Subtle Signs Your Newest Hire Is All Talk and No Action

They interviewed well, they looked and dressed the part, they basically wowed you when you met them … so how did things go so wrong with that recent new hire, whom you thought had “superstar” written all over them?

Don’t beat yourself up. Well, maybe just a little, because the long-term effects of a bad hire can spread like a nasty virus. In one recent study, 93 percent of employees said that working with a poor performer lowered their own productivity. And 87 percent said it made them want to change jobs! Why? Because unless slackers are held accountable, their co-workers are forced to clean up their messes and pick up the slack.

Red Alert!

What new-hire warning signs can you keep in mind for the future? For starters, watch for these tendencies among employees:

Spending more time arguing about how a project should be handled than it would take to do the work.
Blaming others when things go awry.
Overburdening others by delegating tasks that are their own responsibility.
Spending more time involved in conflicts with team members than on accomplishing team goals.
Working on their own pet projects rather than on those that were agreed upon.
Frequently being late or leaving early.

Strategies to Improve Your Hiring Process

In addition to watching for signs of a bad hire, here are some additional steps you can take to improve your recruitment process:

Start with your current poor performers. See if you can turn things around by setting up a cycle of accountability. Assign them a project and set mutually agreed–upon goals. Make it crystal clear that you will hold them accountable at every step. Check in frequently for status reports and updates.
Have an effective employee engagement strategy. Start with a survey that questions people about their organization, their leaders and their individual role in the business. Provide personalized analytics of employees’ engagement levels and how they can improve. Research shows that 94 percent of engagement is driven by what employees themselves do.
Involve more people in hiring. Don’t limit your interviewing team to a prospective employee’s managers. Include potential future peers and direct reports, as well as colleagues from other departments who would be working with them or could lend a helpful perspective. This will go a long way towards determining how well a candidate would fit into your company culture.

Partner With Frontline Source Group!

The best way to steer clear of new-hire warning signs is to avoid them altogether. By partnering with the right staffing agency, you can ensure that you see only the best candidates for every open position. In areas including IT, accounting, finance, CSR, engineering, and oil and gas, let that partner be Frontline Source Group. With offices nationwide and a successful hiring track record spanning nearly two decades, we can ensure all your expectations are met. Contact Frontline Source Group Nashville, TN to learn more. To find the branch closest to you, click here.

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Published on Jun 24, 2019