I'm your host, Amy Dardis. And in today's episode, we are diving into the cost of hiring the wrong person. We've been talking about hiring and the importance of hiring. And I do believe that hiring is one of the most important business processes you can do that you can get right, because people are the heart of your business and your team is really who drives everything else all your marketing, your sales, your operations, your customer experience. And so knowing how to bring the right person on is crucial. But so often, businesses end up hiring the wrong people and suffer, honestly. Like there's a big price that gets paid. And I want to take some time to actually talk about that because I think it's taking the time to really take a step back and look at the big picture. I think when we're in a hiring process, when we have an open position, it is very easy to feel the pressure of needing to fill that position because you're hurting that open seat is hurting your team. It's putting more stress and pressure on them. It's putting stress and pressure on you. And so you go into this like reactive mode. You're like, okay, I have an open position. I need to fill it as fast as possible. So you're posting your job, put posting out on Indeed or LinkedIn or whatever board you use, and you're going through applicants and you're having this schedule screenings and first interviews and second interviews. And it's taking your time because you have a full-time job, you have your regular responsibilities, and now on top of that, you're needing to set time aside to actually sit down and go through and talk with these candidates so you can fill this position. And I think what happens is we feel this short-term pain that we want to, you know, alleviate as quickly as possible so we can kind of get back to business. But what ends up happening is when we shortcut that process, we actually end up doing our business more harm in the long run. There ends up being like a short-term gain by filling the position, but then there ends up being a long-term pain that only ends up putting you back to the drawing board in the long run. And so I want to kind of take a step back and really walk through what actually happens because I think when we wrap our head around the true cost of hiring the wrong person, like what it's actually doing to our business, it helps us take this process like more seriously. And it helps us like remind ourselves to really do it right the first time because we are not gaining anything by shortcutting the process and just doing what we can to put a body in a seat sometimes or fill a position and and hope that it works out. And sometimes it does, which is why we kind of keep doing this, why we kind of keep winging it, because we're like, hey, sometimes I've just had a gut feeling and I've hired the guy and it's worked out great, and they ended up being one of my best employees. And that kind of gives us this like justification for why we keep doing it the way that we've always done it, or the way that most people do it, instead of realizing how many times or how much cost did we really pay in the long, long run for every time that it didn't work out. So when we hire the wrong person, let's first define where the wrong person is. A wrong person is not a bad person. A wrong person is just someone who is misaligned with what your business needs, like how they operate, how they thrive, how they work, what they value, what they care about. It does not align with what you care about, with what you value, with how your business operates best. And so the first piece of this whole thing is always clarity. You can grab all the clarity elements in a download at Clearauthentic Brands.com slash resources. That outlines all of the things you really do need to take the time to define for your brand, for your business first, before you're ever gonna have a clear picture on who's really gonna thrive in your specific situation. But you're gonna have misalignment in mainly one of two areas. There's there's actually three areas of alignment, but they are going to be misaligned within either your culture, they're gonna be misaligned in their capacity to excel in the role, or they're gonna be misaligned within the contribution aspect. But in the interview process, like if you're actually evaluating whether a candidate is gonna fit or not, we're really looking at culture and capacity. And you can actually download the candidate evaluation form that we use during interview processes, also at Clearauthenticbrands.com slash resources. And that basically shows you exactly how to go through an interview process and evaluate a candidate and make sure that you have all the information you need to make the right decision for your business instead of risking bringing the wrong person on board. But you're gonna have someone who misaligns in these years. So if they misalign in culture, it means that they do not share the same values that your business shares. It means that they don't thrive within the work style that your business operates. Then we're looking at pace, we're looking at structure, we're looking at communication style, independence, autonomy, those types of things. Some people need more structure and more direction or more connection, or some people thrive better with lots of oversight, some people thrive better with a minimal oversight. And the important thing is to understand how your business actually operates? Like what is your pace? What is your communication style? And finding people who are naturally hardwired to actually thrive in that type of environment. They might misalign with not having the natural character or personality traits needed to thrive within your business, or the type of work you do, or the types of people that you work with, or they're going to be misaligned within the fact that you have what you value, but then there are these traits, these red flags, these non-negotiables that actually violate that and they have a tendency to lean in those directions. And that's something