What if I told you that I thought you should provide tips and tricks to your employees on interviewing? Let me make this crystal clear so people don’t question. What if your company provided interview training for your employees to interview at other companies?
Would that be crazy? Why would a company do that? What value would that provide. Hear me out.
Most, if not all companies, have a bell curve of employees based on performance. They have their top performers (more than likely 10 – 15% of the organization), their core players (70% of the organization) and your low performers (more than likely 10 – 15% of the organization).
Companies like GE fire the bottom 10% annually (or at least they used to). It’s become such a known factor that many of the bottom level employees leave on their own, knowing it’s going to happen.
Managers – How often have you had the difficult conversation with someone letting them go, knowing they were going to have a hard time finding a job? Were they surprised this was coming? I don’t imagine you leave that meeting, feeling to good about yourself, right?
What if instead, you were honest with this employee when the writing was on the wall? What if you gave them 6 months, connected them with a few staffing agencies and gave them time to go interview? What might that person say about your organization when they leave? No one wants to be unwanted. But feeling like you are treated like a human, goes a long way.
Let me give another scenario. You have a core player (see above – the majority of your people are core players). They aren’t as engaged anymore and have been quietly job searching for the last few months with no success. What if instead, they felt comfortable coming to you and letting you know they weren’t happy or felt they had no where to grow? This leaves you with two different options:
- Agree with them and offer to help them in their search, with referrals, etc
- Disagree and have a conversation about what growth opportunities exist and what they need to work on to get there.
Let’s finish this with the worst-case scenario. A high potential wants to take the interviewing class. This employee has so many growth opportunities at the organization and for whatever reason they are looking elsewhere. While it’s a real bummer that you might lose this person, knowing this information more than 2 weeks ahead of time has incredible value. Could they train their replacement? Could you help them find their dream job? Why isn’t their dream job with you? How could it be? Being able to have real and honest conversations like this can provide so much value. Maybe you lose this employee but save others.
What Glassdoor, LinkedIn and social media are telling everyone is how you treat your employees matters. Whether they are candidates, new employees, tenured employees or alumni of your organization, they all deserve respect and honesty.
If you treated your employees this way, maybe they’d be more honest with you. How could that benefit you? How could that hurt you?
What might this look like?
