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High Performance: Not hiring

May 26, 2015 -  By Phil Harwood

Image: iStock/Oko_SwanOmurphy

Very few green industry companies are not hiring. In other words, they’re fully staffed with no openings. Most companies are actively looking for help, and many are desperately scrambling to just find anyone willing to work for them. This raises interesting questions. Why are only a few companies fully staffed while the rest aren’t? What are they doing that the rest aren’t? It’s worth answering.

One of the differences is that the companies who are not hiring are always recruiting, even if they have no current openings. They are actively filling the pipeline with qualified candidates. They have designated recruitment efforts, a recruitment calendar and clear accountability for recruiting. In addition, they’re constantly scrounging for talent, informally, through their networks. Because of these efforts, they never run out of candidates ready and able to come on board when an opening arises.

Their competitors recruit only when they have an opening. Recruiting, for them, is an enormous undertaking because they lack experience and are ill-prepared. The recruiting process for these companies is slow, arduous and painful. Worse yet, they often end up hiring the wrong person because they’re desperate.

There are many other differences between those who are not hiring and those who are—way too many to be explored in a simple blog post. For today, I encourage you to consider your recruiting. Are you always recruiting—filling the pipeline—or do you only think about recruiting when an opening occurs? Do you have in place a well-crafted and documented recruiting process with accountability for its execution or do you have more of an informal, ad hoc process for recruiting?

Just imagine if you stopped marketing and all proactive selling. What would happen to your sales pipeline? In most companies, this would be catastrophic. Recruiting is no different. If you want something good to come out of the pipeline, you need to fill the pipeline with candidates. If you do so successfully, you may find yourself not hiring next spring.

Now go forth.