Plan carefully before you hire: loyal employees are the best resource any company can have. The human resource department must have good hiring processes in place to ensure that the right applicants are hired

Today's Manager, Oct-Nov, 2009 by Tan Chee Teik

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IT's easy to hire a new hand but it's heartbreaking when you have to terminate an employee's tenure. Many managers do not think carefully before looking for a replacement for the staff who has resigned. Replacement should not be automatic. Ask yourself if you really need someone to handle the staff's duties. If existing staff are under-deployed, then perhaps you should divide the duties among the remaining staff and make do with one less worker. Or you may consider hiring a replacement with other experience who can help you with new customers who require certain expertise.

There has been much debate about the current trend of outsourcing work. It looks good on paper as the company retains a lean headcount and the salary bill remains frugal. The company saves on healthcare and other benefits. If the formula is so wonderful, why not have all staff hired on a temporary basis? Only the boss is on permanent tenure.

Temporary employees come and go, and have little loyalty to the company. They are like mercenaries providing their services to the employer who pay them best. Permanent employees are essential to the operation and success of the business. They represent the particular mix of skills and talent that distinguishes the company from its competitors. There are many skills and processes in a company that can only be learnt through many years of experience. The experienced employee knows that if the job is done in a particular way, there will be defects. This has been learnt through trial and error.

Thus, a permanent workforce is needed to provide continuity and stability in business operations. Although permanent employees cost more because of their seniority in the firm, they provide good service and loyalty. Whenever a company hires a recruit, much time and money has to be invested in training.

Forward-looking companies should have a good mix of permanent and contract staff. The latter can be let off in a business downturn with little need to pay the retrenchment benefits.

If you really need to hire permanent employees, you have to study the employee productivity, work distribution, and overtime claims. Ask yourself if you can find some ways of better utilising existing staff rather than hiring more.

Look at the written performance appraisals on employees in the relevant operations unit for the past two years. Find out who are those who received low ratings in the work produced, who made efficient use of time, and have the ability to get the job done correctly.

Discuss with the supervisor and work teams about ways of increasing productivity. Speak to the low performers, set productivity targets for them for a given period, and monitor their results periodically. Encourage workers to go beyond the productivity targets and provide incentives to motivate them.

Work Distribution

It is a good idea to distribute work fairly among the workers. The advantage is that it breaks the routine of doing the same tasks every working day for years on end.

The manager can write down what are the most important and difficult tasks required for the prospective new position. For each worker, list the tasks that are performed and indicate which tasks could be performed by someone in a lower level position, and which tasks can be eliminated.

Sort the tasks in terms of time taken, importance, and difficulty.

Consider what talent is needed to perform the tasks well. Identify the workers with the talent to do the tasks, and redistribute the tasks to them while taking away some tasks to ensure that they are not overloaded. Monitor the work done over the next four weeks after redistribution. Make adjustments when necessary and if the workers show that they can't cope with the work then it is time to hire a new person to take up some of the tasks to be done.

Pros and Cons of Overtime Work

Instead of hiring a new worker, management may consider existing workers do overtime to complete the backlog of tasks.

The great advantage of using overtime working could be for management to have a more flexible workforce. There is the ability to deal with bottlenecks, busy periods, and the covering of absences and staff shortages. Workers are happy because of increased earnings. Other advantages include the avoidance of disruption to jobs where the workload is more difficult to share.

However, the disadvantages may include the cost of premium overtime rates; inefficiency if employees slow down their pace of work in order to qualify for overtime; and fatigue, which may increase absence levels and lead to unsafe working practices. There have been cases of workers working till 11 pm for six days consecutively and then reporting for work at 8 am the following day. The worker has little time left for his personal life.

To help guard against any excessive overtime, many employers:

* monitor overtime levels to see where it could be reduced

* look out for instances where overtime working becomes regular and unvarying, and

* limit the overtime employees may work over a given period.