Written by: Ryan Chacon
There are very few instances where “reactionary” anything returns a positive result–hiring is definitely not one of them. Anytime a business is waiting to react vs. being proactive (where they are going vs. where they have been) they are probably already behind.
When it comes to the human capital and thus the culture of a company the risk is too high to be reactionary.
The basic way to describe “ reactionary hiring ” is when a company waits until a job is vacant and simply picks any potential candidate to fill the slot as quickly as possible. This results in a lack of proper due diligence to evaluate the candidate for probably the most important attribute. An attribute you can’t assess when reading a resume or even meeting them one time–cultural fit.
Simply picking anyone to fill a slot puts the culture of your company at risk–what if they can’t work with noise and your office is noisy? What if they can’t work well with others and your whole team is collaborative? There are many factors to consider that can completely derail a team with one improper hire. If you’re willing to risk the company culture for any single hire, then you simply don’t care about culture. Meaning you don’t care about your employees and failure is only a matter of time.
The culture of your company drives success–production is great, but without the proper culture you will never get the production you need to succeed.
Every culture is different, there is no one right type of culture only wrong culture fits. At Leverege cultural fit is the most important hiring factor when it comes to bringing on a new team member–don’t get me wrong we want you to be skilled but even the most skilled person put in the wrong culture can yield catastrophic results for the company and individual alike. If the person we hire does not fit the culture it affects everyone negatively and thus slows the growth of the company and we can’t afford that–not sure many companies can.
One of the most cliche saying applies here–”Great things take time”–but with hiring it is truer than ever.
Simply hiring because someone’s resume looks good is insane to me. What if they are complete opposites of everyone in the office and can’t produce in the current company culture? Is it easier to change the entire culture, risking negative effects on the current team? Could it be easier to simply not hire that person and take more time to find someone who gels well with the team in the current, proven environment?
I try to think about it this way—imagine what type of environment you thrive in and what type of environment makes you uncomfortable, annoyed, etc.–can you be productive in the latter? If not how can you expect, or why would you want anyone to be put in that position? Reactionary hiring leads to this situation more often than not. The culture of your company is too vital to the success of the company to put yourself in a crapshoot when it comes to hiring on a whim if culture fit is not there.
The best thing a company can do is always be hiring. Always assessing talent and taking the time to project future human capital needs. This will ensure that you’re never put in a reactionary situation or state of mind where you may be forced to sacrifice one of, if not the most important attribute when it comes to hiring a new team member–cultural fit.