When it comes to owning or managing any kind of business, one of the hardest things you have to do is to hire employees. At first it can be very easy and maybe you don’t even have more than just a couple employees and those employees are family and friends. But once you begin to grow your business you quickly begin to realize the importance of hiring good employees that will be around for the long haul. Hiring the wrong person can cost you lots of money and time. Elite Employment Services estimates that it can cost up to $2,000 to get a new employee through the hiring process and trained. With that amount of money, you want to ensure that you have a hiring process in place and it is followed every time.
1. Posting the Job
You want to put your job posting in relevant places that the type of people you want to hire will find them. Some of the best free sites to post jobs are Facebook , MySpace and Craigslist but sometimes with these services you can receive hundreds of applicants daily and going through that resumes can be quite difficult. Another avenue is to go through a paid listing service usually through a local newspaper, television station or online service . The benefit to these job postings is that the person seeking employment usually has to register and upload a resume to the site, which means they are a little more serious about finding employment. The third source is to hire a staffing agency but depending on the position this option can be quite costly and depending on the position you are hiring for, this option might not work. As always your best source is through some type of referral, whether it is a current employee or business contact, so make sure you always tell your other team members what position you are hiring for and if they know any qualified candidates.
2. Interviewing the Candidates
This can be one of the most difficult parts of the hiring process. Depending on the position you are hiring for you could get hundreds of applicants applying for the position. You want to come up with a plan and sit down with another member of your team to go through all the resumes. You then want to look for certain things on the resume, like experience, work history, length of employment and any other item that is relevant to that job. With the help of that team member you should narrow down the resumes to 10-15 applicants that you want to interview. If possible you want to set up the interviews within the same day or so to ensure you get the same consistent process for all applicants. When the applicants arrive you want to ask them to fill out your job application if they haven’t already. You want this to be very detailed, so you can learn a little more about them than you did from the resume. You can find applications online for free that you can add or delete items to fit your business. With another member of your team you want to come up with three questions you can ask each applicant. You would be amazed at what you can learn from three questions. That’s it, just three questions from each applicant and that’s all you will need to know about them to determine if they fit into what you are looking for and if they will be called back for a 2nd interview. Once you have sat down with all of the applicants, you and your team member should sit down and review your notes and determine which applicants you want to come back for a 2nd interview. You should at this point have the field narrowed down to 3-5 applicants. The 2nd interview should consist of much more detailed questions about the applicant and more time spent getting to know what type of employee they are. A working interview should immediately follow the 2nd interview. This should consist of a 30 minute on the job interview with yourself or a supervisor that the applicant would be working under. At this point you will want to check all references on the selected candidates and then sit down with your team and decide who the best fit would be.
3. Hiring and Training the Newest Member Of Your Team
Once you and your team have selected the best candidate and you have sent out your offer letter and the applicant has accepted the offer you want to go through an in depth orientation, which should be done before the new member ever begins training. You want to bring the new team member in and get all of the paperwork out of the way, so when they come to work day one, they are ready to go. You then want to sit the new team member down and go through an in depth overview of the company history, company culture, job details, training details and any questions the new team member may have. This way the new team member is familiar with all aspects of the company and not just that specific job. They also get a good feel of the culture and how passionate you and the other team members are about carrying it out each and every day. At this point the new team member is ready to begin their training.
This may seem like quite a lengthy and detailed process and maybe sometimes you just need to get someone in the door right away but following these simple steps will ensure that you are not only hiring the right person for the job but that you will have a team member that will stick around for the long haul.
If you understand every aspect that determines good veterinary practice management, then that means you understand what motivates your workers. As a manager, what are you going to do in order to build an environment where every employee feels comfortable and able to participate? What can you do to increase the productivity and satisfaction of your employees at the same time? How can you employ talented people and keep them? How will you train your staff in an effective way, introducing them properly to the practice while involving others in the process? All these questions are the fundamentals of veterinary practice management that must be answered sooner or later.
