Culture Focused Practice

 Hey, this is Dr. Tara Vossenkemper, and you are listening to the Culture Focused Practice podcast. Welcome for the first time, or welcome back. Glad to see you here. We are getting into how your hiring funnel is silently screwing you or maybe loudly screwing you, maybe you know it's really, really messed up and in need some love, some TLC.

This is a little mini series. We've got two episodes that are really specific to hiring, and then I'm going to launch something new called The Owner's Room, which I'm very excited about, so more on that to come.

For today, in particular, related to the hiring gauntlet miniseries. Honestly, hiring just feels like an obstacle course. I mean, it's, of course there are specific things you can do with any, any system to ensure that it's running smoothly. But there are some factors that are outside of your control.

Today we are only focusing on the system, so we're not gonna talk about anything that's outside of our control with regard to hiring, we're gonna focus on the current system and ways it might be setting you up to fail even if you're not aware of it.

Okay, so let's first set the stage with an agenda. Just really, really brief. Item number one, the bad hire myth. Yes, I did say myth, you heard that correctly. Item number two, broken funnels. Item number three, the hidden costs of broken funnels and of hiring related issues. Item number four, for all my EOS lovers out there, it's all about EOS in relation to hiring. And number five, action steps. Easy peasy, really fun, really breezy. We're gonna get through this together.

So before we get into it though, make sure you subscribe to the podcast and binge all the recent episodes. And then also stay up on anything coming out as it comes out, which is really beneficial. And the more that you like or subscribe to the podcast, the more it reaches people who it's relevant for. So. Just a fun little fact for you.

Okay. Agenda item number one. The myth of the bad hire. Most hiring failures are not about the person, they are about the system that got that person in the door and hired.

I always listen to people talk about their frustrations with their people, and I think to myself, well, how did they get there in the first place? How did it happen that this person that you're complaining about landed in your practice? At your group performing or underperforming in a role that should be very, very clear.

It's a system issue. It's not a people issue. Let's, let's bar the exceptions where there are people who really sneak under the radar and who are not very good fits. Absolutely. Probably each of us has had that happen, even if we have good systems in place. I know it's happened to me.

But let's focus instead on the system itself, because a lot of problems are about the system and not about the people.

A second component to the, the myth of bad hires is that a lot of people, and again, I fall and prey to this next part, a lot of people do reactive hiring.

So they feel an urge to hire based on somebody got fired, somebody left, somebody is out on leave. They are, there's something around like, oh shit, we need more people. We need more clinicians at the practice. We need more providers at this establishment. That's a reactive hiring experience, feeling, process, et cetera.

What happens in those cases that we end up skipping parts of the process so we don't pay attention to all the stuff that we have set up and that we know that we need to pay attention to, or we basically lower our standards because we feel so desperate.

Reactive hiring is a terrible place to be in. And again, I'm speaking from experience. It is not a pleasant or fun space to be in.

Proactive hiring. I would say a proactive process for hiring is basically the exact, exact opposite of reactive hiring. So proactive is maybe we're constantly keeping our feelers out there. We're constantly hiring before we feel the need to hire.

I've said before, somewhere recently, the moment that you feel the need to hire, it's too late. It's basically like water. If you're thirsty, you're already dehydrated. That means you have really not been drinking water to the extent that you need to. It's the same with hiring. If you feel a need to hire, it's too late. You should already have been in the process of attempting to hire.

So if we go back to proactive process, a proactive process for hiring, this is really more about intentionality. It's forecasting your growth. Goals. I would say trends also, but goals is important as well. It's about ensuring you have the right systems in place for that people, when they do come in the door, there's a very clean process for them to go through.

And it's about having an established funnel, a hiring funnel. We can talk more about that later. But having a, a, a, again, a not only a process for when they get in the door, how they get onboarded, for example, but a hiring funnel is even, it's broader than that. It's how you're attracting people and how you're all the way from attraction to retaining,

Proactive process is about intentionality with job ads. So it's not like really quickly getting something pumped out because you're thirsty, AKA need to hire. It's that you are very intentional with where you're posting ads, how you're posting ads, the language that you're using. The descriptions are thorough and vetted and in alignment with who you're seeking to attract, as well as with the practice itself. It's multi-layered in terms of intentionality.

Proactive process is also having clear expectations and structure in place. I think this goes straight back to forecasting systems, a funnel, intentional job ads, it's all like pointing to the same thing. It's really just about being clear on what you need, what's expected, having a structure in place to support that clarity and the enactment of the system. Period.

One final piece with a proactive process is that there's comfortability in saying, no. Fuck, I hate saying no, I hate it. And really, whenever people get to the point that they're at an interview process, it is rare that we say no, but we still do. So there has to be a, a comfort around this isn't gonna work. Like I, this is a no for me, this is a no for me dog. You know, there has to be something where we draw a line with regard to bringing somebody on who does not fit.

