I was at a coffee shop that I frequent and working on my book. A gentle man sat down next to me talking on his phone with what appeared to be his wife and kid. He wasn’t talking loudly but this coffee shop was small so it didn’t matter and he was only about two feet away from me anyway.
So I overheard most of his conversation not by choice and if you have ever been in a small coffee shop then you can relate. He was going on about how he needed to interview a large number of people because he at least 50% of them would leave shortly after being hired. Being a thinker by nature, I am constantly running through improvement ideas in my mind. Small or large, it doesn’t matter. It is what I do.
Now I know that churn, also know as turnover rates, can be high in some businesses by nature but if you have to replace 50% of your staff on a routine basis, then you have room for improvement somewhere inside of your business. Where is that some place? Well only you would know that for sure or maybe you have never thought about it but it’s highly likely that it is there.
He went on with the person on the other end of the phone about looking into the book and setting-up a couple of interviews per day. At first it sounded like they were using some type of guidelines to hire people so maybe lack of hiring process was not the issue. However, I later learned that was not the case. In fact, the book contained applications of candidates. My original suspensions appeared to be valid especially after he spent the next 30 minutes explaining to the person on the other end of the phone what to look for in the candidates resumes, type of attitude, background, experience, etc.
These are all things that could be documented in a hiring process of some type and provided to his team so that he would not have to spend that time himself explaining it to someone over a phone call. And considering a 50% turnover rate for employees , I can only imagine how often he is having this phone call or performing this task himself. This is a clear case where process can save tremendous amounts of time and money. Now as far as the 50% turnover rate, well I am sure there is more going on that could be improved but a hiring process appears to be an easy win to save time by avoiding repeatable task in this scenario. Of course this is all based on a conversation I overheard in a coffee shop but I have seen this scenario play out in businesses before so I know it happens.
Especially when you are supposed to be spending that time with your family, which based on the look on the womans face that was with him, is clearly what he should have been doing.
