Hiring can be both exhilarating and anxiety-inducing at the same time. While we may hate to admit that emotions influence us as much as they do, having a playbook and hiring plan can teach our dog brains a bit of obedience through data. Creating a playbook of your processes and methodologies, and developing hiring and requisition plans before you start your search, helps to alleviate some of the emotions associated with the experience.
The effort to create these, particularly for visionary founders, can feel like having to eat your vegetables before you get to eat dessert. But I am just trying to make sure you don’t end up with diabetes!
Your Company Playbook
Your hiring playbook will contain your “secret sauce” for success with your clients and help ensure your team operates to your identified standards. It articulates the promise of who you are and connects your clients and your employees through that promise. While your playbook is for internal use only, it ensures that every client has the same experience, regardless of who oversees the actual execution of work.
No matter what product or service you provide, every playbook should include:
- CEO/president opener: This is a perfect place to offer welcoming remarks to your employees.
- Company core values: These are your overarching principles.
- Core purpose: Why you do what you do.
- Company vision: Where you want to go.
- Client: Defines your ideal customer profile.
- Competition: Who is giving you a run for your money? Understanding your competitive advantage is critical to your success. It is equally important that your employees are aware of this as well.
- Execution: Your methodology and processes that make up your “secret sauce.”
Teach your people your processes and methodologies, but also allow some flexibility for the nuances, the “handwriting,” that your unique employees bring to their work.
Defining Your Hiring Plan
Even for a small company, having a well-defined hiring plan is essential. The first step in developing a hiring plan is understanding how your hiring should align with the timing of your business objectives and goals. I have worked with far too many clients who have hired prematurely for various roles because they didn’t have a clear hiring plan. Timing is essential, and a good hiring plan will include milestones that align with your business and financial growth.
Your hiring plan is not the same as your recruiting process. A hiring plan outlines the levers that align with your business plan in order to help you think through when you hire and for what roles, and implements checks and balances into your recruiting process, which will help keep you grounded in your decision-making.
Refining Your Requisition Process
One way to create these checks and balances is through a requisition process. You can think of the requisition as structuring data to legitimize the cost of hiring someone and the direct impact on your bottom line. This helps you avoid knee-jerk responses to situations when you think you need to hire, when you might just be experiencing an emotional reaction to a situation and not looking at the financial ramifications.
The process of a requisition isn’t that convoluted. Here are some quick steps on how to create one:
- Create a brief overview of the primary duties and responsibilities of the role
- Create the justification for adding a person to fulfill the role.
- Identify the job title.
- Provide a salary range.
- Add approvals that include all parties involved.
I have been in too many situations where entrepreneurs didn’t thoroughly think through what they were hiring for, let alone who they were hiring. Even for visionary leaders, please, please rely on data and predetermined metrics when you’re making hiring decisions. You’ll better mitigate the influence of emotions and gut feelings that can lead to poor choices.
A Call for Healthy Hiring
When dark days come—and they will come—having human capital plans in place before emotions come into play will help you make calculated risks confidently. Openly communicating with your team about the levers that need to be pulled before hiring will help you create a culture with a growth mindset and support a healthy hiring approach.