The last piece with the myth of the bad hire, Again, it's not about hire, it's a bad process. It's a bad system. Of course, this is a huge reason why I love EOS because it's all about getting right people in the right seats.

So right people being, are they culturally aligned? Are they able to do the job? Do they get it? Do they want it? Are they capable of doing it? And right seat being, not only is this the right structure that we need the right seat for the business, but also, is this the right seat for this right person in particular? So we cannot get to that point on purpose if our hiring funnel is busted.

Let's move on. What does broken funnel look like? Man, I love this. Let's talk about what a funnel is. I said this already, but a hiring funnel is really the point of attraction for the candidate all the way through retention of the employee.

So it's what, how do we engage them and get them looking at us to even like attempt to get them to apply and then hire them and then onboard them, but then further still, how do we retain that person? How do we make sure that we have good structures and systems and things in place within the business that they want to stay with us, which is for me about culture, but also it's about opportunity as well.

A broken funnel is gonna look like one. You have no sense for what the funnel even is. It can't, well, technically it's not broken in that place. It's just non-existent. But I would actually argue that it is existent. You just can't language it, and so therefore you can't tweak it. That's okay. We can get there. But a broken funnel is not having any sense for what the funnel even is. It's sort of first and foremost, you know.

Some other things related to a broken funnel is that there's no clarity on the role or the values at the business, at the practice. I do not believe that you can thoroughly vet people unless you have clear values that you're living out, and a way to assess those in terms of how people are living them out at the practice, but then also a assess them during that hiring process. So, no clarity with the role, and no clarity with the values. That's a broken funnel.

Um, another part of a broken funnel. This is actually multifaceted. One is just a poor job ad if you're doing ads at all. It could just also be you're posting a position description somewhere.

So one is a poor job ad or description. Another is inconsistent screening. From there, you might have chaotic interviews, or maybe they're really, really delayed. I, I mean, I don't know who's gonna rate wait around three months for a job to come through. Maybe. Maybe if it's a really high level pristine, like elite level job, it takes that long.

But even then I think, fuck, I mean. Come on. Why would it take so long? Like, let's move. My point is chaotic interviews or interviews that take way too long to transpire, that's a, that's a problem.

And then another piece to broken funnel is, is gonna be rushing decisions. Again, if you have poor job add or a poor position description, if you have inconsistent screening processes, if you have a chaotic or really delayed interviews, and if you're rushing your decision, those are all problematic.

Let's, let's add some nuance to rushing decisions. So what I'll say about this is that rushing a decision and deciding quickly are not the same thing. So if you're rushing a decision, it might be that you don't have good systems in place for the entire hiring process, and then you come to this juncture, this fork in the road where you have to decide about a person and you're sort of scrambling back through notes from the interview or from the phone screen, and you're wondering, wait, what did they say about this? And what did they think about this? And what did the team think of them? If you did any sort of meet and greet and what was my gut read of them? You're sort of asking yourselves all of these things and you just fuck it. I'm gonna make him an offer. We need a person.

That's a rushed and a reactive hiring decision. A decision made quickly is different if you have structure in place.

For example, you have a clear organization for phone screens and questions that you ask on that phone screen. You have a clear feedback process for people who are engaged in your meet and greet, meaning you're getting information from the team about this person and whether or not they recommend them and why or why not, as well as other things, but we're gonna keep it brief for now. You do the interview process, which is also throughout that entire clinical skills portion of the interview, you're taking notes and you're debriefing with your team after.

And then, typically at the end of an interview, coupled with the survey from your team, you should be able to make a decision basically, right then.

As soon as you have that data, you've got everything laid out in front of you and boom, that's your decision. It's that easy. So a quick decision is not the same thing as a rushed decision.

Broken funnel, what this can look like. Last thing here, basically either blatantly ignoring or totally missing red flags. It is just gonna come back to bite you in the ass. I mean, that's really like the long and short of it, it will come back to bite you in the ass.

And you might be wondering, well, I don't know what my red flags are. Think about the worst hiring decisions that you made and try to reflect back on what you missed.

Jot those down and then connect with leadership team and see, have them do the same and see what collectively you come up with. Those are gonna be red flags. It's easy to do and it can save you some headache in the future to try to operationalize what your red flags are, try to detail what your red flags are before you move forward.

Okay? Hidden costs. Let's move on to agenda item number three, shall we? The hidden costs of a shitty hiring funnel.

I feel like these are so obvious. It seems silly to even say them out loud. One, time. Duh. Two team morale. Having a bad hire fucking sucks for everybody, including the people at the practice, including the people. Three. Leadership burnout, the more bad hires you have or the more shitty your hiring funnel is, so all these people are coming through that shouldn't be at the group.

Or you feel really like untethered and you keep not making decisions fast enough 'cause they're not data informed and you're unsure. I mean, all of this, it's just, it's exhausting. It's an exhausting place to be stuck in and it can really sap, your energy reserves, what precious little you have at this, you know the point that you might be at your practice.

