. As CEO of Pathways to Success, an internet-based practice management firm, he works with practices of all sizes. He is faculty coordinator for Ohio State’s leading practice management program.

CAROLE BURNS, OD, FCOVD

Dr. Burns is the senior partner of a nine-doctor full-scope optometric practice that she built with her husband, Dr. Wright. She is also the COO of a state-wide nursing care optometry practice. Dr. Burns lectures nationally on practice management and staffing issues. Dr. Burns authored the Specialty Practice section of the textbook, Business Aspects of Optometry.

Share:
Rate:

0 / 5. 0

How to Avoid Hiring a Toxic Employee

Human Resources, Talent Acquisition

|

0
(0)

No practice ever sets out to hire the wrong employee, but it still happens for a variety of reasons.

Unclear expectations, personality clashes, poor cultural fit, and a lack of suitable skills or training can lead to low staff satisfaction and high turnover. But what happens when a bad hire turns out to be truly toxic?

Toxic behaviour poisons the atmosphere, affecting everyone on the team.

Research reveals:

Having just one toxic staff member on a team of 20 makes the 19 “good” employees 54% more likely to seek employment elsewhere.

Prevent Problems Before They Start
By the time you identify toxic behaviour in an employee it’s too late; the damage to your team and your practice may already be done.

Prevent problems before they start by screening for red flag issues during the interview process.

Watch for these critical behaviours from candidates; each is a strong indicator of toxic personality traits:

  • Over-confidence and cockiness
  • Exaggerating skills and accomplishments
  • Rude or disrespectful behaviour towards those not involved in the interview: the parking lot attendant, receptionist, your office assistant, etc.
  • Arriving late for the interview
  • Badmouthing past employers and co-workers
  • Blaming others for poor results and difficult work situations rather than taking responsibility

Ask the Right Interview Questions
Asking the right interview questions is key to identifying potential problems. Don’t just settle for the first answer, which may have been prepared in advance.

Encourage candidates to give two or three different examples when answering each of the questions below:

  1. Describe three times when you had to deal with stress or conflict at work. What did you do?
  2. When have you failed at a task? Describe how you handled two or three different circumstances and what you learned from the experience.
  3. What kind of people do you find it most difficult to work with? Tell me about three different experiences in which you had to handle difficult people at your job.
  4. What three words would your former manager use to describe you?
  5. What three words would your former subordinates use to describe you?
  6. Describe three situations in which you showed exceptional leadership skills

Do Your Due Diligence
The best way to avoid hiring a toxic employee is to do your due diligence.

Check credentials and qualifications carefully and follow up with multiple references – both personal and professional.

As well, turn to your own network of sources who should know the candidate: former coworkers, past clients, or those in the same social circle as your potential hire.

As with the interview process, asking the right reference questions provides key insight into possible personality conflicts or areas where the applicant’s values don’t align with those of your practice:

  1. How well did he/she collaborate with others?
  2. How did subordinates feel about reporting to him/her?
  3. Did the candidate’s behavior ever reflect negatively on your organization?
  4. Would you re-hire him/her if the opportunity arose?

Screen for Fit First
There’s no way around it; hiring a toxic employee is a costly mistake.

The best way to avoid it is to attract the right candidates and screen for “fit” at every stage of the hiring process.

That’s why we created Eyeployment.com, a unique platform which uses cutting-edge behavioural science to help practices like yours take the guesswork out of hiring.

We identify the traits most critical for success in your position – and most likely to indicate potential problems – and pre-screen applicants for you. You’ll receive a detailed analysis for each candidate, ranking them in order of likely fit with your mission, values and specific position description.

We even provide a customized interview guide that tells you exactly what to ask each applicant to ensure they are the right fit for your role.

 

JAN G. VAN DER HOOP

Jan is the co-founder and president of Fit First Technologies, a company that applies its predictive analytics to the task of matching people to roles. Those algorithms drive platforms such as TalentSorter, FitFirstJobs and Eyeployment.com, which are relied upon by organizations to screen high volumes of candidates for “fit” in their open positions.

Share:
Rate:

0 / 5. 0

When Does Fit Trump Experience in the Hiring Process?

Human Resources, Managing Others, Talent Acquisition

|

0
(0)

It’s no secret that “fit” is one of the most important characteristics to assess when evaluating potential new hires.

At Eyeployment.com, we believe so strongly in the value of measuring fit first, we built an entire platform designed to help practice owners and managers do just that.  But should fit ever trump experience?

Let’s be clear; the ideal candidate should be both qualified AND a good fit for the role and your office culture.

Recommending that employers hire for cultural fit is not the same as recommending that practices hire unqualified or incompetent applicants.

Nobody benefits from that scenario. But if you have a choice between a highly-experienced candidate who is a poor fit, and a candidate who is an excellent fit, but less experienced, who would you hire?

Qualifications Still Matter – To a Point

Most job postings include a list of required academic credentials, professional experience and skills – and with good reason.

Your practice needs employees with the fundamental knowledge and skill to perform the tasks expected in their role.

Training is time-, cost- and labour-intensive so it makes sense to prioritize the more experienced candidates who should require less time and less training to get up to speed.

However it’s important to note that while any employee can learn new skills, processes and procedures, cultural fit isn’t something which can be taught.

When Experience is a Disadvantage

A landmark 2009 study set out to examine the links between experience and job performance, expecting that prior related experience in a previous role would lead to better performance in the new role.

In fact, the results showed that any benefits of that prior job experience were completely negated by poor cultural fit.

While employees bring the skills and experience workers gained at previous positions to their new jobs, they may also bring with them certain expectations, routines, patterns of behaviour and fixed ways of thinking that prevent them from adapting successfully to the new work environment.

