Sales & Marketing Management - January/Februry 2008 - (Page 28) TRAINING TECHNOLOGY INCENTIVES TRAVEL/MEETINGS Stop hiring poor performers An HR blueprint for snaring sales superstars row’s top sales performers, there are six major steps every HR director should be following: 1. Defining the culture of the company. 2. Establishing detailed job descriptions. 3. Creating an employment behavioral contract. 4. Developing a screening process. 5. Developing an interview process. 6. Testing and verifying the prospect’s skill sets. With these six steps in place, HR directors will have established standards with which they can determine the quality of potential employees. Consequently, they will have a higher percentage of qualified employees who fit the culture of their company. The first step to effective recruiting and hiring is developing a cultural statement. The culture of a company is defined from the top down. Therefore, the company’s cultural statement should be based upon management’s values, goals, needs and expectations. A cultural statement provides all current employees with a foundation of what is expected of them and of the type of environment in which they are working. Expectations should be specified for the following areas: Conduct, work ethic, client/team member interaction, accountability to management and management’s responsibilities to/support of the employee. Equally important, a cultural statement provides a prospective hire with insight into the expectations of his potential position. The second step is writing detailed job descriptions. In order to evaluate and hire someone who’s the right “fit” for a position within a company, the HR director must be able to identify the core components of the position and see if those components match the skill sets of the potential employee. “Key performance factors” is another name for the tasks, skill sets and functions that a position requires of an employee, which enables him to be successful in achieving the mutual goals of both the company and the employee. Identifying key performance factors and then using them as the base criteria to examine a prospective hire’s capabilities to fit the position helps eliminate wasted time, effort and financial drain. The third step in effective recruiting and hiring requires HR directors to create an employment behavioral contract. This combines the mission, culture and job description requirements that need to be met if www.salesandmarketing.com www.salesandmarketingmanagement.com R 28 SALES &MARKETING MANAGEMENT istock photo onald Reagan once said, “Surround yourself with the best people you can find, delegate authority and don’t interfere as long as the policy you’ve decided upon is being carried out.” Most businesses would agree with those words, recognizing that companies with the most talented salespeople, administrators and support personnel will have the most income, the best working environment and the most satisfied customers. Unfortunately, while all sales managers are aware of the need to hire quality workers, many consistently end up hiring second-rate employees. And needless to say, in an area that’s as crucial to your bottom line as sales, continuously hiring poor performers can only lead to disaster. For the busy sales manager, delegating the hiring of salespeople to the human resources department can be a valuable timesaver—so long as the HR director is properly educated on what to look for in a candidate. Hiring top sales performers is not the same as hiring employees in IT, management or even marketing, so be sure to give the HR team the input they need to identify the proper candidates. When evaluating which people will become tomorJANUARY/FEBRUARY 2008 http://www.salesandmarketingmanagement.com
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