Hiring has become much more critical with the reduction in the staff pipeline. At the same time many practices look to only hire experienced staff to fill in gaps and replace people who leave, further increasing demand in that area. We are not going to solve the pipeline problem today, but here is a way to become more effective with who you hire and how to bring people up within your firm.
I have found that staff who grow with better experiences and responsibilities are less likely to leave. Even if they do, it's later than they otherwise would have, i.e., it is a way to retain staff for a longer period. Here are some reasons why, and a way to set up a process for bringing everyone up the ranks whenever there is a new hire.
Case for hiring out of school
- It is easier to train inexperienced people from the beginning with your methods.
- You will not have to untrain staff from the bad habits they've acquired.
- You can teach inexperienced staff your processes and procedures without any resistance that they know a "better way."
- You will have no expectations of the level of experience they are at, so you could start with your training methods right from the beginning.
- The salary will be lower than someone with experience.
Case for not hiring experienced people
- Most three- to five-year people looking for a job are looking because they were not getting good experience, or stopped getting it, yet these are the people you are hiring because they have experience.
- Many experienced people might be leaving because they weren't performing at the level they were being paid to perform at, yet they want a raise over what they were making in the job they are leaving.
- When you bring in an experienced person, you are sending a message to the people working for you that they are at a dead end and will not be moved up.
- No matter how good the experienced person is, they will still need to learn your processes and procedures and learn to fit into your culture. This will take a reasonable period to happen.
- There are always exceptions, but they are very hard to come by, making the process of finding them heartbreaking, costly and debilitating.
What to do when someone leaves
- Hire someone out of school and move everyone up a notch until you fill the position of the person who left. This provides growth, expands the experience and growth opportunity of the person being moved up, and will cost less since you are hiring a lower-level person to "replace" the higher-level person who left. At some point the people moving up would be given raises but that does not need to be immediately, until you see how they work out.
- If you feel you do not have anyone who could be moved up to replace the person who left, then use that as a wake-up call to hire better people all around, train everyone better, make sure you have a plan to grow your staff and have better systems and processes.
People will leave. You need a method to retain your staff, even for a little longer, and you or your practice cannot get stuck when someone leaves.
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