that we want to stay away from. So if there's misalignment in any of those sub-areas, whether it's one, some of them, or all of them, then they're going to be misaligned. The other part is they're going to be misaligned in capacity. And so capacity has specifically to do with the role. Culture is focusing on like how do they fit in with your team, with your organization, with your working dynamic. And then the capacity is how do they fit in with the specific role that you're hiring them for, and whether they have the potential, the abilities, and the bandwidth to thrive in that specific role. And that's going to be based on their skills, their experiences, their natural hardwiring, and whether that is just in line with the actual work that you need that role to do. So sometimes you might have someone who aligns with your culture, but actually doesn't align within the role itself, or vice versa. You could have someone who absolutely has the capacity to do the role, but they are misaligned in culture because they don't share the same values. They're not motivated by the same things. And then anytime you have misalignment, it ends up creating friction and it causes tension in all kinds of different areas. And so because that tension exists, it starts, you're gonna see it in different ways. But one of the areas you're going to see this tension come up is if you tension within the actual performance itself. So let's start there. So like if they're misaligned within capacity, then that means that they're in a role that they're naturally, not naturally hardwired for. And so you're spending time coaching them, training them, investing in them. And, you know, that all takes time and money. That takes time and money for for you and for your team and the money that you're paying them and this salary. And no matter how much effort and energy and training you're putting into this individual, they're just not living up to the level of excellence or performance that you really need. So you have this individual who is, you know, not excelling at the role, and you're starting to see that. And this sometimes can take a few weeks or a few months, depending on your training process, because you never know once you first start. But you've probably seen by now, some people just pick it up super quickly and just get it. And other people just don't ever get there, they don't ever get where you need them to do. And the goal is to actually use that interview process to actually determine whether they're going to get it super fast or not. But that's that can be hard to do. There's certainly a science and an art to determining that. But here you are investing all this time and energy into someone who is not ever going to have the level of performance that your business needs them to have. And then when that happens, that ends up hurting the rest of the team. They're having to pick up slack, they're getting frustrated, mistakes are being made, that's impacting the clients and the customers, that's hurting productivity, that's hurting your business reputation. And frustration and tension are breeding across all fronts. And your employee feels that too. Like they know, they feel this, like, you know, they're frustrated because they're not getting it enough. They feel the frustration from the team. You feel the frustration, and it's like that that gets in their head, that ends up like affecting their level of engagement, their level of performance. And either you recognize that this is not going to work out and you have to let them go, or they recognize that, man, this just is not for me, and they decide to leave on their own. And then that puts you back to square one, back to having to hire again. And it's like, hey, could we have avoided this? Like, how much of this could we have avoided if we had spent a little bit more extra time in that interview process up front and thinking about all the time invested, all the money invested, all the energy invested into trying to make this person work when they were, they just never had the bandwidth, the potential or the abilities to do it to begin with. And that's why we want to be able to be very objective with this and pinpoint it down as to why did this person not work out and what could I have done or evaluated within the interview process that could have avoided this in the long run. And then the other area that they're not gonna work out is if they're a misalignment in culture. So that means they're coming on board, they do have the capacity to do the job well, and maybe they even do it excellently, but they just have a personality that rubs people the wrong way. Like they just have a hard time connecting with people, they're not getting along with people the right way, like there's a rift within the team, or like there's some drama, there's some tension, and it's it's interpersonal. And as businesses, sometimes we can be like, oh, but they're so good at their job. Like I everybody just needs to give them a break or back off or not have such high expectations, or we make all kinds of excuses and justifications, and oftentimes this behavior actually continues for a long time, if not even indefinitely, if we were like, but they're good at their job, so therefore I'm gonna deal with all of this drama that is happening. But on the back end of that, here's what's actually happening to your team and your team dynamics is the gossip, the tension, the toxicity, the frustration. That is eating away at people. It is eating away at their attitude, at their engagement, at their excitement for wanting to come to work, at their willingness to work at their best level. It's actually affecting their bandwidth to do the job. It's creating double standards, it's creating distrust, and it's permeating the entire atmosphere of your company, of your team, and they feel it, you feel it, and guess what? Your customers will feel it as well. So here's this very, very high price that we are paying for this one person who rubs your team the wrong way because they either don't share