Hiring can be the most problematic part of running your business - but when done well the rewards of a good team are critical to success. Most job descriptions describe a person's position in the org chart (who they report to etc.) and the skills you expect them to have. But that's not enough. It's better to create job descriptions around functions rather than positions. Here's the difference.

A function is an activity that produces an output. For example, a company needs to have financial transactions entered into its books. That's a function called bookkeeping. It also needs to call on delinquent accounts for payment. That function is called collections. It also needs someone to purchase office supplies (remember office supplies?) and someone to call a contractor when a printer is acting wonky, or the AC isn't working properly or the janitorial staff didn't do a good job. (That function is called facilities.) Depending on the size of the company and the volume of work involved all these functions might be handled by the same person who could report to different people for each of those functions. You give that person a title (bookkeeper perhaps, or office manager, or assistant to the ….) and that title becomes their position. But it's the functions that are critical.

Most people in most companies perform several functions. And as the company grows the functions grow in size but not in kind. That's why a job description is better used to define the various functions in your organization which can then be combined into a position, and recombined as the company grows.

A good job description has three parts which I'll describe below. 

Outcomes

This section describes what you want that person to produce. It's what you'd see if they did their job in the middle of the night while you were sleeping. Depending on the nature of the work, it can include the quantity of output as well as the quality and frequency. For managers, it might describe the output of their team that is expected. For knowledge workers it could include the kinds of decisions you want them to make, or questions you want them to be able to answer - or even questions you expect them to ask.

The output section also includes the bit about who they report to (reporting is a output after all) but it's not limited to that.

Here's a  chart you can use to list the outcomes you expect from various functions you want this person to perform. .

Column 1 – Output We’ll See  This is what you’d notice in the morning if the person did their job in the middle of the night. 

Column 2 – How Much This is the quantity of such output you expect (if that’s relevant). 

Column 3 – How Well This is how you’ll measure the quality of such output (if that’s relevant).

Column 4 – How Often This describes the frequency you expect to see that output (if that’s relevant).

Put a Careers link on your website. 

This is one way you can get the word out when you're hiring. Putting ads out is nice but most jobs get filled by people who know people. The good ones aren't always looking for a job. This process allows you to reach out to your network without your message getting diluted. 

Make the link big and bold at the top so people don't have to scroll down to see it. Announce to the world WE'RE HIRING! One mistake I see is that people just put CAREERS as a menu item on the top of their page. That's not a bad thing but not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about a link like you see in the image above  that really gets attention.

 If you have more than one open position, that link should go to an overview page with a very short description of each position you're recruiting for and a link to a separate page with more detail and instructions how to apply for every position you have open. Each position needs a separate page. That page does the following:

• Explain what the position looks like and who the ideal candidate is
• Why yours is such a great place to work. Give it some personality. Pictures, color, maybe video!!
• Make sure it has a CTA -  the action people need to take to apply. This is a filter. If they don't follow the instructions, they are not the right person. This would be different for different positions.

Then you can use that page in two ways. Do both.

1 - Print it as a PDF

2 - Link to it in everything you send out - even in your email signature.

Then send that pdf and that link to everyone you know telling them that you're hiring and ask them to send it out to their entire network. Remember, the point here is not that they will want the job, but that they'll forward your email to others they know who might.

Keep reaching out to as many individuals as you can think of - not just people who might want the job, but people who might have other networks of people that you don't know. Be sure to send them the link and/or a PDF of your opening so they can easily send it around. Send it to:

• People who used to work for you
• Vendors (often know people who are unhappy where they are)
• Friends
• Enemies
• Competitors (if you're on good terms)
• Training schools (if there are any)
• Everyone else you can think of

Here are some examples

Check out how these companies do their career pages. 

PayScale

Zillow Group

Tally 

I almost called this post the ideal team for RUNNING your company. But that would be wrong. You can run it however you want. Some people want to be in charge of everything. Fine. Some want to just do stuff and not think about process or monitor any results except the bottom line. Fine. Some want to operate on a whim and change direction on impulse. Fine too. You can run a company any of those ways. Just don’t expect it to grow very large or very fast.

If you want a company to grow, you have to have a team that executes. Hence the term “executive.” By executive, I mean someone who can take an idea and run with it: make it happen. I don’t mean they run away with it. Executives need to be monitored and accountable but they don’t need hand holding. They take responsibility and initiative.

There are two reasons you need a team and they both relate to the fact that a growing company is constantly changing. There are new activities and new challenges all the time. (This same is true of a turn around situation so the team concept is applicable there as well even though the company may actually be shrinking not growing).

