Chris Allaire is the Founder and CEO of Averity, a staffing company, where his vision is to build the best company to work for in the United States. And they’re already making huge strides towards accomplishing that goal. Chris digs deep into the way he leads their nationally renowned culture and brand, as well as some of their standout practices you can take into your organization.
Truth You Can Act On
1. Build and Nurture the Organization’s and Individuals’ Belief Systems
We incorporate them on day one. What I do is I spend an hour with them and I talk about the company laws and the company laws and the company language and some of the vocabulary we use. And that’s, you know, this idea the first and foremost, you don’t have to be here. You get to be here, so bring something positive. If you don’t have something positive to say, don’t say anything at all, kind of the golden rule in life. Treat people the way you wanna be treated. Just some simple values like that to remind people that this is what this company really stands for. So when we get people started, that’s how we incorporate them in the culture right off the bat, letting them understand what they’re really getting involved with.
2. Always Celebrate
I celebrate every small victory with them that I possibly can so good, bad or indifferent. I try to remind them that, listen, you’re doing an awesome job. Hey, I just saw this big win. Congratulations. So I’m a huge fan of what we have over here. Something we call big wins, and I like it when everybody contributes to that type of stuff. So what I try to do is make sure that everyone realizes that there’s something to celebrate all the time.
3. Overlooks Come from Assumptions or Miscommunication
I’ve noticed that simple breakdowns happen. Because of lack of in person or real time communication things are misinterpreted because it was a text message or it was an email. A lot of the breakdown that’s out there right now is just based on communication. If you just communicate more effectively or ask questions, just simple questions, like, ‘Hey, how are things going?’, a lot could be avoided.
4. You’re Not Hiring for Their Past, You’re Hiring for Their Future
We have to understand that this isn’t the past. This is the present. I’m in the business of recruiting and helping people hire folks, and they’re so focused on past performance that they forgot you’re not hiring their past performance, you’re hiring for what they believe that they are capable of doing at your company. So we are actually hiring potential. Just because someone did something two years ago and they were amazing at it doesn’t mean, first of all, that’s what they want to do anymore. Second of all, that’s what they’re going to do here, because at the end of the day, the truth be told you don’t really know what happened in the past. You weren’t there. You’ve got to remember that really what you’re going for is when you hire people, you’re hiring what you really believe they are capable of doing. Their past is just how they’ve got the experience and the knowledge that got them to their current state.
Book Recommendation:
- Raving Fans by Ken Blanchard and Sheldon Bowles
Listen to the full episode: Episode Title: 150: People Hire People with Chris Allaire
