People aren’t your greatest asset… the right people are

When Randy Quarin - Executive Head Hunter and I started IQ PARTNERS over 20 years ago, we made every mistake in the book, and it took quite some time for us to become rigorous and disciplined in how we built the company. We always knew we wanted to build a firm of substance and scale that would live beyond us, but we didn’t know how to do all the things we needed to do to build that firm. Even though we had significant recruiting experience, we still made a ton of business mistakes. As founders we were so focused on delivering for our clients’ businesses, we neglected our own to some extent. Over time we learned and evolved and grew to about 40 people, but it was incredibly painful. I just wish we knew then what we know now, like…

The Importance of Hiring the Right People

This can be broken into #1/ The Importance of Hiring, AND #2/ The Right People. As the saying goes, “the cobblers’ children have no shoes.” Not only did we not subject ourselves to the recruitment rigour we provided for our clients, we also didn’t invest enough time or effort into recruiting for ourselves.?We now know that up to 30% of a successful founder’s time should be spent here!

Here are some other things to keep in mind.

Culture

You need to build and protect the right company culture. A great hire will not only excel at their role but contribute positively to the team/culture. A bad hire can be like a cancer on your team’s morale. When a member of your team isn’t fulfilling the responsibilities of their position it places a significant burden on your other employees who can become burnt out or unsatisfied from having to pick up the slack, which is a major drain on morale.

Turnover Costs

The cost of a bad hire is 2-3 times their salary. The money and internal resources you invest in hiring, onboarding, training, and getting people up to speed is significant. In addition to slowing your growth and making your great people question the company they’re keeping, the intangible cost of a bad hire (disappointed clients & more demands on leadership to fix things) can be even more detrimental.

Business Growth

Most business owners have been there -- having the wrong person in a role usually means important aspects of their role are falling through the cracks. That means not only is your business not running as smoothly as it could be (hello unhappy clients/customers), but now you have to fire them and have the role sit vacant or underserviced while you repeat the hiring process. The more this process happens, the more detrimental it can be to the growth of your business. On the other hand, hiring the right people the first time keeps your business moving in the right direction.

“People aren’t your greatest asset, the right people are.”

-Jim Collins

Building a thriving business isn’t just about building headcount, it’s about getting the right people in the right roles. Part of the reason we decided to join Recruitment Entrepreneur as its Canadian partner is to apply everything we learned from building our own business to help other recruitment entrepreneurs build their thriving recruitment businesses from the start. We have fostered a community and dedicated team who provide funding, financial expertise, operational strategy, back-office support, legal advice, marketing, and talent attraction solutions, all of which enable our partner businesses to flourish.

Do you need help starting or scaling your own recruitment business? Seek funding, mentorship and support from the experts. Reach out today for a discovery call with Recruitment Entrepreneur Canada.