Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
Foreign.
Welcome to the World at Work podcast, where business
leaders and job seekers come together to create winning cultures
and fulfilling careers. I'm your host, Jody Mayberry, and
I'm here with Tim Dick, the founder of Best Culture
(00:21):
Solutions. Hi, Tim. It's great to be back with you. I don't think I've seen
you since we ran into each other on Bainbridge Island. But we're back.
Yeah, probably not. That was a good episode recording right there on
Bainbridge. But I haven't seen you since. I always feel like Katie's
trying to take over when it goes too long without having me on the show.
That's because she is trying to take over and making it go too long without
(00:44):
having you on the show. Yeah, it is some sort of. It's either a
scheme or if you're involved, maybe it's a conspiracy. Can you
have a conspiracy if it's just one person? I feel like if it's just one
person, it's a scheme. That's true. Although a wise person once told
me, never chalk up to conspiracy. What? Where incompetence
makes more sense. So maybe we're incompetent.
(01:06):
Yeah, well, we'll leave that one right there. I do have a
good topic. I feel like right now, in
almost any industry, companies are having trouble
hiring. And with that, perhaps
we're filling some. Not we, as in Best Culture Solutions, because
Best Culture Solutions would never do this. We, as in
(01:28):
organizations, are filling roles with people
who perhaps don't quite fit, maybe didn't do
great on an interview. And it just has me wondering, Tim,
you've got an open position, you do a series of
interviews and nobody really wins. Nobody
stands out, Nobody won the interview. What do you do?
(01:50):
Because I feel like companies are feeling it anyway right now, feeling
like they've got no choice. But as Best Culture Solutions,
what would you do if nobody wins the interview? Go again? Yeah,
we just honestly, I mean, end the show now. It's simple. Wow.
Fastest episode yet. We're done. No, but go back to
market. And here's why is that. You know, a lot of companies, they are
(02:13):
worried about filling the chair. And I understand why you need to fill the chair,
but the reality is that you can fill the chair once, you can
fill it a million times, and I think you'd rather just do it once and
find out the hard way that you had the wrong person. And they've come in,
they've done a whole bunch of stuff and you have to go back and fix
it. And here you are starting at Square one again. Now, here's the thing.
Now, if you're looking for perfect, if you're looking for a unicorn, then give your
(02:36):
head a shake. Everybody's human and unicorns are mythical
creatures for a reason. They do not exist. So you're never going to find perfect
person. So if you're waiting for the perfect person, don't. That will not
work either. But if you don't find somebody who on the whole, is
going to be motivated for the job, passionate about the role and have the skill
for it, then yes, go back to market. And here's why.
(02:59):
A lot of companies focus on time to hire or
cost per hire versus quality of hire. Now, don't get me
wrong. You should have a process that is somewhat. You should
operate your process as quickly as you can. You should have a process that properly
asks the right questions and vets the right people to make sure you're getting the
right candidate. And you should operate that process and each step of it as
(03:21):
quickly as you can based on candidate availability and how you can go through that.
Yes, you should, but you should never compromise on that process.
You should never. Or undervalue that process, I guess I should
say. And a lot of companies focus on time cost to
hire. Like how much time does it take? How much does it cost as opposed
to quality of hire? And what ends up happening is that
(03:43):
you don't get a candidate whose strengths outweigh their weaknesses, that aren't on the
whole, motivated for the job, and it has predictable results.
They don't last. And I don't know if you've ever thought about this,
Jodi, but how much do you think turnover costs as a percentage of somebody's
annual salary? How much do you think it costs when there's turnover? I have actually
never thought about putting a number to that. And now I'm intrigued
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if that is a formula we can actually implement, because
I know it is expensive to hire and train.
It takes 30 to 35%
of their annual salary or earnings to replace somebody. That's
the cost of turnover. That's after you hire somebody new. It's after
you train somebody new. You cover their shifts while they're away, or any
(04:28):
overtime associated with that or the lost time of other people if it's a salary
position to cover their duties while they're gone, or the lost productivity
of not having the duties being done. But it's 30 to
35% is what it costs. So if you decide
through the interview process, hey, nobody wins. Let's just take the best of all
the non winners and throw them in there. You're inviting yourself to experience
(04:51):
that. Right. And each time you do that, that is what you're going to experience
again. And I understand there's a lot of pressure to fill these roles. There's a
lot of pressure to find the person. Absolutely. I get it.
