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Whether you assign them at the production end or at the point-of-sale, employees make or break a business. This is why human resource managers, especially of large companies, very meticulously examine the particular skills, personality and attitude of would-be employees before hiring them.

For instance, Rosalinda Ferrer, who is in charge of screening the applicants for the fast-rising drugstore chain Generika looks for one specific trait in an applicant, and that is patience.

This, she says, is a must for employees of retail companies because they touch base with different types of customers who have many different types of personalities. Some buyers, Ferrer narrates, would require more attention and explanation on the products, while others would insist on what they want even if better alternatives are available.

“So, above all their characteristics, we test the applicants’ patience. We give them specific scenarios wherein they would have to deal with the most difficult customers and see how they would conduct themselves in those kinds of situation. We don’t just rely on referrals,” Ferrer explains.

She goes on to say that no matter how good your products are, the experience of the customers with your employees is still a key determining factor on whether the buyers would return or not.

 

Simple guidelines to hire the best employees

Perhaps your venture does not have a highly developed human resource department yet, but you want to get the best new people you can possibly have onboard. Or, you simply want to check if your HRD’s strategies are on track. In either cases, heed these tips from an acknowledged expert, Ms. Grace Zata, who is the president of the People Management Association of the Philippines (formerly the Personnel Management Association of the Philippines):

1. Be clear about the knowledge, skills and attitudes needed for the job. Be aware that skills and knowledge can be learned. However, attitudes and personality traits are often innate or more difficult to develop in a person.

2. Think about how to make the job and your company attractive to the kinds of people you want to hire. How do you compete with the bigger companies with well-defined employment brands? Here are some ideas:

a.Position your company as well-managed and on a growth mode, , therefore, there is an opportunity for the applicant to grow with the company.

b. Impress upon them that there is greater multi-tasking in smaller companies.  For the applicant, this means that he or she might only qualify for a professional/technical level in a big company, but he or she can be a manager in a smal company. This appeals to those who believe the cliché: better to be a big fish in a small ocean, than a small fish in a big one.

c. Culture is important. You can offer an environment where people are close and treat each other like family.

3. Have a wide base of candidates to choose from: advertise in different websites (including the free DOLE site); ask for referrals from friends and colleagues; do campus recruitment or executive search; or hire professional staffing agencies. The bigger the net, the richer your harvest. Be patient and disciplined--do not hire the first person who applies! Better to suffer the “pain” of looking for good candidates rather than regret the consequences of a hasty bad hire. 

4. Use appropriate assessment techniques. In the interview, ask for specific incidents or achievements, rather than theoretical questions. Instead of asking, “What is your leadership style?”, a better question is “Please cite a situation where you needed to exercise leadership, what you did about it, and what was the result”. Always do a background check with past employers, i.e., the boss of the candidate, rather than the people the candidate identifies as references.

5. Offer a competitive salary rate, in accordance with your requirements and capabilities. People or human resources are investments, not costs. Many times, if you pay peanuts, you will get monkeys.