Why New Hires Don’t Work Out and How to Fix It

Are you feeling frustrated because the people you hire just aren’t working out the way you’d hoped? Do you wonder why new hires struggle to fit into your team, despite careful planning? In this episode of Leadership is Feminine, host Kris Plachy takes a close look at what might be missing in your hiring process and shares practical steps to help ensure new team members align with your business.

No stranger to the challenges all leaders face when it comes to building a team, Kris candidly shares her tips on what to do when an employee just isn’t working out. Kris discusses several factors that may hinder the successful addition of a new hire to your team.

She raises the importance of a structured hiring process, including creating and sharing a detailed job description, and the necessity of having your framework in place. As Kris advises, “Don’t ever hire someone if you don’t have a job description.” She also urges leaders not to hire out of desperation, cautioning that the odds of such a hire working out are very low.

This episode is a look into a successful hiring process, complete with tips such as maintaining consistent communication with new recruits, setting accurate expectations about work culture, noting your non-negotiables, and the importance of a swift firing process when necessary.

Kris offers insights that will help you refine your approach and build a team that truly supports your vision. Tune in to hear Kris’s unique perspective on leadership and hiring, inspired by years of experience and helping entrepreneurs just like you.

Key Takeaways From This Episode

1. Importance of a Hiring Framework: Emphasizing the importance of job descriptions and the hiring process.

2. Maintaining Clarity During Hiring Process: Presenting candidates with expectations.

3. Avoiding Desperate Hires: Identifying the issues that arise from hastily hiring candidates.

4. Communication and Honesty During the Hiring Process: Portraying a realistic picture of what working in the company is like.

5. Importance of Continuous Communication Post-Hiring: Suggesting frequent check-ins to avoid misunderstandings.

6. It’s Ok to Fire Someone: Learning to quickly let go of hires who don't fit

7. Always Have Candidates in the Pipeline: Adopting a continuous interviewing process to always have potential candidates.

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Transcript

 Kris Plachy:
Hey. Hey. Hey. Welcome to Leadership is Feminine. I am Kris Plachy, your host, in case you are new here. I'm glad that you're here, and if you've been here a while, thanks for listening. I want to talk to you today about something pretty practical comes up a lot. So I thought, well, let's just talk about it.

Kris Plachy:
And we're going to talk about what to do when people that you hire aren't working out. It's, you know, sort of on the heels of what I talked about last week about why do you work. There's a lot of reasons why people don't work out when we hire them. And a lot of those reasons are never going to be things that you have any control over. Hiring is not an exact science because humans aren't exact science. I mean, the truth is, we don't get to control other people. And that's all the way from how they, you know, show up in an interview to what they say yes to and then what they do after. And the same is true with you.

Kris Plachy:
But I do think we can do a better job so that we can do a better job at hiring the best chance of a person succeeding - the best person for the job that we have, that we want to make the decision to hire. Does that make sense? Okay. Which kind of brings me to the first one, the first reason why. And now some of these you're going to say, oh, yeah, or some of them you're going to say, no, no, no, that doesn't apply to me. And that's okay. Like, I just want you to sort of hear that this tends to be what I see with people.

Kris Plachy:
Okay, so I'm going to go through the first one. The first one is a very basic, basicy one, and that is that you don't have your framework in place. And the framework is what I teach in One Hour Leader. It's what I teach. When you come into Lead for Women, in my opinion, if you did nothing other than spend the money and do that, you would change the game for yourself because you would learn the framework that you have to have when you invite someone to come into your company. But unfortunately, too many people don't do that. They just hire people without any kind of framework. So I'm just going to give you the big rocks right now.

Kris Plachy:
Don't ever hire someone if you don't have a job description. Now, I know that sounds awfully rudimentary, but I think it's quite true. And I also think that there's a lot of entrepreneurs out there who, like, want to punch their face in when I say job description. But I'm going to tell you something. You don't have to do a lot to get a job description written. You can go right now and go to ChatGPT and say, "Hey, could you write me a job description for XYZ job in this XYZ industry?" Or you could put your website into the Chat GPT and say, "Could you write me a job description for this job in my company?" And put your job, your company's website in there and it will write you one. And I bet you you're going to like it, like, for the most part. You might change a few things.

Kris Plachy:
But I think you'll be surprised. The more you give information to ChatGPT, the better that job description is going to be. If you describe the size of your business, the culture of your business, the kind of vibe of your business, if you do all those things, you're going to do a better job with the job description. Do not hire someone without a job description.So the facts, that's step number one, right? Because when you present them, which is step number two with the offer, you want to make sure you have a job description to give them, right? We're not going to just say, "Hey, I'd love to hire you as my marketing coordinator. It's $32 an hour. Can you start on Monday?" Now do I understand why we do that? Course. That will be one of the numbers that we're going to talk about. But I'm telling you right now, you can change your life if you have that job description and something that I call 30, 60, 90, which is the structure for how that person will get onboarded.