But the reality is that if you rush that process,
if you do it faster than you should, or you put somebody in there that
is not, you know, on the whole, the right person for the job, you're going
(05:13):
to be going back to the well over and over and over again and paying
that cost every time. Every single time. And I have a funny
story about that. I once, you know, I was in a. In an organization, a
position where a lot of times they would just fill the seat with somebody they
knew or fill a seat with somebody that they thought was on the market or
had experience. They didn't have a proper interview process and it had
predictable results. Right. And I would sometimes get
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flack for taking time to have a proper process, for taking
time to find the right person, because they'd say, well, this is costing us
overtime. This is costing us, you know, money. As you find the right
person, your process takes so long. So it would take me about three weeks sometimes
to make the hire and then wait for them to start and all that type
of stuff. But what they didn't realize was, you know, guess what was
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happening? Right. The cost was higher to not do that.
Right. Because we were finding the wrong people. And so what ended up happening? Well,
our turnover went down. The average number of years that each person
spent in their role went up. And so what was happening
was that we were having to hire less, which meant that we experienced that 30
to 35% pain less, if that makes sense.
(06:19):
We had to go to market less as a result. And so we ended up
saving a lot of money in the long term, even though on the front end
it cost us a little bit more to do it. And as our mutual friend
Lee Cockrell says, you can pay now or you can pay later. And if you
pay later, it's with interest. And so if you don't find somebody that wins the
interview, then it's pretty simple. You go back to market. You go back to market.
(06:40):
You can't afford not to, frankly. I've got two stories related to
this, Tim, that I will trickle in as we talk. The first
one, when I had to hire for a position,
the position had been open for a while, we had the
interviews, and at this point I was Just
felt burnt out from doing two jobs. I had to do my job
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and the other one because I supervised the open position.
And it was long. It felt like it had gone on for
years, even though it had been just a few months. And it just kept
dragging on. And we finally got to do the
interviews and I did not feel that anyone
clearly won. I didn't feel anyone fit
(07:24):
what we were looking for. But this was a
government position and there are different rules about it
and it goes on point system and all that.
And my supervisor felt there was no reason
not to hire the person who statistically had scored the
highest on the interview. And we made the hire and it
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turned out to be the worst hire I'd ever made. I felt it
wasn't the right fit. I felt that this person didn't win and
we had issues the entire time this person was
with us. And you say it costs 30 to
35% to replace someone when they quit.
And I realize that's true. And I also realize
(08:09):
how much it cost me in time to
manage an employee who did not do a good job and
caused trouble. You probably would have spent the same amount of time
finding somebody different, right? That's right. And I probably
would have had less headache in my role continuing to
do that, both roles for a few more months while
(08:31):
we sought the right person. Yeah, exactly. Right. And
that's the thing. So I mean, it's the, the danger though, on the other hand
too is that I often see leaders get that Goldilocks syndrome as well, where
there's nobody. That's right. And that's just as dangerous. Right. You
can't afford to do that either. You can't afford to look for perfection
or any minor weakness or, you know, detractor from that candidate
(08:53):
will mean that it'll never work either or that they might make a mistake because
everybody's going to make mistakes. Right. Sooner or later. But the reality is that,
you know, you have to have a clear criteria and have to define what winning
looks like. You know, as everybody knows who listens to this show, my criteria
is MBI motivation based interviewing. Right. And if I can't find anybody
who meets that criteria, then, well, we're going back to market. Right.
(09:15):
Somebody who has the three traits of a high performing
or a high achieving candidate. We're going to go back to market and I'm not
going to accept that. It's also very, very, very, very important
to point out that having a right candidate in front of you doesn't mean
perfect. Right. That doesn't mean perfect. If that's what
you're looking for, good luck. Right. So, I mean, I would also caution people to
(09:37):
not overdo it on the other end. Right. Do not only settle for perfect, that
doesn't exist. But the reality is that if you're not finding somebody with a fair
amount of net positives or an overall winner in your interview process,
well, then go back to market. It's not worth it. It's not worth it.
