Sustainable Recruiting: How to Build a Team for Success

Sustainable recruiting—what on earth does that term even mean? Don’t worry, it has nothing to do with implementing eco-friendly practices in your company (although that’s very important too!). Instead, it’s all about building a team that’s not only right for the present but also stands the test of time.

You don’t want to find yourself searching for new staff within a week or a month because you made the wrong hiring decisions. Sustainable recruiting is an essential part of building a successful business. Having a team that not only shares your goals but also operates from a place of deep alignment and understanding is possible, and in this blog post, I will teach you the foundations to achieve this.

Why Core Values are Key in Sustainable Recruiting.

The first step to sustainable recruiting is to be very clear on your Core Values, Mission, and Vision.

Your business Core Values are the foundation of sustainable success. They dictate how things are done and what is non-negotiable.

When Core Values are crystal clear, magic happens. Core Values will bring your team together, providing a shared sense of purpose and direction. With everyone looking through the same lens, your business moves forward with unity and focus, steadily working towards a shared mission.

Your Mission determines the reason for your business ‘ existence, your overall goals & what type of products and/or services are offered.

The Vision describes the basic human emotion that the founder intends their customers to experience through their services/product

But it is really your Core values that will determine the next steps and everything you do in your business

Sustainable Recruiting: Exercise

Ask yourself the questions from below graphic and fill in the blanks with each of your Core Values.

I will share an example based on my own Core Values below.

 

Example

My Core Values are Independence, Energy, and Impact.

1| How would it look like if I hired my next team member with independence?

I would want them to be detached from me as the business owner, I want them to be independent.  

2| How would communication from a place of energy look like at this moment?

If I have a hard conversation with someone, I want them to feel an energy of kindness, or good intentions, I want them to feel that I mean well, no matter what the conversation is about. So I make sure to set the energy in that way.

3| Does this person fulfill the value impact?

I will ask myself, can this person make an impact in my business, in my clients?

4| If I run my business through the lens of impact, what needs to change/be enhanced/cut out?

I will ask myself what is holding me back from being impactful.

Preparation for Sustainable Recruiting

You will need to think of these 3 concepts:

GROWTH

Growth comes hand in hand with sustainable recruiting.

It is obvious that when you hire people, the business & you will grow. Make space for that: internally & externally.

You need to be aware that you will need to put time into onboarding the new hires, team integration, etc.

Be prepared for new challenges, make time for you to sit and work through new levels of obstacles and plan your work differently.

You are now not planning just for yourself anymore. You have to think about other people’s probabilities. For instance, If you have a team, there will be someone getting sick, so you always want to have a backup plan.

You need to make sure that everyone can work together.

SYSTEMS

Whether it is for communication, data, planning, projects, training, or anything else – Google docs are now not anymore sufficient.

Have a minimum of systems & workflows ready to use and onboard people with so that their work as yours will be around their actual tasks vs having to figure out how to do the tasks or where to find stuff or what to do in the day-to-day business.

LEADERSHIP

This plays a crucial part in sustainable teams. You will need to understand that we are far out of the era of ” managing ” and ” controlling “ people.

You are becoming a leader. Each person may need a different approach based on cultural background, neuro-diversities, language barriers, and/or any other differences.

We are all human, let’s never forget that.

Hiring for value vs skill vs fit

Hiring based on VALUE only will get you a person that will be loyal and driven to move the business forward. If none of the other things align, it can cause complications if the person is not a good team fit.

Hiring for SKILL only will often cause troubles in the team setting and/or have people not be loyal to the business and hence their performance will not line up with your business values.

Hiring based on team FIT only can cause the person to feel like they can not contribute or have to constantly catch up and ultimately not be able to move the business forward and/or not relate to the values either.

SO – HOW TO HIRE THE BEST PERSON for long-term sustainable recruiting:

VALUE BASED – 30% The person you hire wants to share most of the business ‘ values & be motivated by the mission the company is here to accomplish. Slight differences are ok if they are not absolutely opposing each other.

TEAM FIT – 30% Being a good fit with the team AND you (and your leadership style) is very important, and shouldn’t be underestimated. Most employees quit or burnout from interpersonal issues with the leader and/or team

SKILL SET – 40% Depending on what level of position you are hiring for, in general skills can always be learned. Hence skills should only make a part of why you hire the person but never be the sole factor to decide for. The higher the position, the more skills should be available in general.

Think that hiring is a long-term strategy, you are hiring for the long term not for now. This is why value-based hiring and team fit hiring is so so important for sustainable recruiting because you can ultimately teach the skills, but you cannot do anything if they don’t align with your values, or they don’t fit in the team.

Now you have learned the importance of hiring based on Core Values rather than on skills for sustainable recruiting. 

If you have any questions or if you found this blog post helpful, drop a comment below!