3 Reasons You Get Bad Employees

Do you think you can’t get great employees? Can’t get them to do what you need? Can’t get them to stay? Before you blame your Team, remember that old adage: “You get the employees you deserve.” Let’s start by taking a look in the mirror. The most common mistakes that occur are hiring the wrong person, inadequate training or evaluation and a lack of leadership. Now, let’s take a look at those issues in greater detail.

1. You’re hiring the wrong person or putting them in the wrong role. Using behavioral profiles can help to measure a candidate’s qualities before you hire them. I use the DISC profile to help make the right match of person and position. The DISC profile measures a person’s natural and adapted (under observation or pressure) behavioral tendencies. The profile is very quick to administer and yields some very useful insight into an individual style that is able to predict the likely trends of their behavior in the future, individual strengths, how to communicate with them, and keys to motivating them.

In addition, examine the hiring process and the questions that you’re asking. What do you need to change based on the lessons you’ve learned in the past? Ask questions that uncover values and look for alignment with your company’s values. I have found that a “bad employee” is many times not due to the lack of job competence—it’s more often a failure to mesh with organizational values, culture and mission. You must hire for character because that can’t be taught. An employee with a great “values match” will still under perform if you assign them to the wrong job. Go back through your job descriptions and modify for what the business needs and what personal styles will work best in that role, then hire the person that fits that description. Chaos results when you change the job to match the skill set of the newest hire.

 Simple DISC Profile Styles

2.  The problem could be that your training, measuring, and evaluation process is inadequate. When was the last time you revised your on-boarding process?  Your company handbook?  The initial process for training a new hire?  How welcoming is their first day on the job?  What commitment did you ask the new hire to make?  What KPI’s (key performance indicators) are they held accountable for? How often do they receive feedback? Who mentors the new folks and for how long? I recommend that all team members participate in the regular team meeting (if you don’t have them, start!). At every meeting ask: What can we do to help you succeed in your job?  Many business owners use the “leave alone, zap” method.  With this method, you turn a new hire loose to figure things out and then “zap” when they make a mistake. This, or a similar approach, basically sets someone up to fail. As expensive as staff turnover is (time, repeated re-training, lost productivity, etc), it is certainly worth investing in refining the process so that we do a better job and “start over” less often.

 3. The Leader doesn’t know where he/she is going or doesn’t communicate it to the team.  In order to have great followers, you must be a great leader. No team can ever out-perform its leadership. Are you the kind of leader that a great employee would want to follow? Are you running the kind of business that a great employee would want to work for? Your team watches everything you do and dissects everything you say. Start with your communication—do you communicate clearly and regularly? Is your communication a two-way street or do you transmit only?  Are you consistent in your statements and behavior? Are you consistent with the stated company values?  Do you do what you say you will do? Do you have the courage to ask for feedback on YOUR performance?  Do you listen to the answers?  Leadership is a contact sport.  If you have the backbone and can truly listen to, and have gratitude for the answers, survey the Team about their views of you as the Leader.  Be willing to “sharpen your saw” to make some changes. Change your behavior, change your results!