The difficult task of hiring is made even more arduous when you’re working with
tight budgets; there’s little room for error because of fewer recruiting
initiatives and leaner staffs. You don’t have room for dead weight. But
sometimes, even with good evaluation and hiring efforts, CIOs can find
themselves acknowledging they’ve made a poor IT management hire.In this situation, you have a decision to make—try to fix the situation and live with it, or fire the manager and start the hiring process all over again.
How did we get to this point?
One of the most common ways this situation occurs is when, in the interview, the CIO or VP of IT zooms in on a candidate’s background and technical credentials rather than what he or she will actually want the new manager to do.
Many of us create a list of key skills and previous experiences when hiring staff, but don’t actually list the tasks or accomplishments we want the ideal candidate to undertake once we hire them. It’s a good idea to do so because it helps you compare a candidate’s experience to the job requirements.
Ask yourself some tough questions before making a hire:
- Are you looking for someone with a specific certification? Is that all that’s needed to perform the job?
- Do you evaluate candidates that have actual hands-on experience and see if there’s a good match to the specific job you need done?
Certifications and achievements are a great foundation, but they cannot be the primary hiring factor. Defining actual potential tasks and goals for the candidate, vs. technical certification and previous job titles, is more effective in the hiring process.
What do we do now?
Over a year ago, I was involved in a search for an IT manager with broad experience. We hired a person we thought was a good fit. But just four weeks later, it was evident that all the fluff on the resume and the letters of recommendation were missing a critical element—experience for the role we wanted this new hire to take on. The eventual heated firing created an urgent need for immediate IT support, which we got from a temporary staffing company—an added expense.
The termination process wouldn't have been so stressful if we had had strong job description documentation to follow during the hiring process. Documentation is also a key element for detailing an employee's job performance and is necessary when you have to address adjustments to job requirements, employee reassignment, or the termination action.
So from the start of a new hire—document, document, document. And, at the first sign of trouble—that initial realization that the new manager isn’t working well—move quickly to adjust and improve the situation. The first step is sitting down, one on one, with the new manager and doing the following:
- Reestablish the original goals/tasks for the manager with adjusted timeframes, and work to solve any issues the new hire may be experiencing.
- Get the new manager’s agreement and understanding of these goals with signed documentation.
- Give the manager specific standards to meet, and advise him or her that if improvement isn’t shown within a specific period, the result could be termination.
- Assign deadlines and track job performance, either through weekly meetings or weekly document updates.
- Monitor performance and provide solid written feedback during this probationary time.
- Keep close tabs on the employee’s file if other department managers are involved—take notice of absentee forms, disciplinary slips, and letters/memos of performance issues.
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