So three, it's, it feeds into your own leadership burnout or your leadership team's burnout. And then fourth, and I think this is fucking duh again, it costs money to do this whole thing. I don't know how else to say that. It costs money to go through the interview process.

And let's say fifth, also. It's a waste of the candidate's time. It's a ginormous waste of everybody's time, not just your own, also your team, also the candidate, which could have been avoided if you had a good hiring funnel in place and a way to vet people consistently throughout the process.

Not in a way that's shaming or judgy or hypercritical, but in a way that is respecting the integrity of your practice and the culture that you have built.

So there's that. Okay, let's shift and do our final agenda item, almost final. This is our agenda item number four. This is for my, my EOS lovers. Why EOS loves process, honestly, having a hiring process and EOS for those who don't know. The entrepreneurial operating system. It's an operating system for businesses developed by Gino Wickman.

Having EOS in place allows us to document a very core process at our business. A hiring process, a hiring pipeline, a hiring funnel, whatever the fuck you wanna call it, is a core fundamental component to hr.

And so in EOS, of the six pieces of the EOS pie, one of those is process. For process, you agree on the core processes with your leadership team, of course, and then you use the 20/80 rule.

When you document, you document about 20% of that process to capture about 80% of the moves. This is not an SOP. You're not getting down into the nitty gritty. But if you are using a hiring pipeline funnel process that is a part of EOS, if you can detail out, not detail out to the extent that you're identifying the SOPs, but if you can detail out the core process to the extent that it's required, that 20/80 rule, then you are building out and slash or living out a core process that's part of the larger EOS structure.

So these go very much hand in hand. These are just two peas in a pod. The hiring pipeline is absolutely a part of your core HR process. So this is, again, high level documentation for how it looks, how it takes place, how it's enforced. IE like who owns what, accountability, steps, responsibility, et cetera.

Ooh, that's all. That's all she wrote, folks. Let's talk action steps. Some next step things you all can do. One, I think you should audit your current hiring funnel if you have one. If you don't have one documented, set this aside for a sec.

If you do. Audit it. Look at it from start to finish. Look at the documentation that you have around it and ask yourself, okay, where are most people falling through?

Or where are most people sneaking in? Like, what is not shored up enough that we have had six out of seven people in the past year fall through. Either get hired and be discharged or, you know, turn down the offer or whatever.

So audit your current hiring funnel. If you don't have one, just loosely document the steps. This is the start of developing your hiring funnel, just very loosely document broad, high level steps that people go through to get into your practice. How do you say yes when you're hiring somebody? What does a phone screen look like if you have one?

Is it a one man show or a one woman show or a one person show? Is it a series of questions? Just document. Get something going. Get something on paper.

Another thing you can do, which I love this, we did this recently with a practicum student actually, because we are working on developing a sort of a mentorship, think like a fellowship mentorship program for our practicum and our internship students as they transition into the practice, but then also just to help them develop for when we do offer them a job, which is usually, you know, 98% of the time going to happen.

My point in saying this is that we went to one of our prac students and we said, give us feedback. What did you think about this? How did you feel? What's your takeaway? And she is incredible and she had some very solid feedback about this.

I love good feedback, so I'm all about ensuring that I'm hearing it from people who are actually steeped in the process that I'm trying to adjust.

All of that to say, ask your team what is the most confusing part of our hiring process. If you have had a recent hire, go straight to that person and you have to make sure that they know that they're gonna get metaphorically hugged, or physically if they like hugs, if they give you actual feedback and you can ask them also what's most confusing and what is awesome, what would you say? Keep that forever and what would you say? I didn't know what the fuck was happening right here. So make sure you ask them with the assumption that they will have something critical, I don't like that word, but critical to say.

That's it for the action steps. So again, audit that current hiring funnel or start developing it or ask your team what is the most confusing part of our hiring process.

And there you have it, folks.

I love the hiring pipeline and process. I do think it's hard for the record. I, I say that I love it and I do, but I also recognize that it has its own difficulties and they are unique in flavor to each person and group that is going through them at any given point in time. All of that to say, I've got a bunch of higher and related goodies in the Culture Focused Practice Membership, so my call to you is to join the membership.

That is the easiest way to get access to. Not only some trainings related to hiring, but also some documentation related to hiring processes and pipelines, as well as onboarding related things.

If you do feel like you don't wanna reinvent the wheel, or you're tired of hitting your head against the wall, or you don't know where to start, you just feel really stuck, just join the membership. It's the easiest thing to do. You can find it at www.taravossenkemper.com/culture-focused-practice.

With the membership, you get two lives with me each month, but one is a q and a and one is a training, and the trainings are kind of per request. So whatever it's you would have on your mind, you could just request that I do.

There's a portal full of a variety of resources on demand resources as well, so if you want something specific, you would just ask me and I would. Post in there, what I have, and a private Facebook group, a private community. So that's it.

This has been great. Thank you all for making this awesome and I will catch you on the flippity flip. See ya. Bye.