the same values, they do not have the winning personality traits that the rest of your team does. They are exhibiting some of those non-negotiable traits that you know go against what you believe in and what you value, or they just really don't thrive within your work style, and that's causing them to be angry or frustrated because maybe you're fast and easygoing, and there's not a lot of it's a very loose organization, like think on your feet. We work with vague direction, and they're someone who's like, no, I need specifics, I need direction, I need things to be black and white, and you can't give that to them. So that's like that's annoying them, that's making them mad, and they're reacting in a negative way, and it's not necessarily their fault, like they they just thrive better in a different environment. And so, you know, that's hurting your Tom, your team dynamics, that's hurting like the productivity. And in all of these cases, like whether it's misalignment with culture or a misalignment with capacity or a misalignment with contribution, you are ending up with like a broken team in some way or another. And so that's hurting your team's ability to like perform at their highest level. It's hurting like the overall morale and trust and connection of the team, and that carries into the actual like client experience, and one way or another, somebody always leaves, and it's either the person who's misaligned because they finally accept it, or you finally accept it and you make a decision to part ways, or it's someone who is aligned, but because of all of this tension, because of all of these team dynamics, because of the double standard, because of the lack of trust, they are fed up. They've had it. Like this is they're not even excited to come to work anymore because they have to deal with this person, or because the the team dynamics have been broken for so long that they've just lost hope that it's ever gonna be any different. And so they leave because they're like, man, I'm this is this is not how I want to spend my life. This is not how I want to, you know, spend my time and my energy. Like, this is not worth it anymore. So then you lose, you know, someone who probably was great and aligned in all of the ways, and now you're back at square one and you're back to having to hire someone again, but now you have this other person who is still on your team that is still misaligned in some way, and that's just the effect that one misaligned person has like one misaligned person. If you have more than one misaligned person, if you have a small team and you have two people who are misaligned, that really starts to take its toll and that starts to take its effect. And there you are, like in this hiring process, and you're continually returning to the drawing board. But what's happening is over time, like the burden of all of this and the stress of all this and the negative effects of all of this are starting to compound. So it's like not only are you now needing to hire someone again, but the team itself isn't operating well. The the there's broken processes, there's broken trust, there's poor performance that's hurting your ability to serve your customers and your clients and meet demand. And it all comes down to this bottleneck that started with people, which starts with a process. And so by being able to be clear on what it is we're looking for, by being able to like lay out this objectives, if you download that candidate alignment evaluation, you'll see that it actually breaks it down into culture and specifically each of those sub segments. So we're looking at like core values, like what are do they display our core values? Do I think they fit with their our core values? Values. Well, how would I know that unless I'm actually asking questions regarding those things? Like, how would I know if they have these winning personality traits, unless I write specifically down the traits that I'm looking for? And then I'm asking questions that actually give me some of those answers. And so this form keeps it very objective. It helps us be very intentional and strategic with the types of questions that we're asking. So instead of just focusing on skills or experience or previous work experience, which, yeah, you need to spend time on that, but that should just be a portion of the interview. There are three or four other major portions of an interview process that we need to cover. And we need to make sure that we can confidently answer the question do I feel like this person aligns with my business, with my team, and with my role? And when we realize like how this is going to play out in the long run, if we're like, okay, wow, if I if I hire this person and this person doesn't work out, here's all the ways that it's gonna hurt my business. Like it's gonna cost time, it's gonna cost money, it's gonna cost energy, it's gonna cost me trust, it's gonna cost me credibility, it's gonna cross me, you know, safety within my team. And that hurts innovation and that hurts creativity, and that hurts our ability to compete against our competitors and really stand out in the industry. It's like, let's play this out all the way. And be like, okay, not worth it. How could I like mitigate as much risk as possible within the interview process so that I avoid hiring the wrong person? And maybe we can't do this 100% of the time, but we could probably get it to like a 95% success rate. I mean, that's where we should be at. And this hiring process, honestly, like when it's done right, it should be a joy. It should be a really great experience for everybody involved. And hopefully you even get to the point where when you lose people, you're only losing them because of things beyond your control. Like you're losing them because of life experiences happening. Like maybe an employee is married and the spouse gets another job and they have to relocate, or maybe someone retires and hey, that's just their time and we're excited for them. Sometimes it's bad life things like a cancer diagnosis or you