Do You Have a Dream Team in Your Workplace?

In business you are who you recruit. If you only recruit the ‘Paretos’ (the 20% of your staff who suck up 80% of your management time) you will lose to the competition. If you recruit “foot soldiers” you will do OK but it will always be an effort. You won’t fly. But if you recruit an A team you’ll have what you need to make your business dreams come true.

In his book, ‘Good to Great’, Jim Collins compared a business to a bus and the leader as a bus driver. Collins argues that leaders must be rigorous in the selection process for getting the right new people on the bus. Invest substantial time in evaluating each candidate and make systematic use of at least three evaluation devices, for example, interviews, references, background checks and testing. When in doubt, do not bring the person on the bus. Let a seat go unfilled—taking on extra work as needed—until you have found the right person. Ensure your company does an exceptional job of retaining the right people on the bus to perpetuate your good recruitment decisions for a very long time.

The tough part for all concerned is if after having supported the person to succeed you conclude he is not in the right seat (in fact is not on the right bus),you have to think about removing that person.

Identifying the need to get the right person on the right seat on the bus is all very well. The reality is that finding and attracting good quality people is difficult. Many business owners say that the dearth of really good people is a significant impediment to their growth. It is reportedly the single biggest HR problem that Britain’s business owners have today. I have certainly struggled with it and so have most of the businesses with which I work.

It’s getting harder to find, attract and recruit the right people. The best candidates aren’t responding to traditional tactics and we need to be more proactive to connect with them.

These days sales and marketing activity is not confined to bringing in new business. You must sell your business products and services to the best employee talent as well.

Over the last few months I have been putting together the essential recruitment manual to help you recruit an A team. Build Your Dream Team - How SMEs Can Plug the Talent Gap provides very practical ways to source and recruit the best people for your business.

Before I wrote Dream Team I thought I knew a lot about recruitment. I don’t just mean all the compliance and good practice stuff, but all the ‘beyond the envelope’ stuff too; I have been experimenting with different methods for a while and we have some very successful processes. But writing this book has really extended my knowledge and now it’s almost ready to share with you.

What’s in it for you? Here are the chapter headings:

We’re planning to celebrate the launch at a book launch party on 17th February in Stony Stratford. It would be lovely to see you there if you can make it.

Priced £12.99 with free UK postage, we’re also offering a pre-publication order discount of 15%.

To book for our launch party or place an order, just send me an email.

We deal with the good, the bad and the ugly of HR. If you need help resolving problems with recruiting your dream team or any other HR issues, give us a call on 01908 262628.

Want great free HR stuff? Sign up here!

Russell HR Consulting provides expert knowledge in HR solutions, employment law training and HR tools and resources to businesses across the UK.

Subscribe to our free monthly HR newsletter. Russell HR Consulting employment law newsletters are emailed automatically to our ever-growing number of subscribers every month.