Thinking about the health-care debate has caused me to reflect on our own approach to our team has given me a chance to consider some ways in which we add value to our own venture, create a stronger company, and (hopefully) achieve a real competitive advantage.
When Ross and I started crowdSPRING, we were determined to hire the best people we could find, treat them fairly, allow them to grow into their jobs, and share with them the responsibility for building our community and our business. Among our priorities was to provide a package of benefits which would communicate not just our commitment to the folks we hired, but also the values we held. The health care benefits we provide to our workers and their families are just one way in which we try to make the team feel valued and secure.
It shouldn’t stop at health care benefits; all aspects of human resource management should be considered and thoughtful policies established. Business owners should carefully apply several “levers” which, when operated effectively, can have a huge impact on a company’s vitality and sustainability. Among the strategies to consider to build a strong team are: recruiting, development, reward, empowerment, job/team design, and modeling. These levers, when implemented with clarity, transparency, and integrity, can give a business a sustained advantage in a competitive landscape and create an environment of trust, learning, and growth. We believe that it is our responsibility to create such an environment, and we also believe that, by doing so, businesses can directly benefit.
RECRUITING: Take the time to develop a detailed job description, distribute it through the correct networks, and post it in the appropriate forums. How you talk about your company and the job you’re trying to fill, will go a long way to attract suitable applicants, and will also help you to screen those to uncover the best fit and the most promising candidates. In writing these descriptions, we try very hard to use language and a voice which reflects our own values and the “flavor” of our company and this also helps to attract strong applicants.
EMPLOYEE DEVELOPMENT: We are life-long learners and committed to our own ongoing educations in business and in life, and we hire for this quality. But it’s not enough to just employ people who share this value. When we hire someone, we make a commitment that we will help them to develop new skills; allow them to take on new responsibility; and empower them to share their own knowledge to help other team members. We encourage them to pursue other avenues of creativity away from their jobs, and to communicate to us ways in which they can grow for their own benefit and the benefit of our venture.
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