know, something going on with like a sick family member needing to move to go and take care of them. I mean, there are there are like unfortunate situations, but the idea here is that you're never losing someone because of an avoidable misalignment issue. And unfortunately, I would say more often than not, the reason people have low retention, low engagement, low performance is because they have too much misalignment within their company. Because one, they can't identify it because they didn't do the clarity piece and define it to begin with. So they they actually can't pinpoint why or where somebody is misaligned, or they have this like misalignment going on, but they don't know how to avoid it in the future. Like they don't know what they did wrong in the first interview process or first hiring process. And so it's like, okay, I could recognize that this person isn't a good fit, but how do I confidently make a decision on how somebody is going to be a good fish? Like, how do I fix this going forward? Or we just kind of like give up and we settle and we just like accept that this is the nature of business and this is just how it goes. And the idea of everybody getting along or everybody being in roles where they actually thrive, and we have this awesome team that we get to impact and they're adding value to the business, like that's just like a pipe dream. And that's where I would say, like, no, it is not a pipe dream. It 100% is doable, it is possible, and it is so worth the effort to make it happen. And it's not even that hard. It's just one taking that step back and realizing, okay, this does cost me. Like I am paying a price when I hire the wrong people, or even the team that I have right now, I could look back and I could look at all of them and I could be like, okay, three of them 100% awesome. A players love having two of them I have questions about, but I can't pinpoint as to why. This this process helps you actually pinpoint that and then know, you know, how to do it better, how to fix it going forward. Because what if you could replace those two question marks with two more A players? And let's say you had a team of five people who were all thriving, who were all amazing. What would that do for your business? What kind of impact would that have? How would that change your life? How would it change your business? Is that worth it? Is it worth it to go through the process of taking that time to clarify your brand, of figuring out the questions you need to ask, of getting this process right so that you do have this amazing team and you can confidently and consistently grow your business because you can grow your team, because you can provide the level of support and experience that your customers want. And you're not afraid. Like people are not your bottleneck and they're not hurting your customer experience. They're not hurting the level of performance. There aren't gaps in your processes because you have this awesome team of people who's like, hey, we care about this and we care about each other and we care about our clients. Let's make some magic happen. Like, that is the beauty of what can happen with an amazing team. And it all starts with a process, it all actually starts with clarity around your business and your brand and what you need. And then from there, we're looking at what is the process to make sure that we're gonna hire the right people. And that's what's coming up in the next few episodes. Like we can't just unpack it all in one episode. It we'd be here for hours, maybe even days, which hey, I'm all for. But we'll break it up, we'll make this in smaller, bite-sized chunks. But hiring the wrong people, it's it's just it's not worth the long-term pain of what's really happening to your business and how that keeps hurting you, compounding over time. We really do want you to have all the tools necessarily, all the confidence, the mindset to be able to hire the right people. Because when you hire the right people, man, like that's changing your life, it's changing your business, but it's also changing their life as well. Like it is a win-win situation for everybody. And when you have the wrong people on board, it's a lose-lose situation for everybody. Like it does nobody any good in the long run, not the individual, not you, not your other employees. Like it does not help anybody. So if we can realize what's happening in the process, then it just helps us be more willing, more ready, more patient with a little bit of the process up front. Cause instead of like speeding through it, I think this is the big one. It's like we don't have a lot of bandwidth, we don't have a lot of time to make a decision. So we think that 30 minutes with a candidate is too much, or an hour with a candidate is too much because it's not just one, it's probably a couple. And it's just like that really does add to your time when you have to be in that situation of hiring. But it's like, what if you spent a little bit of extra time up front, intentional time up front, intentional and efficient and effective time up front? What if you knew what to do up front so that this next time around you stop the cycle? Like after this, this cycle is over. And you hire someone who's actually going to like help you with your bandwidth, who's going to make things better. And then the next time you hire, you're bringing on another person who helps you with your bandwidth and makes things better. And over time, like this is getting better and better and better. And a year from now, two years from now, your whole team looks different. Your whole time commitment looks different, your leadership looks different. And it all starts with being willing to do the work now, to get the right people on board and to stop the this the vicious cycle of allowing the wrong people on board to begin with. So, so much more to come in the next few episodes. So staying tuned. As always, you can check out those resources that I mentioned at ClearAuthenticbrands.com slash resources. That's all for today. See you next time.