The Employee Turnover
is Unacceptable

I have always subscribed to Marcus Lemonis’ three P’s of business: people, process, and product.

After taking over the company in 2017, I focused on the process and product part of this equation. I have always thought if you nail the process and product portion, then you can backfill the people part.

With more assets and revenue, you could figure out the people part later.

I mean, there are 158 million people employed in America, so really, it can’t be that hard to find a handful of people.

 I don’t think I have ever been more wrong about a topic.

Under my watch, there has been way too much turnover at Potomac.

The natural excuse is to simply say that “people suck” and pass the blame around. The easy path is to make it a generational thing.

• I could blame the younger generation for caring more about pumpkin-spiced lattes rather than being proficient at any skills.
• I could blame the older generation for printing PDF’s and still paying for an AOL email address.

In my initial draft, I place the blame solely on the person writing this article – me. However, my leadership team quickly pointed out this is a shared failure. While we’ve had some big hiring wins, we’ve had more than our fair share of misses and have failed as a team to implement the necessary policies and procedures for effective hiring.

Our current process consists of a handful of “aw shucks” interviews, followed by a gut decision on the best fit.

For a company that promotes “data>feelings,” this doesn’t exactly pass muster.

Don’t get me wrong, we have a great group of people that I would ride through any fire with, but the turnover has haunted me for years.

For me, it has been a personal failure. That shit ends today!

Here is how I plan on fixing the problem:

NICK MCDANIEL

Developing an Actual Process

Here is what we know about creating a hiring process. Absolutely nothing.

So, like any good business, I looked around the industry at other firms that have nailed this process.

I reached out to our friends at Altruist because I heard how well they nail the hiring process. Not only did they set up a call with us, but basically outlined their process including helpful guides and links to get us started.

H/t to Katherine Starros for being a kind person; just talking with her tells me all I need to know about how well Altruist executes the hiring process.

Here is what the current process looks like:

The hiring manager will draft a job post that is tossed around for edits. Do we have a standard template that everyone can follow? No, because we don’t have a process.

The hiring manager will conduct the first interview. What do they ask or talk about?  I have no idea because we don’t have a process.

The hiring manager will decide which candidates will be back for a second interview. How do they decide who to move forward? I have no idea because we don’t have a process.

The second interview is conducted, but whomever the hiring manager decides is a good fit. I have no clue how that decision is made and don’t really care as long as it’s not me.

I think it’s safe to assume they just ask the same questions the first person asked. Because why not? We don’t have a process, so everyone just makes stuff up.

Here is what we are going to start doing:

We are going to use Linkedin Talent Solutions, to manage the entire job process from start to finish.

LinkedIn is the place to be if you are employed or looking for a job. If someone is not proficient and detail-oriented enough to keep their LinkedIn current then, frankly, I don’t want them.

To apply for the job, you must meet particular requirements and submit a 2–3-minute video about yourself and why you want this job. This will serve to see how well the prospective employee presents on camera and will help to weed out the number of applicants who are too lazy to bother.

The hiring manager will determine the candidates to hire based on a predetermined list of criteria around relevant experience, tenure, positions held, etc.

The first interview will be conducted by the hiring manager with a list of prepared questions. No going off-script here, as our primary concern is gathering data.

The second interview will be conducted by a C-suite member who has direct experience within the skill set of the person being hired. This will also be done with a list of prepared questions different from the first interview. This will be a deep-dive interview on relevant skill sets.

The third and final interview will be a panel interview with the entire leadership team. The goal of this interview is to test how the candidate will respond to different scenarios that will arise in their day-to-day work.

Everything will be done via video! The candidate will have to conduct the interview in their remote office location so we can make sure they have the proper setup (trust me on this one).

This process will take time, and we will be very detailed.

Data>Feelings

Some people will be really turned off by the notion of taking a competency test.

But I don’t care because it’s worse to figure out 6 months later that the person doesn’t have the skill set or personality type we are looking for.

After the final panel interview, we will conduct an aptitude and/or personality test on each candidate.

The skill tests used will be dependent on the job they are applying for. I don’t need a salesperson to know how to code or write content, but I do need them to sell stuff and build relationships. Let’s test it out.

The personality test will be the MBTI Personality Assessment, which will act as an additional evaluation metric. These tests should not be relied upon as your sole indicator in the decision-making process but are an important data point.

If you are a shy introvert, then you have no business being in sales.

We need to know this type of data.

Conclusion:

We have been focused on growing the business, and some things just don’t get the TLC they deserve. But, as we grow, it’s my job to make sure all the plants are watered.

The hiring process will improve, and my hope is to reduce the staff turnover.

Hiring slow and firing fast is how we roll, but we owe it to the candidate to hire slowly and correctly.

However, I will admit that none of this could matter because hiring is truly a crap shoot and likely, at best, just an educated gut decision.

There is also my possible, maybe, likely, deep-down belief that most people do actually suck. Jk…sort of.

Of note, I am unemployable, and if ever need a job, you should never hire me.

Manish

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