Reason # One is there are too many moving parts for a single person to do them all. If the same stuff is happening over and over again, maybe one executive can deal with it. But by definition, this won’t be true if you’re growing.

Reason # Two is because of the shower syndrome. You know those ideas you get in the shower? Or maybe as you’re falling asleep, or out walking the dog? I often get them when I’m in the car by myself – another reason not to text and drive.

Those are the result of your non-conscious mind working on a problem after your conscious mind has let it go. They aren’t always right but they can be very very powerful. The reason for a team is you only get these ideas about one thing at a time. If you’re focused on raising a new round of investment, you won’t be focused on opening a new market.

You need a team so more people can get these kind of ideas in the shower. Not that I recommend group showers or anything.

So without further ado here’s your team:

NOTE: The ideal team size is not 7 even though I’ve listed 7 categories below. The best team size is either 3, 4, or 5. It makes sense to combine responsibilities based on your industry, company size and individual’s skill sets. But you do need a “buck stops here” person at the top of each of these categories.

Sales & Marketing. I know these are separate skill sets, but they both serve parts of the same process (turning a person into a lead, then a prospect then a customer). So you need a person at the top who can make this happen and do it in a way that supports the strategic goals of the company. At different times that means opening up new markets, shifting the sales mix toward, or away from certain product lines, more profitable sales at the expense of market share – or vice versa.

Operations. This person is charged with developing an organization to deliver what the sales people sell. They must focus on effectiveness, not just efficiency. They should be able to accurately project lead times, quality assessments and costs.

CFO Everything the company does affects cash. Someone needs to be focused on the cash aspects of every decision the company makes. Someone need the time and bandwidth to routinely hit up vendors for better prices, make sure sales are collected early and bills are paid at the optimal time.

This person need not be an accountant. But they need to understand accounting well enough to “speak the language” and relate accounting to management decisions. And she (or he) must understand the differences between short term spending and long term investment.

Legal Almost everything the company does has legal implications. This person should not be in-house council. They should probably not even be a lawyer (like the CFO need not be an accountant). But they have to “speak the language.” This person should know when something needs to be sent to the company’s counsel and when it doesn’t. They should be able to mark up legal documents and negotiate contracts to a point where you’re not paying lawyers to do things that a mere mortal can accomplish. This way the firm can get the most benefit from what it does spend on legal fees.

IT Here I’m talking of IT as a strategic function – not a support function. Increasingly, every company has some informational or knowledge component to what they sell or how they make and sell it. Someone needs to know how to tap into the latest technology to provide a competitive advantage in that aspect of the product or process. This is the person I’m talking about.

For some historical perspective, consider this. Before factories were run by electricity, they were powered by an external source – often water. No matter what they produced, they needed an intricate arrangements of wheels, belts, pulleys etc to get the power from the river or waterfall outside the building to the machines and devices inside. The ability to design and implement the power transmission often became a strategic advantage to the firm – despite that fact that what they sold did not contain water, belts, or pulleys. That is the aspect of IT that I’m referring to here. It is of course, more critical in some companies than in others, but worth considering in all companies.

New Products Every market is moving faster and faster. Just selling the same stuff year after year is a way to consign your company to the commodity market (at best and the graveyard at worst). Someone should be thinking 1,2 or 5 years out about and developing new products for existing customers as well as new markets. This job is very much in the Important but not Urgent category.

CEO The CEO is the keeper of the business model. It’s up to her (or him) to understand how the trends and cultural changes outside the company affect and are exploited by the systems and organizational structure on the inside.

This person is the captain of the ship, or more aptly, the conductor of the orchestra. Did you ever stop to think that the conductor makes none of the sound the audience hears? Their job is in two parts. One faces outside the company where they need to make key relationships and notice trends. One faces inside the company, where they develop the size and scope of the organization to profit from those trends and relationships.

So How Do You Get There From Here?

It takes a big cultural shift for many companies – especially ones that were founded by a single individual.

I’m a big fan of the bootstrap – that phase when you do it or make it rather then buy it, when you spend time rather than money, and pay in stock options rather than cash. But a company can only bootstrap so far. If you’re going to build a top notch team, you have to hire the best and pay them market rates. But just as importantly, you have to structure the organization so those expenditures are investments rather than costs.

Another big attitude shift is that of control. When one person’s at the top they are expected to know everything and all the decisions rest on their shoulders. A company like that can’t scale past a certain point. To grow you must be thrilled to give up control, and be happy to find people who are much better than you at certain tasks.

Another cultural shift is that as a company grows it becomes more dependent on process and less on just getting the job done. Not to say that process should be allowed to impede the results – that’s bureaucracy. But the wisdom and experience that people develop can’t be allowed to live in a few people’s heads. It has to spread throughout the organization so that best practices abound. That takes process.

