Five Steps To Hiring Success

FIVE STEPS TO HIRING SUCCESS

by Don Phin

Many business owners struggle with the problem of hiring employees who care about the company. You can achieve this goal by following five principles.

I’m a fan of Southwest Airlines because they’re so successful in an industry full of unsuccessful companies. A few years ago, Kevin Freiburg co-authored Southwest Airlines’ Crazy Recipe for Business and Personal Success. Besides probably being the funniest business “how-to” business book, it’s still one of the best — and most of its lessons apply to businesses.

When I had the opportunity to chat with Freiberg on a cross-country flight, the one word that stood out from our conversation was “discipline.” Without the discipline of culture and operations there would be little success to rally around — and no freedom to have fun. I never associated discipline with freedom before, but now I get it!

Many business owners struggle with the problem of hiring employees who care about the company. In the book’s words, “What does it take to get employees to assume ownership for a business, to truly take personal responsibility for its success?” Southwest has achieved this goal so successfully that your business can benefit by following these five principles:

1. Hire people who think like owners. These people will focus on the health of the business, not just their jobs. As the book points out, ownership is a state of mind, as much as a piece of paper.
2. Hire self-starters. Southwest made potential pilots pay for their own $10,000 training, with no promise of being hired before the company even would interview them! That way, the training served as a screen. Only self-starters made it to the interview process.
3. Share the profits. Suppose that all the people you hire take ownership and are self-starters, but then you don’t pay them for their success. I can guarantee you that results won’t be positive. If you hire people who think like owners and take responsibility for their work and the business, treat them like owners. Make bonuses large enough that the company’s interest is closely aligned with that of the employees. Make the bonuses significant enough to get their attention.
4. Listen. Make sure that your employees know you want their opinions. To improve, you need their input. Most people want to make a difference in their jobs. Knowing that they do will enhance the business and the lives of your employees — making it easier to recruit, and keep, good people.
5. Keep communicating trust, consistency, and goals. I’ve visited too many companies in which the employees have lost faith in management for never following through on any initiatives. In these situations, management has violated all three of these tenets: They’ve shown neither trust, consistency, nor goals.

The most important asset of your business is its people. Once you begin hiring and keeping good people, you’ll start finding it far easier to hire even more of them.

Success breeds success.