You may need the HR department, yes, but not for hiring. The biggest mistake most companies make is delegating the hiring decision to HR. Most of the folks in HR think very high of themselves as most informed and intelligent. They are wrong.
In most businesses, HR manager does not just support the hiring process, they make the hiring decision. That approach is very bad for business success.
The final hiring decision should ideally be made by the CEO/managing director regardless of the size of the business.
As CEO, it is your business to have a right team to deliver your strategy. By the time you identify a vacancy, in one way or the other, it is essential to effectively hire someone who will help implement the strategy. Your typical HR manager, may not understand this well.
Unfortunately, many CEOs spend a lot of time in useless meetings instead of participating in the hiring process. By far, you need a hiring committee which recommends the final two candidates to the CEO for final approval. However, the final decision must be supported with data on a standard form capturing all the candidates’ strong and weak points and justification for the committee decision. Leave your opinions out of the hiring process. If you want to hire great people, support your decisions with facts about the candidate not any other thing.
You are probably thinking that I am talking from a ‘small’ company mindset. No. Great companies have great people at each of the critical processes or business functions.
If you are constructing a house, place key/strong pillars on the right corners to strengthen the building’s foundation. Your business will collapse if any of your key business process is occupied by a wrong candidate.
And when you get great people, don’t pay them based on their titles. Pay based on their contribution to your key success factors. That is why great sportsmen get paid highly more than their coaches. Ignore those structures and pay scales. Focus on the value contribution from each member of your team.
Copyright Mustapha B Mugisa. 2014 all Rights Reserved
Reference: How Google Works, Eric Schmidt 2014. [This is a great book I encourage all executives in my private mentorship program to read. It is more than your average MBA degree!]