THANKS

Many of the ideas here were inspired by a discussion I had with Mark Volchek about this topic. Mark is a co-founder and the CFO of Higher One. The company was founded in 2000 by students right out of college, was on the INC 500 in 2009 and went public in 2010.

It’s simple: Give them what they want!

Hey, just because it’s simple doesn’t mean it’s easy. If you don’t have happy employees this will change everything. I mean EVERYTHING. The good news is it works. And the better news is it’s less expensive that you think (and probably less than you’re spending now). But it does take some effort. If that sounds like a good deal to you, read on.

UPDATE: BMW asked their employees what they needed and gave it to them [albeit this was focused on what they needed to be comfortable at work and nothing else] but the results were pretty spectacular.

Why Focus on Employee Retention?

Do we really need to review this people?

• It costs you money to replace people.
• The good ones leave first and the bad ones stay longest.
• Employees are (or should be) what makes you better than the competition. Yes, whether you’re making widgets (and I have clients who do) or have the most unique technology this is true.
• It’s more fun to work in a place with a community of people who’ve been there a while, then where people come and go all the time and aren’t a community.
• People are more productive if they’re content in their jobs.

What Do Employees Want?

Dreams. People have dreams. And remember, your employees are people not “resources”. Have you ever asked your employees what their dreams are? What they want to accomplish in life? What is some place they’ve never been they’d like to visit? Something they’ve never done before? It may be as broad reaching as to buy their own home and build a better life for their kids. Or it may be as simple a chance to see a pro sports game live. Or maybe pay off some student loans. Ask. See what you can do to help them accomplish their dreams.

A Good Boss. I’m talking about their immediate supervisor. More people quit a good company with a bad boss than a bad company if they have a good boss. And this is a two-fer. The better bosses your people are, you get the benefit of retention, and you also get good supervisors.

Security. This one frustrates a lot of entrepreneurs. We know things are constantly changing and we can’t promise how it’s going to be in the future. And we don’t have any job security and we love it that way. But consider the good news. If all your employees thought like you do, they wouldn’t be working for you. They’d be working for themselves.

You can’t promise lifetime employment. What you can do is be open and honest about the state of things (the economy, your company, and their performance) and give them a way to continually improve their abilities. That includes training, the proper tools, and most importantly the proper feedback, mentoring and coaching. If you do have to lay people off, do it all at once, be honest about it, pull the remaining team back together and move on.

Money. Obviously. I don’t think anyone at your place is working just for all the fun and good coffee you provide. Even though entrepreneurs tend not to believe it – it’s true that if the money is decent it ceases to be a motivator and can even be a de-motivator. See Dan Pink’s book DRIVE for details. This is why a good retention program can be cheaper than what you’re spending now cycling through employees.

Recognition. Notice when people do a good job even if it’s their job to do a good job. Tell them. Mention it in front of others. In detail.

Takeaway:

Check out what  Rebekah Monson wants. She’s twenty-something. And she works for somebody. What would you do differently if you were her boss and she told this to you?

Why you should

About hiring the best sales people, Seth says Good is not almost as good as great.

About hiring the best programmers Joel says It’s not just a matter of “10 times more productive.” It’s that the “average productive” developer never hits the high notes that make great software.

Similar things are true in every job category.

When you should NOT hire the best: Extraordinary people won’t work at an ordinary company. So you have to be extraordinary, not just have it on your mission statement. They need to be managed like adults and this is harder than you think. You have to pay them more (not 10 times more but certainly at the high end of the pay scale). They need the right environment. I’m not talking super-star requests for a certain kind of bottled water (this occurs but is rarer than you fear). I’m talking the right equipment, training, culture, and other support.

So if you’re not in a position to support these people financially, managerially, and culturally so they can do their jobs well, you should just hire ordinary people. Seriously.

How to hire them.
1. Describe what you want in behavioral terms – not vague platitudes. Don’t say “self-starter.” Would anyone look at that and think “I won’t apply to that job, I’m really a bum.” Instead, describe how you’ll recognize a self starter’s behavior. And, it won’t be the same everywhere. For example: At one company a self starter may be someone who comes in early and stays late to get the job done. At another company a self-starter may be someone who invents new ways to get the job done quicker so they can leave at 3 and hit the golf course. Same platitude, different behaviors. More about behavioral interviewing here from Inc Magazine.

Note: I was recently in a meeting with a person who at one point told me he wanted to hire people who would come in early and stay late. At another point in the meeting he said he wanted to hire people who could invent ways to get the job done sooner and leave early. You’ve got to get clear on what you really want.

