Always Be Recruiting!

When my husband and I owned restaurants, one of the most important lessons he taught me when it came to crafting a solid staff was to always be hiring. "You never know when the star employee is going to walk through that door and you want to make sure they are working for you, not the other guy," he would say.This goes for recruiting as well.  I learned to apply this rigorously and not only did it ensure we had professional staff, it allowed us to trim the "dead weight" and saved the business money. 

Finding quality employees is always high on the list of concerns from companies we help every day. This is why we invest in and are involved with programs such as CARP (Career Awareness Readiness Program), LINC, Workforce Pipeline, Workplace Wellness, among others. All of these programs work to improve educational opportunities for local residents, connect quality people with the right employers, create quality work environments, and promote great work ethics. We are persistent in our pursuit to provide tools, ideas, resources, access, and assistance to our members. 

Motivational speaker and founder of M Power Resources, Charles Marshall, talks about the importance of this practice (hiring/recruiting) in his latest blog (shared below). I began following Charles about a year ago and one of the things that appealed to me was his dedication to helping businesses grow. His company, M Power Resources, provides growth resources for businesses and individuals and on top of that, he's funny. Check out his book, Shattering the Glass Slipper, its central message is that success is available to all who develop, harness, and apply their Seven Powers. In his blog, he points out that recruiting can happen anywhere when you are actively looking. Give Charles a read and apply the Always be Recruiting for your business today. 

Article Reprinted with Permission by Charles Marshall

One of the questions I am most frequently asked these days is: How do we hire quality employees who want to work?
 
My answer is pretty simple, really: Always be recruiting.
 
Recently, when I was speaking at a school nutrition conference, I asked for volunteers to stand up and tell me their best customer service story. One woman stood up and told me that she and some friends were eating at a pizza restaurant one night when their waiter seemed to get everything wrong. Their whole evening was a comedy of customer-service errors--wrong orders to the wrong people who were charged the wrong amounts. 
 
As they finished their meal, the manager came over to their table, apologized for the problems, gave them a discount, and then offered everyone in their party a gift certificate to make up for their bad experience.