When most shop owners look at their shop’s rosters, they put their emphasis on recruiting instead of retaining. Just a slight shift in thinking could help keep your roster whole, however.
“Because you recruit based on what you have not on what you want, that’s a lesson that a lot of people do not learn,” says Richard Flint, owner of Richard Flint International and business coach. “What you want to do is you want to recruit the people not who fill the position, but who improve the company environment.”
Flint’s CARS seminar “Recruiting and Retaining Quality People” on Tuesday gave shop owners tips on how to create a clear picture of what you as an organization needs and what the position’s priorities are. The best way to do that, Flint says, is to sit with your quality people and have them help you prioritize what the new person’s skills need to be.
“And also when you are recruiting somebody, you let your quality people interview them before management ever gets to them,” he suggests. “Because your quality people will hire a business partner, while management will hire a person to fill apposition. And that’s where a lot of the challenge comes in.”
Flint shared with attendees three personality types to learn when it comes to working with employees. He says it’s key to the shop’s success that owners understand the different personalities and what their expectations are from leadership.
Wrapping up the seminar, Flint says the owners — and their managers in some cases — now can overcome the fear of losing people. They instead can structure an environment to retain and recruit people.
“These quality people, they’re tired of having to work beside the negative people,” he says. “They’re looking for a business partner, someone who will strengthen the organization rather than just do a job.
And that makes people happy from the top down.