2. Find them. They aren’t looking for a job. They have a good job. And if they have a good job and they are still looking, you don’t want them working for you because they’ll be looking then too. [Exceptions are the ones who are looking because of a reason you can fix – like they want to move to your part of the country]. Look for them as individuals not as a demographic. Find names, find addresses, find current employers. So you’ve got some sleuthing to do. Get going.

3.Woo them. I’ve always said the best metaphor for business is dating. Here’s the coolest example I’ve seen of how to woo people. Not that you should copy the details – they won’t be relevant to your company or the people you’re wooing. But you should copy the approach. And here are details of the pitch with pictures.

Seth Godin’s comment about this effort is: It’s not particularly difficult or even expensive, yet it’s rare. The reasons are simple: most recruiters don’t really care about hiring the very best people, and/or recruiters haven’t yet realized that they are marketers too.

Takeaway:

• Hiring the best isn’t easy, but it’s worth it.
• When has being hard stopped you?

[tags]hiring, entrepreneur, small business, [/tags]

This got me thinking about what an employee needs to succeed. I came up with 3 things. Thing Number One is entirely out of your control (and not completely, but generally not under the control of the employee either). Thing Number Two is entirely under your control not that of the employee. Thing Number Three is under both your controls. Details in a minute.

But here’s my take on second chances. When you give a second chance, you must explain the problem and then change something and expect an improvement. At the minimum, you change to increased monitoring, but the things you must change are aspects of Thing Two and Thing Three that are under your control. If you see improvement give another second chance and another and another.

However, as soon as you realize the employees failure is due entirely to Thing Number One – get rid of him or her immediately. It won’t get any better, and you’ll just prolong the agony.

An employee needs three things to succeed

1. The right personality traits. This includes what is commonly called “motivation” and “attitude” but it’s more specific (and less judgmental) than that. Some people are good at multi-tasking, others plow through one thing at a time till it’s done. Some people see the big picture and can’t be bothered with details – others can’t see the forest for the trees. Some people are naturally curious, some are not. Some are fast learners, some are not. By “right personality traits” I mean the right ones for the job. Most people’s traits are right for something – but no one’s are right for everything.

Personality traits are hard enough to discover about yourself, let alone another person in a job interview. But the best way I’ve heard of is to work with a team to come up with a list of traits for each position (this goes beyond the job description). Then in the interview, when you ask questions like “Tell me about your first job?” or “What was your favorite vacation?” you can look for those traits. It’s your job as the boss to determine the kinds of traits needed for each position and do your best to match the person’s traits to the job.

In this article Inc Magazine calls this Behavioral Interviews and gives some tips on how to do it.

And personality traits are almost impossible to change. If someone isn’t a good fit in this area a large company may have other areas to move them to where they fit better. If you don’t, you’d best let them go as quickly as you figure it out. This is the basis for the fire rapidly rule that Guy Kawasaki puts down.

2. Skills & Experience. This stuff is mostly trainable – though no amount of training will make someone a super star. And wisdom can not be had without experience, which takes time. This is the area you give the most second chances in. (Is most second chances an oxymoron?) If you don’t see any improvement, then the cause is likely #1 or #3.

3. The right environment. This is the job of management. The ideal “environment” is one where people have the support and systems they need to be successful. By that I mean, if you hire me to paint a wall, it’s your job to give me the equipment and the paint – or the authority to buy them. If I have to buy them, then you need to allow time for that, and if you tell me to pick the color, you better accept my choice. This is the area that is the biggest problem for small companies. Partly because each manager is wearing so many hats and partly because its a skill they don’t get much training in.

So the first thing I do when an employee isn’t working out, is use that as a mirror to see if I’ve been delinquent in setting up the right environment. Obviously you can’t revamp your whole production line for each new hire. But the more effort you put into designing the right environment, the easier it is to find a good employee to work there. Consider McDonalds. Behind the line, they’ve designed equipment and processes specifically for their menu. As a result, they hire teen agers, retirees, people who can’t speak English, lots of part timers and yet every McDonalds on the planet tastes the same. Can you do that in your facility?

Takeaways:

• Make sure you’re providing the right environment for people to succeed
• Make sure you know the job well enough to determine the personality traits needed
• Get good at Behavioral Interviewing
• Give second chances as long as the traits fit the job and you see improvement
• Fire quickly once you’ve determined neither is true

Key take-aways would be:

• It’s a process you have to learn and devote time to, but it’s worth it.
• The clearer you are on what you want the more likely it is you’ll get what you want.
• Make it a team effort. That will make it easier to integrate the new hire into the team and keep you from make a decision purely on emotion.