Delays are costly. Retailers without product on hand lose business. Manufacturers lacking enough materials can’t build what buyers need. Customer service teams without enough personnel fail to respond to customers quickly.
One of the worst kinds of delays is in hiring. Hiring delays do tremendous harm. They cause anxiety. Every day a sales, recruiting or back-office job remains open, the more work falls to you. Having to interview to fill that job adds to this workload. It adds to your stress. You have to balance your increased workload while ensuring you hire the right person. Because if you get it wrong, you’ll be back to where you started. However, the added work and pressure of choosing the right person makes matters even worse. Decisions made when we’re stressed out often don’t turn out well.
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What can you do? You can eliminate hiring delays. While this won’t happen overnight, you can achieve this in a relatively short time. How? Start with these three steps:
Step #1: Fill that open job ASAP
If you’re staring at an empty desk, it’s time to get it filled. Now. No matter what. Yes, I know you have many priorities. But until you get that job filled, you can’t permanently eliminate hiring delays. Make filling that job a daily priority. Carve out time every morning to work on hiring a quality person for that role. Don’t go it alone. Ask for help from your colleagues and HR staff, if available to you. Reach out to external resources, such as friends at other firms and other people in your network. Just get it done.
Step #2: Build an inventory of talent
It’s not if you’re going to need to hire, but when. So plan for the when. Line up at least one or two prospective future hires. Talented people are always open to laying the groundwork for their future.
Step #3: Maintain that inventory
Stay in touch with your prospective hires. Cultivate additional people, as needed. A few minutes each day adds up to being able to hire who you need, when you need them.
Work comes with enough stress and anxiety without adding to it. That’s why you must eliminate hiring delays and why I wrote my forthcoming book from McGraw-Hill. Having enough people to help you do quality work will reduce your stress, possibly making some days virtually stress free.
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