Managers - when do you look at yourself after several bad hires? (employee, average)
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One of my previous jobs was in an IT department at a bank. On paper, this place looks great - good benefits, decent comp, has won all sorts of best place to work awards in banking publications and in its metro, etc.
I was hired there in 2/2016. By that July, I was on a PIP and on my way out. I was hired by a director, and then the CEO hired a CIO above my director after I was hired. I turned in my notice once I got an offer elsewhere, and the CIO said they hoped to learn something from the obviously poor fit.
Before I left, another IT staff member turned in her notice, and said the same thing happened to a previous employee who held the role. He was there for several months and then fired.
I somehow connected to the guy they hired after me on LinkedIn. Didn't really talk to him at first, but back in November, he sent me a message wanting to talk. He went through the same thing the last person and myself went through - there about six months, placed on a PIP, and then fired.
They've been through at least three people in the role, and it hasn't worked with any of us. At that point, they seem to have some sort of problem in hiring the right people, developing them, and working with them.
As a manager, if you had been through three failed hires, would you start looking internally?
Clearly if they've had almost identical issues resulting in quick turnover the past 3 or more candidates then something is clearly wrong and needs to be evaluated.
As a manager, if you had been through three failed hires, would you start looking internally?
Internally for new people to fill the role, internally for problem processes, or internally as a personal failing? Your post title implies one thing, your post another.
I review all things after a failed hire. Was the job scooped correctly? Was the person given the training and support they needed? Is the salary adequate to attract the needed talent? Was the person flawed? Did I hire the wrong person?
I have seen all of the above. I have made the wrong hiring decisions, and I have seen the organization fail a hire. It does happen, and the best thing to do is to learn your lessons to avoid doing it again.
If you've hired for the same role three times and had the same or similar issues all three times, you need to start looking at the type of people you're hiring and the person leading them. There's a disconnect somewhere.
Often managers hire for what they think they need, not what they actually do need.
Internally for new people to fill the role, internally for problem processes, or internally as a personal failing? Your post title implies one thing, your post another.
I review all things after a failed hire. Was the job scooped correctly? Was the person given the training and support they needed? Is the salary adequate to attract the needed talent? Was the person flawed? Did I hire the wrong person?
I have seen all of the above. I have made the wrong hiring decisions, and I have seen the organization fail a hire. It does happen, and the best thing to do is to learn your lessons to avoid doing it again.
If you've hired for the same role three times and had the same or similar issues all three times, you need to start looking at the type of people you're hiring and the person leading them. There's a disconnect somewhere.
Often managers hire for what they think they need, not what they actually do need.
Agree with fishbrains, and your last sentence. It resonates with me, because I’ve experienced it myself on a couple different occasions. I’ve had managers offer me roles that were simply not a good fit for my skills or what I was looking for in a job long term. But they sold the role to fit my expectations, because they really wanted me to work for them. Well, it didn’t take long to realize that the role was not going to be for me long term. So I did what any rational person would do, and I sought employment elsewhere.
Only recently, did I have a hiring manager give it to me straight. I could tell that she really liked me in our interview. However, when she passed on me, she wrote me a pretty extenive email explaining that she thought I was great, but that she feared I would be bored with this role sooner than they could afford. She even went as far as passing my resume on to her director. Obviously, it sucks to get rejected. But I greatly appreciated her integrity and honesty. She saved both of us a major headache down the road.
I learned a valuable lesson from that experience, and I really wish more hiring managers would put as much thought into their decision as she did.
I had this issue revolving door managers above me eventually the CIO was let go only so many times they can blame one person for problems that happened. We had some big IT outages and projects didn't get done. Once we got a new CIO he replaced all the directors and upper managers things got better. Best just not to take it personally and move on sounds like if those same CIO and director are in charge nothing much will change.
Early in career, I was offered an opportunity I relished, except it was contractual, one year length, and I was unwilling to not work without benefits.
