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Hiring Staff
You’re about to hire someone -- maybe for the first time! Here are the first steps. If you’ve already hired and are looking for more nuanced articles relating to managing benefits, expectations, and/or firing an employee, see elsewhere in the database
Start with a job description. What do you need staff to do? What responsibilities will this employee have? The description lays out the basics like expectations, professionalism, dress, pay, hours, vacation, benefits -- and more. Remember that the more highly skilled the position hiring for, the more diligent and detailed you should be. Hiring front desk staff is crucial, but also essentially an unskilled position. As such you have a much larger pool of applicants. Vs hiring a new provider … this pool of applicants is much smaller and can be much more tricky.
- Determine the lowest level of training a person would need to fulfill that job.
- Determine the amount you can afford to spend; budget. This also will affect your pool of applicants. Especially the more skilled ones like new providers.
Create a job posting. There are many vendors available to list your job, each of which has a different price point:
- Indeed
- ZipRecruiter
- Craigslist
- Community message boards
- Word of mouth (Broadcast on social! Share over networking!)
- Word of mouth may also be the best because it’s easier to check references if you get them from people you know
Interview. Design interview questions (example questions found here) that are meaningful to you and your practice. Consider any/all of the following modalities of interview:
- Telephone: quick!
- Videoconference: an easy way to screen for tech-savviness
- In-person: more logistics and time-intensive, but can also be more revealing. Once again the more complex the position you’re hiring for the more in-depth your interviewing should be
Call references. Again, prepare for this with specific questions in mind. Expect that you can spend up to a week (sometimes indefinitely!) chasing down references.
Background checks. A quick online search will give you a few vendors to choose from.
Contract or no? There are different schools of thought; consult your attorney and accountant for guidance.
Consider ways to avoid a bad hire (and avoid paying costly unemployment):
- Clearly define a standard trial period of X days; if the hire is not a good fit, you can “not renew” their employment. Make X be a not insignificant amount of time. 2 weeks is NOT long enough. 2 or 3 months would not be unusual
- Consider a “trial day” or “trial week” to see if you’re a good fit -- and pay them for their time without a guarantee for future employment.
Remember OSHA! A good brief from DPC Frontier here and the federal government here.
Most of us would suggest that finding a “fit” for your practice is more important than finding the candidate with the most skills or training. To a large extent, you can always train unskilled staff in how you want them to do their job. What you can’t do well is change someone’s personality. So if they aren’t friendly or hospitable or patient or tough or fierce or passionate or whatever is important to you, your practice, and your milieu … DON’T hire that one.
As someone once said:Â hire slow, fire fast. Good luck!
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Hiring Staff
You’re about to hire someone -- maybe for the first time! Here are the first steps. If you’ve already hired and are looking for more nuanced articles relating to managing benefits, expectations, and/or firing an employee, see elsewhere in the database
Start with a job description. What do you need staff to do? What responsibilities will this employee have? The description lays out the basics like expectations, professionalism, dress, pay, hours, vacation, benefits -- and more. Remember that the more highly skilled the position hiring for, the more diligent and detailed you should be. Hiring front desk staff is crucial, but also essentially an unskilled position. As such you have a much larger pool of applicants. Vs hiring a new provider … this pool of applicants is much smaller and can be much more tricky.
- Determine the lowest level of training a person would need to fulfill that job.
- Determine the amount you can afford to spend; budget. This also will affect your pool of applicants. Especially the more skilled ones like new providers.
Create a job posting. There are many vendors available to list your job, each of which has a different price point:
- Indeed
- ZipRecruiter
- Craigslist
- Community message boards
- Word of mouth (Broadcast on social! Share over networking!)
- Word of mouth may also be the best because it’s easier to check references if you get them from people you know
Interview. Design interview questions (example questions found here) that are meaningful to you and your practice. Consider any/all of the following modalities of interview:
- Telephone: quick!
- Videoconference: an easy way to screen for tech-savviness
- In-person: more logistics and time-intensive, but can also be more revealing. Once again the more complex the position you’re hiring for the more in-depth your interviewing should be
Call references. Again, prepare for this with specific questions in mind. Expect that you can spend up to a week (sometimes indefinitely!) chasing down references.
Background checks. A quick online search will give you a few vendors to choose from.
Contract or no? There are different schools of thought; consult your attorney and accountant for guidance.
Consider ways to avoid a bad hire (and avoid paying costly unemployment):
- Clearly define a standard trial period of X days; if the hire is not a good fit, you can “not renew” their employment. Make X be a not insignificant amount of time. 2 weeks is NOT long enough. 2 or 3 months would not be unusual
- Consider a “trial day” or “trial week” to see if you’re a good fit -- and pay them for their time without a guarantee for future employment.
Remember OSHA! A good brief from DPC Frontier here and the federal government here.
Most of us would suggest that finding a “fit” for your practice is more important than finding the candidate with the most skills or training. To a large extent, you can always train unskilled staff in how you want them to do their job. What you can’t do well is change someone’s personality. So if they aren’t friendly or hospitable or patient or tough or fierce or passionate or whatever is important to you, your practice, and your milieu … DON’T hire that one.
As someone once said:Â hire slow, fire fast. Good luck!