Why Fit Matters More

Numerous studies of employee engagement have identified a strong correlation between culture and performance.

  1. 83% of executives and 84% of employees ranked motivated and engaged employees as the #1 factor contributing to a company’s success. (Deloitte)
  2. Candidates who are a good fit are 20% more likely to become top performers (Achievers)
  3. New hires who are a good fit are 27.2% less likely to leave during their first 18 months of employment. (Achievers)
  4. Over a period of seven years, companies with more engaged workers grew revenue 2.5x as much as companies with less engaged workers. ( Bain & Company)
  5. Happy employees are 12% more productive. (Fast Company)

Fit with office culture is a defining feature of employee success, which leads to financial success.

Focusing on fit over experience when hiring doesn’t mean compromising on essential skills.

It means committing to finding employees who will support your company’s vision and providing them with the tools and training which they need to succeed.

 

 

JAN G. VAN DER HOOP

Jan is the co-founder and president of Fit First Technologies, a company that applies its predictive analytics to the task of matching people to roles. Those algorithms drive platforms such as TalentSorter, FitFirstJobs and Eyeployment.com, which are relied upon by organizations to screen high volumes of candidates for “fit” in their open positions.

Share:
Rate:

0 / 5. 0

Five Hiring Myths That Cost Your Practice Money

Human Resources, Talent Acquisition

|

0
(0)

In this two part series, Jan van der Hoop and Tim Brennan of Fit First Technologies bust popular hiring myths to help you avoid making costly mistakes. Check back on March 21st for part two.

Myth #1: I need to hire people who have experience (usually at least 3-5 years) in this job.     

The sad truth is that in the vast majority of cases, organizations find themselves hiring for experience and firing for job fit. We bring people in to the practice because they have the right blend of education, credentials, and work experience… and then we terminate them because they can’t get along well with their manager, their coworkers or your customers.

Far better to find people who fit. Candidates who can work productively with your people and your patients, and who have the ability to learn what they need to know quickly.

Myth #2: A solid résumé and a crisp, focused and well-written cover letter define the best candidate.

When you consider that most candidates don’t even write their own résumés, and factor in all the statistics around embellishment and outright falsification of information on résumés, it’s hard to believe that we are still accepting these documents as the primary admission ticket for candidates into any credible organization’s hiring pipeline.

When you layer on top of that the realization that there’s no correlation – none whatsoever – between what’s in the resume and how well people will perform or how long they will stay, you have to concede that relying on a resume to help you find the right candidate gives you about the same odds as buying a lottery ticket. The difference is that getting it wrong costs you a whole lot more that the buck you spent on the ticket.

Instead, screen first for the things that are predictors of retention and productivity – then look at their background.

Myth #3: Finding the right person is a numbers game. To improve my odds of finding the right person, I need to broadcast my opening using the big recruitment boards, the niche boards, and selected papers and publications.

The odds that candidates who post their resume online or who respond to an ad will be the right candidates for you to invest time in are pretty slim. At any given point, only about 20% of the workforce has an up-to-date resume… and they have and up to date resume because they are actively looking for work. When you think about it from that angle, these folks are typically are not the top performers you want to speak to.

There’s a huge difference between quantity of candidates and quality of candidates. The best quality candidates are usually not actively looking for work. They don’t hang out on the job boards or read the ads, and they don’t have an up-to-date resume. You want to target the 60% of the workforce who aren’t actively looking for work but who also aren’t in love with their current job.

Most of us don’t realize that requiring people to give you a resume is actually a barrier to
finding the right talent for our business. When you do away with that requirement, and set up a process where better people can apply without that inconvenience, you win.

Myth #4: First impressions are everything. A candidate needs to impress me in the first five minutes.

Yes, first impressions are important. And the statistics continue to show that most managers decide at an unconscious level whether or not they want to hire a candidate in the first three minutes or so of the interview. The other 57 minutes are basically a charade aimed at gathering information – positive or negative – to support whatever that decision was.

Really good managers are aware of that tendency… and they work to counteract it. One important way they do that is to be clear on the desired outcome… that they are looking for a top performer, not a top candidate. This difference is critical… top candidates have a great resume, show up on time and look the part, and so on… and these cosmetic factors we’ve been taught to value have no bearing at all on how long they will stay or how well they will work out. The list of attributes that are predictive of top performers is a completely different list.

Top performers share a very distinctive set of attributes and attitudes. They learn fast. They take responsibility. They build solid relationships. They think and act differently, and they fit differently in your business.

Myth #5: We need to offer top pay and top of the line benefits if we have a hope of attracting and keeping top performers.

Research and experience continue to show that pay and benefits are among the weakest ties. There’s no question you need to offer a package that’s in the right ballpark… but so long as these factors are roughly right, others become much more important.

The factors that attract the right candidates and keep your people focused and productive are what researchers refer to as the four critical aspects of fit. Fit with manager is the most important; it will make you or break you. The other three are fit with the job, with the team, and with the practice. It’s surprisingly easy to filter people in to a conversation with you on the basis of these aspects of fit, and yet remarkably few organizations have figured out how to do it reliably.

 

JAN G. VAN DER HOOP

Jan is the co-founder and president of Fit First Technologies, a company that applies its predictive analytics to the task of matching people to roles. Those algorithms drive platforms such as TalentSorter, FitFirstJobs and Eyeployment.com, which are relied upon by organizations to screen high volumes of candidates for “fit” in their open positions.

TIM BRENNAN

is Chief Visionary Officer with Fit First Technologies Inc, the creators of Eyeployment, TalentSorter and Jobtimize.

Share:
Rate:

0 / 5. 0