It was working for a VP of HR at a F500 hq.
Task: Statistically map, by reporting manager and employee numerical ranking, their 5 year history of voluntary attrition.
He wanted a 20/70/10 grouping. Top 20% would be managers who lost smallest % of talent, within 5 years, that were rated in the top 20% of this large corp. 70% would be the middle ranks of managers retaining top 20%. Bottom 10% mgrs. would be those disproportionately losing top 20% talent.
Bottom 10% of mgrs. would be given two years to drastically improve, and lose bonuses during that timeframe. Too little improvement = fired for cause. Top 20% retaining would be rewarded with 2x their normal bonus rates.
He had the backing of the COO in axing any managers at the extreme of the bottom 10% w/o offering a 2year remedial period of time.
Told me "There is nothing a manager can do to make it up to this corp, if they fail to retain our top 20% too often".
Early in career, I was offered an opportunity I relished, except it was contractual, one year length, and I was unwilling to not work without benefits.
It was working for a VP of HR at a F500 hq.
Task: Statistically map, by reporting manager and employee numerical ranking, their 5 year history of voluntary attrition.
He wanted a 20/70/10 grouping. Top 20% would be managers who lost smallest % of talent, within 5 years, that were rated in the top 20% of this large corp. 70% would be the middle ranks of managers retaining top 20%. Bottom 10% mgrs. would be those disproportionately losing top 20% talent.
Bottom 10% of mgrs. would be given two years to drastically improve, and lose bonuses during that timeframe. Too little improvement = fired for cause. Top 20% retaining would be rewarded with 2x their normal bonus rates.
He had the backing of the COO in axing any managers at the extreme of the bottom 10% w/o offering a 2year remedial period of time.
Told me "There is nothing a manager can do to make it up to this corp, if they fail to retain our top 20% too often".
What a fascinating project that makes a big difference in improving employee morale. It's has a much larger impact on employee retention than getting the employee of the month parking spot. I wish more companies would look at their managers objectively, instead of blindly siding with nightmare managers with no soft skills.
Early in career, I was offered an opportunity I relished, except it was contractual, one year length, and I was unwilling to not work without benefits.
It was working for a VP of HR at a F500 hq.
Task: Statistically map, by reporting manager and employee numerical ranking, their 5 year history of voluntary attrition.
He wanted a 20/70/10 grouping. Top 20% would be managers who lost smallest % of talent, within 5 years, that were rated in the top 20% of this large corp. 70% would be the middle ranks of managers retaining top 20%. Bottom 10% mgrs. would be those disproportionately losing top 20% talent.
Bottom 10% of mgrs. would be given two years to drastically improve, and lose bonuses during that timeframe. Too little improvement = fired for cause. Top 20% retaining would be rewarded with 2x their normal bonus rates.
He had the backing of the COO in axing any managers at the extreme of the bottom 10% w/o offering a 2year remedial period of time.
Told me "There is nothing a manager can do to make it up to this corp, if they fail to retain our top 20% too often".
These plans are incredibly difficult to implement, because the data is inherently dirty.
Things that immediately come to mind are:
How do you determine top 20% performers?
What if a top 20% performer is on a dept that has a lot of bottom 10% performers, but the manager cannot get rid of the for some reason?
How do you compare departments of different sizes?
What if a manager has no top 20% people?
What if managers aren’t with the company for that many years? How do you assess their turnover? If average management turnover is 5 years, you have a virtually empty data set.
Does the company pay competitive wages for all roles? If you pay competitively for accountants, but not competitively for engineers, is it fair to the person who manages engineers for their high turnover?
I could keep throwing problems at this all night. Sure, you can keep throwing in corrective factors (if engineers are paid 92% of industry median, but you pay accountants 104% of industry median, how do you handicap this?), but those corrective factors are in themselves estimates and guesses.
The end result is likely to be a bunch of data, with a lot of exceptions, to which many peo0le raise legitimate concerns.
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