Let’s all be honest here. Every company has them, jobs that are so “miserable” that it is almost impossible to find anyone to do them. And if you are lucky enough to hire someone for that miserable job, you then have to work really hard to retain them.
I use the word “miserable” here as a term to describe those jobs that you probably wouldn’t want to do yourself but usually are critical and vital for the your daily operations to run smoothly. The sad reality is that these jobs are usually some of the most important you could fill because the role is critical in keeping your business functioning.
So how do you do it?
Entrepreneur Magazine recently offered some tips on this dilemma.
Be Honest
First, be honest when you describe the position to potential new hires in the hiring process. Don’t gloss over the fact that the job will require hard, backbreaking, boring work. Experts advise to be honest about what the job will entail even when you advertise.
According to Jeffrey Saltzman, an industrial psychologist and owner of an organizational effectiveness consulting firm:
“Realistic job previews, where you honestly tell people what the job entails, will create a condition where more people will not take the job, but the ones who do will be much more likely to stick around. You need to find the right person for the right job.”
Nothing can destroy the morale of new employees faster than having false expectations regarding their roles with your company. If you tell them early in the hiring process what the job actually entails, you might scare a few folks off (but those would be the ones who wouldn’t have lasted anyway), but the ones who you do hire will likely be around much longer.
Accentuate the Positives
Secondly, point out the pluses of the job.
Even lousy jobs have some positives to them, so point these out in your ads and discussions with potential candidates. If the job requires long hours and can be tedious, find something in the job that will attract people who want that feature in a new role.
Tom Gimbel, CEO of Chicago recruiting firm LaSalle Network, believes that “no position is impossible to fill.” Gimbel makes the point that lots of business owners often “consider a job undesirable simply because they wouldn’t want the post themselves.”
Keep that in mind–don’t assume that the rest of the employee population doesn’t want a specific job just because you personally wouldn’t want it. This makes sense. If you are in your 50s and have been running your company for 25 years, an entry-level job doing a menial task (from your perspective) would probably appear unattractive to you. But the job could be quite attractive to a recent high school graduate or a student paying his way through college.
Be A Good Boss
And, finally, and this may be painfully obvious but needs to be said, the best way to retain folks in any roles, but especially for those in lousy jobs, is to be a good boss.
Tom Gimbel points out an amazing statistic, “In all of the studies we’ve done, 80 percent of the people who leave jobs don’t leave because of the job but because of their manager.”
This really points out the importance of ensuring that your mid-level managers (assuming that this person does not report directly to you) are good at what they do and can lead people who are doing these types of jobs.
In most companies, if a person survives the entry-level, lousy job, they get promoted to the next level, quite often into a leadership role. Here is where it gets tricky.
If they hated their prior role, they will assume that the new hire will as well and will probably manage the person accordingly. People who hate their prior jobs are probably not the best people to manage new employees in their old roles. Just keep that in mind because as Mr. Gimbel points out, people can be driven away by bad management even if they have learned to endure or enjoy their lousy job.
Impact on Being Buyer Ready
Potential buyers of your business will look at key employee turnover rates as well when doing due diligence on your company. Buyers have more confidence and are more willing to pay a premium when the business owner has developed a solid mid-level management team, a team of leaders who motivate and inspire their associates to reach ever-improving levels of productivity and output.
Develop a management team full of people that both love their jobs and have the ability to truly lead. Buyers look for companies that are “buyer ready.” These are companies that from day one have hired people with the right aptitude, desires, and work ethic and have developed them into true leaders.
For more information on building a buyer ready business, please click here and download our whitepaper on this topic.
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