Kris Plachy:
It doesn't matter how big your business is, even if it's you and two other people, just a little like, do, do, do. These are the things I'm going to want you to do, want you to learn, want you to figure out, want you to understand over the course of the time that you get started with us, it doesn't again, have to be super complicated, but it has to be present. Because if we hire people, unfortunately what happens to a lot of us is we hire someone. "Thank gosh, I finally hired my marketing coordinator." The marketing coordinator starts and you're like, here, just want them to start doing things - right - because you're so overwhelmed. "Please just get some social media posts going. Please just here, open this..." and right? Like it's very common.

Kris Plachy:
But we have to kind of evaluate that if it's not working out. The third thing I see people do that I think we have immediate control over is to not hire desperate. Do not hire from a desperate position. If they are not your best candidate, please don't hire them. If they are someone who was late to an appointment to the interview, don't hire them. If they didn't do your interview assignment but you think their qualifications are so good, don't hire them. If they flaked on an interview, period, don't hire them. Don't hire them. If they said no, and then they come back to you, be careful.

Kris Plachy:
I would be very careful if I hired them. People show you who they are, love. And I realize that you really need a person. But if you're not, like, super hopeful about the decision that you're about to make about someone, let's not hire them. If they're the best of the bottom, let's not hire them, okay? Can we just not do that? Just don't. You're better off without them. I realize that you're overwhelmed. I realize that you're working really hard.

Kris Plachy:
I realize you're burning it at both ends. I realize your team is dry. I realize all the things that I know you're going to be saying to me in the car while you're listening and you're yelling at me like, "Kris, you don't understand." I get it. You can argue for it all you want. I'm just going to tell you. The odds of the desperate hire working out are very low. It's such a big fat drag, but it's so true.

Kris Plachy:
Okay, now, in this little offer package that I had, I forgot to say this, but I want to say this. I want to say this as number four anyway, because I think it gets its own number. You have to tell people what it really is like to work in your company, not what you would like it to be like. Okay, so if your company. My husband used to have a office in a location that I will not name. And it's the opposite of what most of you will think it is. It was it-

Kris Plachy:
So he rented a space. So it was this company that produced, like, it manufactured something. And people all over this building at any given time of day who were, like, on couches with, like, blankets, like, watching Netflix on their laptops. And all the time, like, he's like, "I don't understand who's working in this company," right? And I'm like, God, I wonder what that interview process is like. When they hire someone, do they say like, "Oh, yeah, you know, we just, you have to be here all day. But we don't really work very hard." Like, what does that sound like? I think that's so funny, right? I do think that's a funny sort of thing.

Kris Plachy:
So the second thing, though is to tell the truth, right? We work really hard here. We all chip in. We work for full 40 hours. We do periodic events, launches, seasonal activities. Our peak season is whatever. So we don't allow vacations in the month of whatever. I used to- we were just having this conversation with somebody else.

Kris Plachy:
I used to have work for a company. I couldn't take the month of August off, and I did that for 17 years. I didn't get to have the month of August off any dates. Was just the rules. So if your expectation is that people are going to have to work after hours, you have to tell them that. If your expectation is that there will be times where you're going to have to demonstrate initiative to find things to work on, then you need to set that expectation. You cannot make assumptions that people are just going to figure it out. You have to tell people, "No, we don't give breaks at 10:30 to go to yoga."

Kris Plachy:
Or yes, we do make those decisions. Be clear, because so much of the friction that I hear from people is about stuff that happens in that first 90 days. What happens if someone you hire gets really sick in the first 90 days on their job? Do you tell them? I think you should. I think you should say, "Listen, we know that sometimes there's an uncontrollable situation. You or someone in your family might get really sick. I want you to know that if you have to take more than eight days off in that first 90 days, here's what's going to happen." It seems so silly, but I do think you have to paint a accurate picture because this is the stuff that gets my clients stumped. "What do I do? Rhonda's been gone for two weeks.

Kris Plachy:
"She just started three weeks ago, but she's deathly ill. Do I- what do I do?" You've got to have that figured out because it happens, right? What happens when people don't call? No show, no call, no show, Right. They just don't tell you if they're sick. They just go MIA. Do you have policy for that?So anyway, I'm just trying to vet for you, like, these are things that I know are going to happen if they haven't happened to you yet. And I just think it's great that you think through it all and you talk to them about it so that there's no surprises.