Like you said, it's not worth the time, it's not worth the money, it's not
worth the effort. And not to mention, would you say that people on
(09:58):
your team as well probably were not
benefited by having the wrong person in place? Right. Yeah, that's right.
This really taught me the lesson on
don't fill a spot because it's open. Don't fill a spot because you're
tired of doing the work. It didn't just impact me, it impacted
everybody else that we put the wrong person in that role and it may
(10:20):
not have even really been this person's fault. They just weren't right for the
role and we put them in that role. So I've got one
other that really ties in what Tim has been telling us. Tim
mentioned Lee Cockrell. Lee said the best
hire he ever made was Carl Holtz. When that. When
the position was open that he put Carl into, they
(10:42):
had several rounds of interviews and Lee would not
pick anybody. And his supervisors were saying, hey, we
really need to fill this role. And Lee said, I can't. We have not found
the right person. And he kept holding out. And he then
interviewed Carl Holtz. Lee hired. Carl, said he's
the best hire he ever made. Carl went on to be president of Disneyland
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Paris. He went on to be president of Disney Cruise Line. And I think
that is a prime example that if you are
patient and willing to feel a little bit of pain now, you
will get rewards that last for years because Carl
was such a phenomenal cast member with Disney. And it
all came because Lee would not put someone in
(11:26):
that position just to fill a role. He said, nobody's won. I need
the right person. And he held out until he met Carl Holtz.
That worked out. And I had a similar one, not at that level, but at
a lower level job. You know, I was getting heat on both sides for time
and not getting somebody who had direct experience in the industry, but
they had the right attitude, motivation and skillset to learn the industry.
(11:48):
And I took my time with that hire and I took my time then to
train them. Afterwards. And so I got double heat because we had training time and
hiring time. And then within about two weeks the person who was giving me
heat came up to me with no completely forgetting that they were ever giving me
a hard time. As if it was always their idea to be honest. Not a
lot of self awareness. Wow, she's the best. How did you find her?
(12:08):
And she was a long term employee, a five year employee, maybe
five, four at least perhaps five. In
a position that previously we had a tough time filling. Right. And not
just filling the seat for four to five years, but filling at a
high level and doing a very good job for us.
And so taking time to get it right is so important. I mean it's very
(12:30):
simple. You hire them right, you train them right and you treat them right. If
you don't, as Lee would say, and if you don't start with hiring the
right person, then don't bother trying to train them because they're not there for the
right. Like they're not going to be there. To do the job. And you need
to leave the seat open. If you have no clear winners. There's just no two
ways about it. You can't afford not to. Frankly, Tim,
if we realize this is a concern now
(12:53):
and perhaps we've just held one round of
interviews, pick the person who maybe scored the
best on whatever system that we use and we say, oh,
Tim has highlighted an area we need to do better at.
Well, where can we turn? How do we get help with holding
better interviews? Yeah, great question. Well, we
(13:15):
like to do that. The first thing that you can do is you can go
to HireAuthority.com and there you would get some
insights on motivation based intervention which what we use.
And they can also request me to be their MBI trainer,
which I love doing. Or if you need direct help with recruitment or conducting
those interviews, we can be found at BestcultureSolutions CA.
(13:36):
My email address is Tim BestcultureSolutions CA
and we love helping with that. All right, there it is. Reach
out to Tim or go to mbi. Either way they can help
you out, make sure you're on the right track so you're not just filling
positions. If you have a question or
topic that you would like us to talk about, reach
(13:58):
out. We'd love to answer questions, Tim.
Should they just email you directly? Just contact you, Send an email. What's
that email address again? Thank you. Yeah, for sure, Tim.
Bestculturesolutions ca and we'll talk about whatever you want.
Hockey if you want. We can do that. Yeah, we usually do that before
we start recording. We have long conversations about the
(14:20):
St. Louis Blues, going to win the. The Stanley cup and whatnot. So
we can talk about that if you want to. All right, Tim, thank you so
much, and thank you for listening to World at Work.