Truth 47. New hires can inspire current employees

Everyone gets a little nervous when a new hire must be found to fill a new position, recruited, and then brought onboard. Naturally, as the person’s boss, you want someone with the skills to do the job and the temperament to do it well—and preferably pleasantly. A personality fit with the rest of the team would be great. You’re lucky if you’re able to conduct team interviews, with everyone agreeing on who the first-choice candidates might be.

It doesn’t always work that way. Sometimes you just need to get someone onboard to meet critical needs and get essential work done. Hopefully, your current employees will go the extra mile to fold the newcomer into the group and make the first few days, weeks, and months as easy as possible.

New hires come with their own baggage, though, good and bad. Who you hire and the way you go about selecting that person can make a huge difference in helping your incumbent employees decide whether the golden age of your team is over and it’s time to look for a new job themselves. Or perhaps the new hire is actually an exhilarating breeze about to blow through your workplace. Maybe your current employees are freshly energized by the prospect of this person’s influence and passion.

Who you hire can inspire the people you already have. In addition to considering your candidates’ skill sets, ask yourself these questions:

Perhaps the new hire is actually an exhilarating breeze about to blow through your workplace.

• Does this candidate speak passionately about the industry or profession?

• Can he bring fresh knowledge and perspectives about new markets and new ways of applying new methods and techniques to old problems?

• Does this person seem to like people?

• How does this candidate embody your own vision for your department’s future?

• Does this candidate demonstrate to your people your own personal commitment to bring them only the very best of colleagues to work with?

Employees who work in a highly engaged team setting will welcome new colleagues as a chance for a fresh start with new opportunities for unexpected insights and learning new ways of doing things. Assuming your current team members are already passionate about what they do, they’re going to look for that same quality in their new teammate. And the care and time you take in selecting that new employee (even if it’s done unilaterally rather than via a team selection process) demonstrate that you’re committed to giving them what they need to be successful on the job—and that includes quality coworkers.

However, you might be tempted to hire in a panic, especially in a labor-shortage situation. Where your team may be made up of people you once hired for attitude and trained for skill later, it’s possible that in your urgency, you’ll now hire for skill and hope that your team eventually helps the new hire correct the attitude problem. That’s a false economy, and you’re doing your entire team a disservice—including your new hire, who will know as well as anyone (and probably sooner than most) that it’s a poor fit.

Keep your standards high, even if it means that you must run understaffed for a little while longer.

When you started your journey to creating a high-engagement culture of strong, impassioned coworkers, you set the bar very high for everyone—for your current employees, for yourself, and for everyone you bring onboard in the future. Keep your standards high, even if it means that you must run understaffed for a little while longer.

Your people will willingly take up the added burden of the vacant position’s responsibility, especially if the delay demonstrates that you care enough to hire only the very best.