Kris Plachy:
The fifth thing is the lack of communication. And this is up to you. I think you should spend a heck of a lot more time with people right when they start. You should just be, I like morning and evening, morning quick catch up, evening catch up, like their first week. And then maybe you do morning catch up and you do one weekly one. But you have got to be really engaged with these people, especially if they report directly to you. And I know that's hard. I don't like it either. I get it.

Kris Plachy:
I'm not very good at it. I'll be honest. I have to force myself to do that. I really do. So I have a lot of respect for how challenging it is. But I always know that usually when there's an issue with a hire, it's a communication. It's some sort of communication breakdown. And that is up to us at the beginning.

Kris Plachy:
And then the last thing I'm going to say is you're not firing them fast enough. So if you hired someone. I heard Gary Vee say this and I thought it was such great insight. He basically said the biggest reason we don't fire people is our own ego. Like, we can't admit we made a mistake or, and I don't even like to call it that, like, it's just not a good fit and you did the best you could. A lot of people beat themselves up. They're like, "What did I miss? How didn't I see that? You know, she, how didn't I know?" Who knows? Who knows? But you're not firing them fast enough. If you, you know, we just talked about this on my Lead call yesterday.

Kris Plachy:
You have to have your non negotiables. You have to have those things that just tell you like, oh, this is sneaky. And I do, I want you to do the best you can to figure those out. Even in the interview, right? Like for me, it's responsiveness, it's initiative, and it's critical thinking. If you don't have those three or one of those three, that gets to be deal breaker stuff for me because I can't teach that. I don't want to teach an adult how to be responsive. I don't want to teach adult how to have initiative and I don't want to teach an adult how to critically think. If those don't naturally come to you or you haven't learned them already, I'm probably not your best bet.

Kris Plachy:
Only because I'm a super small business and I don't have the time to develop that in someone. I did a lot of that when I worked in a big company because that was, I had so many more resources. I don't have that. And most of you listening to this don't either. So what are those non negotiables that you just have to know are deal breakers? And then if someone gets in the door and you're 60 days in and someone is just not responsive, like this is for me, like they just don't respond, it's a no. Like, I don't know how to work with that. Like, listen, if I ask for you to get back to me by the end of the day, I would expect that you would.

Kris Plachy:
So what are your non negotiables? And then are you holding them because you can't just keep someone because you feel like I can't let them go because of your own ego, like, "Oh, I blew it." No, let it, let it move along. Hire, keep hiring, keep finding people. Right? I honestly believe that in that first 90 window when you filled the position, I would keep interviewing people. If that position is, if you still have candidates, I'd keep interviewing. Why not? And this is my last, last piece of advice, you should always be interviewing. When I had a manager who reported to me, they were all required to interview someone every week. It was on their goals.

Kris Plachy:
We just always were interviewing because you just never know when someone's going to quit. So you've always got to be, especially the harder to find positions. You've always got to be kind of scouting and chatting and figuring out who you know. Right? So do that work now and then. You're not getting into that desperate hire circumstance, right? So those are, that's my package, right? Got to make sure you have that job description. Got to make sure you give them an offer with the job description. And you're 30, 60, 90, so they know what to expect. Right.

Kris Plachy:
You have to have clear communication. You have to make sure you're really clear about what it's going to be like to work here. Please don't hire desperate. Desperate hires typically don't work out. You guys, people who flake on you and then you go back to them, they don't work out. They showed you already that you are not a priority. I don't- Why would you invite them into your queendom? No, just like if you dated a guy and he flaked on you and then you go out with him again.

Kris Plachy:
Absolutely not. What are we doing? Have we remembered who we are? Right, then let's make sure that we're following up, we're communicating. We're tracking on that 30, 60, 90. We've really done our good job in painting a picture of what it's like to work here. Not what, we'd love it to be like to work here, but what it really is like to work here. A lot of those corporate people you guys are hiring into your, into your entrepreneurial culture, they're not adapting well.

Kris Plachy:
It's because you haven't done a good job of helping them understand that, "Yeah, you might be the director of operations, but actually you also are going to have to answer the phone every now and then." But if they're too experienced and too good for that and they think they can just delegate all that and you don't have people to delegate to, they're going to be really mad and they're not going to acclimate. And that's just true. That's just a truth. Tell it like it is. I used to try and talk people out of jobs. Why not? They really want to work for you. You'll find out.

Kris Plachy:
And then you got to know you're non negotiables and you have to fire faster. You got to be always hiring and you got to fire faster. You cannot be held helpless because you're afraid to fire someone or because you're too embarrassed to fire someone that isn't working out. Who cares? Move along. It's part of the process. You get me? I hope so. Hey, listen, we have cool things happening at thevisionary.CEO. You should go check it out.

Kris Plachy:
I think you should go see what's up. We have some cool stuff going on. All right. Thanks for tuning in. Talk to you next time.