How To Hire An Employee Who Will Stay More Than 12 Months.

Have you ever interviewed and hired an employee who had all the right experience but in the end were a poor fit… or quit after less than a year?

Not only is this a huge cost for your company – it’s an enormous opportunity lost in productivity. The cost to interview, hire an employee and train them is expensive. Many studies suggest an employee begins to become financially valuable only after 1 to 1.5 years. 

If you hired an employee who seemed to be the right fit but quickly became a disappointment, chances are their needs were different than what your organization could offer, and their values were never compatible with your organization. The gap between what employees want and what they get is most often not money; instead most common reasons for leaving a company include:

• Flexible work hours/environment
• The office is outside of their preferred geographic area
• They felt they were overqualified vs. responsibilities
• Clear opportunities to learn and advancement opportunities
• Recognition of their contribution (not enough)

In most cases employees realize there is a poor fit before employers do… and as soon as they do, they begin job-hunting again.

The Old Way Of Interviewing Holds Too Much Risk

Your company wants to / needs to invest in smart, dedicated employees and too often, the old way of interviewing leads to the wrong person being hired.

Study by PWC

Most interviews evaluate past experience and a candidates response to hypothetical questions like “What would you do if….” Unfortunately, this approach provides an unreliable evaluation process – especially when it comes to Millennials (1980 – 2000) and Gen Z (2001 – present) since even the oldest Millennials likely have less than 10 years work experience.

A recent study by PWC demonstrates less than 30% of Millennial employees are satisfied with their jobs (see the red line in the image). I believe this is partially because they accepted job offers that didn’t match their needs and values. A BEI Interview structure would have saved you (and the employee), time, money and opportunity.

Your organization and work structure depends on measured deliverables.
Shouldn’t your hiring practices also be based on measured deliverables?

To hire an employee who will happily embrace the work they do for more than a year, explore their needs and values based on past behaviour. A BEI job interview structure evaluates a candidate’s true core competency, values and needs by asking ‘how’ and ‘why’ a candidate has done ‘what’ they’ve done.

BEI helps you explore how they’ve managed real situations in the past. Lived experience and past behavior is a far better predictor of future behavior than exploring hypothetical situations. 

The Benefit

I’ve already discussed a few benefits, but here’s a full list. Not only will you hire the right employee, a BEI system:

• Happens quickly (hiring decisions made more quickly because you will see quickly who is the best fit)
• Uses an interview assessment scorecard which provides consistent, quantifiable proof
• Is cost effectively (the right employees get up-to-speed fast, are happier, are more passionate about the job)
• Employees produce more and make fewer mistakes
• Happy employees stay longer and are more creative
• The hiring decision is defendable / measurable / stands up to scrutiny
• Gaps in skill set are identified. Gaps aren’t bad – they are places where an investment of education or mentoring will make the biggest gain. 

What If A Candidate Has A Gap In Skills But Great Values?

The beauty with a BEI is that it does a great job of uncovering all the strengths a person has, and it also lets you list all their gaps.

If a candidate is lacking one or two minor skills that may not be a problem. Values and personality traits like respect and attention to detail are difficult to learn (or fake), whereas many skills can be quickly learned by highly motivated employees. If you have identified skill gaps in a high potential new employee, you can put in place an effective education plan to teach the stills they are lacking; far better than losing the time and costs associated with re-teaching them skills they already have OR miss teaching them skills they are lacking.

Also, if you hire an employee that knows everything don’t be surprised if they get bored and quickly move on. A participant in one my recent BEI training workshops shared with the class that this recently happened to her – hence her desire to learn a new, more reliable interview system.

Conclusion:

Does your company have an approved structure for hiring people? Do you usually hire people because you like them or because they will fit in?

While many organizations struggle to increase employee loyalty – and there is lots of benefit to identifying and hiring motivated employees.

Happy communicating and business email etiquette for your office.

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If you enjoyed this post we think you’ll like:

• Mindfulness At Work
• How to Begin Difficult Conversations
• Collaboration Is A Work Ethic That Needs Empathy
• How To Motivate Millennials: 7 Best Practices
• Generation Z: The New Generation At Work
• BEI Training Workshops

Bruce Mayhew Consulting facilitates courses including Managing Difficult Conversations, Email Etiquette, Time Management and Mindfulness.

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