"Employing people damages your wealth"

Unless you get it right

I have used this phrase for years and think it should be stencilled onto every payslip and wage packet given to an employee.

Work is a mutual contract and in return for their time, effort and commitment an employee receives a negotiated return (their remuneration) from the employer. I accept that workers have rights and agree they should be robust, to protect against unscrupulous bosses who strive to exploit them but I feel strongly that you have to be able to sever a contract if the relationship doesn’t work. Employment Law sometimes forgets that there are unscrupulous workers as well who exploit their employer.

I support the thinking of Jim Collins, the American business researcher and strategist, in his book ‘Good to Great’ where he suggests that great CEOs adopt a positive strategy to “Get the right people on the bus, get the wrong people off the bus and get the right people in the right seats.” He defines what makes right people and how hard you have to work to make sure your business is populated with them.

I believe business leaders should take a much greater interest and involvement in identifying their staff (at all levels), and not by delegating it to HR professionals; who are the practitioners of policy and implementation, not strategists. One reason small growing businesses get it wrong is that they reach a point; usually around 15-20 employees, where the recruitment policy is abdicated to junior staff who, with little direction, fail to attract and select the best.

One way to do this is to have a strong induction process, with expected targets of achievement, and a good, and extendable, probationary period. If people forget to deliver what their final interview promised then, as Jim would infer “Stamp their ticket and get them off the bus.”

Gareth